Everything else aside, I find it very unusual from an amateur journalist's perspective that his intuition led him to doubt the veracity of this story, yet, his biggest clue he went on was supplied by the writer themselves, who he was doubting. Seems like a good way to waste a lot of time or come to a completely wrong conclusion.
> yet, his biggest clue he went on was supplied by the writer themselves, who he was doubting
I mean arguably it was such a weird detail that one would not have made it up (and, also, if, as you'd kind of expect, there were no branches at all with upstairs tellers, that would obviously invalidate the whole thing).
