Oh really?

This is almost as shocking as Dale and Shane getting killed off in the next two episodes of "the Walking Dead".

When he contacted Gwinnett County police, they told him to contact Lawrenceville police, since it was their jurisdiction.

"Because police work is hard, man. Like, those Lawrenceville police should definitely handle this one. Oh sure, we could CALL the Lawrenceville police, but that would mean using the phone, and, like, I've got a really sticky donut in this hand and a cup of coffee in the other hand, so... (shrugs apologetically)

It's true. I've been a millionaire ever since I moved to Nigeria!

carrion_luggage: When he contacted Gwinnett County police, they told him to contact Lawrenceville police, since it was their jurisdiction.

"Because police work is hard, man. Like, those Lawrenceville police should definitely handle this one. Oh sure, we could CALL the Lawrenceville police, but that would mean using the phone, and, like, I've got a really sticky donut in this hand and a cup of coffee in the other hand, so... (shrugs apologetically)

Or maybe, just maybe, the Gwinnett police more important things to do, such as investigating rapists, drug dealers, and pedophiles. Sorry the police do not also function as your farking secretary.

uh...did he contact the media before the police? it sounds like he hasn't given the evidence over to the proper folks yet. Way to go dummy...you think people pulling scams dont' read the interwebs or what?

RumsfeldsReplacement: carrion_luggage: When he contacted Gwinnett County police, they told him to contact Lawrenceville police, since it was their jurisdiction.

"Because police work is hard, man. Like, those Lawrenceville police should definitely handle this one. Oh sure, we could CALL the Lawrenceville police, but that would mean using the phone, and, like, I've got a really sticky donut in this hand and a cup of coffee in the other hand, so... (shrugs apologetically)

Or maybe, just maybe, the Gwinnett police more important things to do, such as investigating rapists, drug dealers, and pedophiles. Sorry the police do not also function as your farking secretary.

Yes, clearly their investigative acumen is second to none:

In Feb. 2001, Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, accused terrorists in the 9/11 attacks, stayed in Norcross, Georgia, and trained at an airport in Lawrenceville, Georgia, used by the Gwinnett County Sheriffs Department.

"Hey Bubba, how come them A-rabs only care about flyin' and steerin', not landin' them planes?"
"Heck Luke, I don't know. You gonna eat that bear claw?"

Old scam is old. You're stupid for falling for that one.

What, this is a scam? OMG, got to call the bank, BRB.

This scam works a lot more than it should. You have to be a special kind of stupid to fall for it.

How does a check clear, then become "no good"?

/honest question
//not familiar with US banking practices... in this country you get a check deposited, it's "clearing" for two days, after which it will either "clear" and it's money in your account, or "not clear" and it vanishes.

sotua: How does a check clear, then become "no good"?

/honest question
//not familiar with US banking practices... in this country you get a check deposited, it's "clearing" for two days, after which it will either "clear" and it's money in your account, or "not clear" and it vanishes.

Read this:

Link

Basically, banks can get fooled about bad checks, but guess what? You get screwed, not them. That's why you have to be extra-careful in situations like this, and anyone who overpays and wants you to send them the extra cash is automatically a scammer.

sotua: How does a check clear, then become "no good"?

/honest question
//not familiar with US banking practices... in this country you get a check deposited, it's "clearing" for two days, after which it will either "clear" and it's money in your account, or "not clear" and it vanishes.

It's like the ol' Frank Abignale (forgot how to spell his name) routine...the routing/acct/check numbers appear good at first glance, by the time they're routed to the proper bank they're likely to be deemed fraudulent. or so I'd assume.

Of course I love free money.

These cons sound like decent folks. They atleast have a refund program.

ihatedumbpeople: sotua: How does a check clear, then become "no good"?

/honest question
//not familiar with US banking practices... in this country you get a check deposited, it's "clearing" for two days, after which it will either "clear" and it's money in your account, or "not clear" and it vanishes.

It's like the ol' Frank Abignale (forgot how to spell his name) routine...the routing/acct/check numbers appear good at first glance, by the time they're routed to the proper bank they're likely to be deemed fraudulent. or so I'd assume.

Which today takes all of 10 seconds to verify.

sotua: How does a check clear, then become "no good"?

/honest question
//not familiar with US banking practices... in this country you get a check deposited, it's "clearing" for two days, after which it will either "clear" and it's money in your account, or "not clear" and it vanishes.

It is a customer service issue. Banks will usually release money from personal checks quicker then they actually cleared. This keeps the customer happy and most fraudulent checks are caught in the short initial waiting period. If the check is not caught as fraudulent before the funds are released, but later is caught then they can, and do, reverse the deposit.

Best bet for any personal check, particularly if you are selling over the internet, is to hold those funds for four to six weeks.

I advertised on Craigslist for a roommate last June. I got one response from a (supposed) South Korean girl, two English girls, and a couple more from the US. It didnt take me long to figure out they were full of shiat. I did string a couple of them along before getting tired of it and telling them fark off. I did manage to get a very hot 26 year old former Hooters girl as a roommate. Not that I get any but sure makes things nice around the house.

