The bank that never gets robbed twice

If you live in Palmetto Bay, you have been robbed, know someone who has been robbed, or have at least parked near a robbery. It is that kind of city. The heist crews tip the valet. The getaway drivers stop at yellows. The bank you use, if you use a bank at all, has a floor plan on its website.

We are Bayside Savings. We have been in Palmetto Bay since 1974. In that time, every one of our eleven branches has been robbed exactly once. Not twice. Never twice. That is not luck. That is the policy.

The policy

Here is how it works. When a branch is robbed, we do not add a guard. Guards get tipped. We do not add a camera. Cameras get pointed at the benches. Instead, we move the vault.

Every Bayside branch has a vault on wheels. Every Tuesday morning, before the branch opens, the vault is moved to a new position in the building, chosen by a method we do not describe in advertorials. On Tuesday, the vault is wherever it is. By Wednesday, nobody outside the branch knows where that is, including, by design, our own head office.

Last week a crew walked into our Harbor Road branch with a plan, a bag and, we learned later, a copy of a competitor's floor plan. They stood in the lobby for eleven minutes. They opened the broom cupboard, the staff kitchen and a door that leads to a smaller door. Then they left, and gave us three stars, and wrote "a lot of waiting."

"We read the review. We framed the review. 'Eventually' appears four times. That is the Bayside promise: eventually, but not today."

— Teodora Lindqvist, branch manager, Harbor Road

What this means for your money

A vault that moves is a vault that stays. Deposits at Bayside Savings are covered by the Palmetto Bay Deposit Guarantee, as they are at every bank in the city, but ours have the additional cover of not being where anyone is looking. We call this Second-Chance Savings, because every branch has already used its one robbery, and the second chance is yours.

Until December 31, Second-Chance Savings pays 4.1% on balances over $500. There is no minimum term and no vault door required, because, honestly, the door is the part people find.

Four things to know before you open an account

• You can bank at any branch. Your money is in all of them and none of them, in a way our head of compliance is happy to explain over the phone.
• Tuesdays are slower. The lobby is in use. We ask customers to come after ten, or to come at nine and watch, which many do.
• We do not publish floor plans. Our website shows the outside of each branch and a photo of the staff, who are lovely, and who will not tell you where the vault is, because they were told on Tuesday and it is now Thursday.
• The branch manager has been held up once. Every Bayside branch manager has. It is in the job description, under "experience."

Why we are telling you this now

Because a bank down the road got five stars this week, and we think you should ask why. A five-star review from a robbery is a review of the robbery. A three-star review is a review of the bank. We will take the three.

We are not the biggest bank in Palmetto Bay, and we are not the one with the blimp. We are the one where the crew eventually leaves. If that sounds like the kind of place you want to keep your money, come in on a Wednesday, ask for Teodora, and do not ask where the vault is. She does not know either. That is the point.

Open a Second-Chance Savings account at any Bayside branch, or online, where there is no vault at all, which we consider our most secure location.

This article was paid for and produced by Bayside Savings. The Wazel News newsroom was not involved in its creation. How sponsored content works at Wazel