Finders weepers

3:10pm Thursday 7th February 2008

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PARK home site owner Pru Harriman is beginning to wonder if honesty really does pay after finding £750 in a cash point machine.

As soon as she found the money Mrs Harriman handed it straight in at Lloyds TSB Bank in Pewsey.

A week later she had received no thanks from the bank or the customer who had absentmindedly left the wad of £20 and £10 notes in the ATM.

Mrs Harriman, 57, who with her son Robin runs the Sunnyside Lane mobile home park at Oare, is a customer at the Pewsey branch of Lloyds TSB.

On Monday last week she visited the bank and when she went to use its hole in the wall she saw a bundle of brand new notes in the dispenser.

She counted £700 in £20 notes and £50 in £10 notes and took them straight inside the bank and handed the money to a cashier.

As the days went by she became concerned because she had no calls or messages from the bank and she had not been given a receipt for the money.

Towards the end of the week, having heard nothing from the bank, Mrs Harriman phoned the branch head office at Devizes.

"I told them that I should have been given a receipt because if the money was not claimed within a certain number of weeks it should be mine," said Mrs Harriman.

"They told me that the money had already been claimed.

"It would have been nice to have had a thank you, after all it was rather a lot of money to overlook.

"If I wasn't so honest I could have walked off with it and gone on holiday, a very good holiday."

A spokeswoman for Lloyds TSB apologised for a delay in getting proper thanks to Mrs Harriman and explained that the Pewsey branch manager only returned from holiday on Monday this week. She said: "There has been a delay in getting proper thanks to Mrs Harriman but they are very grateful to her.

"They are sending a letter and a small token of thanks to Mrs Harriman and they will be passing on her details to the person who left the cash in the machine."

She received a bouquet of flowers on Tuesday.