Hypothetical query: If somebody randomly despatched you a 13-cent verify, would you money it? Earlier than you reply, think about you are dwelling in a time earlier than cell deposits existed. No tapping your Chase app from the sofa. No snapping a photograph and forgetting about it. We’re speaking in regards to the old style routine: discovering your keys, driving to a financial institution, trying to find parking, standing in line, filling out a deposit slip… all for the privilege of including just a little greater than a dime to your web value.
Wouldn’t it even be definitely worth the fuel you’d burn getting there? The time? The parking meter? In practically each situation, you’d lose cash within the course of. Rational individuals would snicker, toss the verify in a drawer, or assume it was a mistake not value fixing.
Now think about this similar situation, besides you are not simply an on a regular basis particular person, you are a multi-millionaire movie star. Now think about you are a billionaire enterprise tycoon sitting atop non-public jets, superyachts, and sprawling actual property portfolios. Absolutely, somebody with that type of cash would not hassle cashing a verify value pennies… proper? Consider it or not, a pair a long time in the past, Spy Journal performed a hilarious real-world experiment to seek out out the reply to this query.
First Take a look at: $1.11
Again within the early Nineteen Nineties, Spy journal devised a devilishly easy experiment. They created a really official-sounding however fully pretend firm referred to as the Nationwide Refund Clearinghouse and mailed out small refund checks to 58 of America’s best-known millionaires and billionaires. The accompanying letter claimed they have been owed a refund resulting from a “laptop error.” That was it. No catch. No rip-off. Only a tiny little bit of free cash — if the recipient might be bothered to money it.
The primary wave of checks was value $1.11. Not a fortune, however not pocket lint both. And the outcomes have been genuinely shocking: inside two months, 26 out of 58 rich recipient, together with Donald Trump, Michael Douglas, Faye Dunaway, Cher, and Kurt Vonnegut, really cashed their $1.11 checks. The opposite 32 ignored them, maybe assuming such a trivial refund was beneath their monetary dignity.
However Spy wasn’t achieved. They wished to seek out out precisely the place the road was: The purpose at which a verify turns into too small for the ultra-rich to care.
How Excessive Will They Go? Spy Raises The Stakes
To check the higher boundary of effort and incentive, Spy despatched the 32 holdouts from the primary experiment a second verify value $2.00. Six extra celebrities caved. Richard Gere and Candice Bergen joined the experiment, proving that even a modest improve can tempt the rich.
Nonetheless unhappy, Spy escalated a 3rd time, mailing $3.47 checks to the remaining holdouts. Two extra celebrities lastly deposited their refunds. At this level, Spy had discovered how excessive the verify wanted to be to lure sure millionaires and billionaires into motion. Now they wished to check how low individuals would go.
How LOW Will They Go?
Spy returned to the 26 individuals who cashed the unique $1.11 verify and despatched them new checks value 64 cents. Solely 13 of these celebrities deposited the tiny refund. Spy saved the perfect twist for final. These 13 persistent penny collectors have been mailed one remaining refund verify value simply 13 cents.
And in the long run, solely two individuals cashed the ultimate 13-cent verify:
Two billionaires — one a New York actual property showman, the opposite a Saudi arms-trading tycoon — each prepared to take the time to deposit a verify value lower than the value of a gumball.
So what does all of this show? On the floor, it is only a foolish stunt — a mischievous journal sending pocket-change checks to wealthy individuals to see who takes the bait. However buried contained in the joke is a surprisingly revealing fact. With regards to cash, even the ultra-wealthy aren’t all the time as completely different from the remainder of us as you may suppose. Some ignore small windfalls with no second thought. Others money all the things, irrespective of how trivial, as a result of cash is cash.
The Largest Test Ever Written?
Okay, that was the story of a enjoyable experiment involving teeny tiny checks. Need to know the real-life story of the LARGEST verify ever written in historical past? Click on that hyperlink within the earlier sentence for the total insane story. And btw, I am not speaking actually in regards to the “largest” verify as in its bodily dimension, however the largest greenback quantity that was ever printed on a verify and deposited right into a financial institution in actual life to safe a transaction. Trace: it concerned the 2008 monetary disaster, and here is what the precise verify seemed like:
