• A window was discovered broken at 4:17 p.m. March 22 and the workshop at the South Elgin Trolley Museum, 365 LaFox Road, appeared to have been searched through, police said. Although someone went through the cabinets and drawers, museum officials could not determine whether anything was stolen.

Clipped from Daily Herald

Sloan

You mentioned that the thieves went through cabinets and drawers.

Make sure that no check books or purchasing orders are missing. Not that they would be stored in a shop but still.

I was involved with a political group that had a similar brake in. At first, it seemed like the thieves took nothing. Then the back account was zeroed. They had taken the checkbook that was located in the bottom of the box and therefore it wasn't noticed. Had they taken any other, we would have noticed a gap in checks.

They spent the money on auto parts. The idiots at the auto store accepted the check without ID.

So make sure that if you did store any checks or purchasing order that you account for every one.

Charles

General rule should be that checks or other monetary instruments should be secured. Our organization does not leave them on site-only two persons have authority to issue checks-the Railway President and Railway Treasurer and all checks are kept in the possession of those two officers. Corporate checks are pretty easy to cash as they generally do not require additional verification. All the merchant is interested in is seeing that they get their money (loss prevention). It would be practically impossible to conduct business if anyone presenting a corporate check for payment had to present identification-what are they going to do, submit a membership list for each vendor to refer to?

We have open accounts at various supply vendors who bill us for goods purchased. Each of them has an approved purchaser list that will indicate who authorized specific purchases. Anyone who does not take advantage of these alternative methods of authorizing transactions (when possible) is creating an additional loss risk.