In order to get football season tickets, Salt Lake City, Utah residents Ben and Jackee Belnap had been accumulating money for a long time.
And they found something quite unnerving when they went to acquire the cash to complete the transaction. All of their money, which was reportedly worth $1,060, had been destroyed, everything of it. Who would actually DO such a thing?
Leo, their 2-year-old son, frequently assists Ben and Jackee in shredding junk mail. It appears that this family views destroying such items as a time for family bonding. Well, the savings were kept in the file cabinet in an envelope.
After Ben took it out, he placed it on the kitchen counter unsupervised for a brief period of time before Leo discovered it. Of course, to his immature eyes, that was junk mail, so he ran it through the shredder.
Ben contacted the Mutilated Currency Division of the U.S. Treasury Department the next day. And a representative there instructed him to submit the shred currency to them in Ziplock bags, where they would put it back together and pay him his money.
Ben was ecstatic that they could do it. The only issue is that processing might take up to two years. It appears that Ben and Jackee will spend some time watching sports on television.