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November 21, 2009
Man loses €23,000 in cash during convertible test drive
Published: 14 May 09 11:55 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20090514-19273.html
A man test driving a new Audi convertible on Wednesday lost €23,000 – with which he’d planned to purchase the vehicle – because it blew away when he simply put it on the backseat.
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The man called police from the German state of Lower Saxony, who closed the A2 in both directions for 30 minutes between Garbsen and Hannover-Herrenhausen to help him search for the airborne cash.
He was only able to find €20,000 of the initial sum, most of which was located near the guard rail, police said.
It remains unclear whether he will still buy a new car.
The Local (news@thelocal.de)
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Your comments about this article:
He ALWAYS carries cash with him. Large amounts at that.
He has purchased all of his electronics, furniture, and cars with cash.
He only uses his bank card if absolutely necessary.
So, perhaps it IS normal to pay with cash for everything in Germany.
(Isn't there a topic on this somewhere..?)
It's definitely not unusual here to at least pay the deposit in cash or to be paid for a car sale in cash.
I also make sure I am well guarded.
I don't care if it IS normal to pay cash for the car (BTW I think they have Cashier's checks here = easy to fold up and put in your pocket) any moron has watched enough gangster movies to know you show up with black briefcase of perfectly stacked money.
(BTW #2 - if I HAD to pay with actual cash, I would TOTALLY do the transactions in 5's just to make those bastards have to count it all)
P.S. how's that convertable gonna be in the wintertime! brrrr
Cash is essentially untraceable - there are many people who prefer to do their business in cash for the obvious reason that it makes it easy to not report income. Obviously they run the risk of getting caught, but for many, this risk is considered small compared to the benefit.
To many people - and I think you might be surprised how many - ?20K is just not that much money. Having worked in the Investment Banking field for many years - although as a programmer, not a suit - I have seen this kind of money blown on an expensive lunch. Think about what a professional footballer earns (Ribery is potentially earning that much for playing a single game of football if his transfer to Man. Utd. goes through). OK, so Ribery is exceptional, but there are plenty of extremely highly paid footballers out there. Consider other high paid entertainers, and there's lots of them, for whom 20K is an appearance fee. 1% of the population of Germany is earning enough so that 20K is nothing to be too concerned about. 1% of 50 million is a lot of people.
Obviously a knob for wanting a convertible in the 1st place.
Obviously a knob for wanting a convertible in the 1st place.
As to paying cash, in Italy and Spain it's not uncommon to buy homes in cash - you pop to the bank and pick up the reddies (either from a mortgage or your account) and then pop down to the notary's with the cash. I've seen people pitch up with 300 large in notes before now. You can, of course, arrange a police escort if you're a poof. Real men just get their mates and a few shotguns and hope to re-enact the ambush scene from 'Ronin'.
Also could all those people who openly admit carrying large sums of money around in their pocket kindly give me a brief discription of their appreance, location and times they can be found alone in an relativly unlit area please.. thanks..
Watch the SpermOmeter go crazy!!!
Germany's carefully keeping dumps crowd