I had people try this stuff with me when I was renting out my spare room. they would want to send me a check for $5000. I would keep $2000 as a deposit and first few months rent. Then I would send them a check for $3000. Oh and sometimes they would be hot models doing this. Sounds legit.

My roomate was doing a dog sitting service and some "lady" tried to do this with her as well.

seatown75: ihatedumbpeople: sotua: How does a check clear, then become "no good"?

/honest question
//not familiar with US banking practices... in this country you get a check deposited, it's "clearing" for two days, after which it will either "clear" and it's money in your account, or "not clear" and it vanishes.

It's like the ol' Frank Abignale (forgot how to spell his name) routine...the routing/acct/check numbers appear good at first glance, by the time they're routed to the proper bank they're likely to be deemed fraudulent. or so I'd assume.

Which today takes all of 10 seconds to verify.

That's what makes it such a head-scratcher. Then again, I'm conditioned to not think I have the money until the check has cleared - and your bank won't clear it until they've talked to the other bank.

I don't understand why they wouldn't wait to publish this story after they arrest the criminals. Now I'm pretty sure they know the gig is up and will take off before the cops finally get around to going after them.

Wow talk about morons. About half of what I saw back when I was putting rental listings on craigslist was fraud. They were easy to pick out though. "Oh I'm in such a such state for work, I'll be in town next month can I send the rent now?". Yeah sounds good legit me.

CSB time. Not all that far back I had a bank print incorrect acct #'s accidentally on some counter checks. I was hanging those all over the place accidentally (really who checks the numbers at the bottom on checks printed by the bank?). Surprisingly It took weeks before it came back to the people, I don't know if the account was good or not. The bank was good about it and credited me money to give to people covering the fees plus some extra (so I didn't sue them for my time I guess). It was all good with the people who I owed as I then gave them cash, plus fees, plus some for the trouble. BOA likely would have claimed it was my fault and called the cops saying they caught a check fraud who may be a terriarst.

Monual: sotua: How does a check clear, then become "no good"?

/honest question
//not familiar with US banking practices... in this country you get a check deposited, it's "clearing" for two days, after which it will either "clear" and it's money in your account, or "not clear" and it vanishes.

Read this:

Link

Basically, banks can get fooled about bad checks, but guess what? You get screwed, not them. That's why you have to be extra-careful in situations like this, and anyone who overpays and wants you to send them the extra cash is automatically a scammer.

I still don't get how this is legal. Sorry, Mr Bank man, YOU cleared the check, YOU knew the risk, YOU put the money in my account. Sorry, my transaction is done with you. Sorry YOU got scammed by clearing a bad check. That sucks, I feel really bad for YOU. But I will be taking MY money now.

At the very least, if banks want to protect themselves. Give a notice after 2-3 days that the check has cleared stage 1. After, 30-45 days it clears stage 2 and the money is non returnable.

Stage 1: money appears in the account. Account holder accepts risk if the check is later deemed fraudulent.

Stage 2: Check has cleared partnered bank and the money is deemed to be the account holders. Bank assumes any further risk of fraudulent claims (which should be none, as they have received payment from the check issuers bank)

If it takes 6 months for some weird tazmanian check to clear stage 2. Fine, just as long as the account holder knows that and accepts the risk. None of this bullshiat "sure you can have the money, the check has cleared, oh wait did we say cleared? Oh we have a different definition of what that means. Ours basically means fark you, we're taking back our money now. Oh, if you've already withdrawn it we'll make you an accessory to fraud. Because we're banks, we do whatever the fark we want"

Monual: sotua: How does a check clear, then become "no good"?

/honest question
//not familiar with US banking practices... in this country you get a check deposited, it's "clearing" for two days, after which it will either "clear" and it's money in your account, or "not clear" and it vanishes.

Read this:

Link

Basically, banks can get fooled about bad checks, but guess what? You get screwed, not them. That's why you have to be extra-careful in situations like this, and anyone who overpays and wants you to send them the extra cash is automatically a scammer.

Yeah, we all know that it's stupid to fall for this scam, but there is absolutely NO reason that the scam should even be possible in the 21st century. The banks really need to get their act together on this. Once the check is in the system, it takes less than a second to query the other bank and ensure that funds are available. Maybe give it a couple of days to ensure that the account holder doesn't claim that the check was a forgery. DONE. If for some elaborate reason someone still manages to pass a fake check, then it seems that the banks should eat the cost for failing to provide enough security features to ensure safe financial transactions.

I don't understand how I can use my credit card account to instantly buy goods anywhere around the world, see the charges show up quickly in a simple, human-readable format online, pay them electronically whenever I want, and have a transparent and secure way to dispute fraudulent charges (which the CC company will then remove at their own expense), and yet standard checking accounts seem to still be stuck in the 19th century.

I guess it's fitting that Wells Fargo still uses a stagecoach as its logo. They probably still use it to transfer checks across the country.

sotua: How does a check clear, then become "no good"?

/honest question
//not familiar with US banking practices... in this country you get a check deposited, it's "clearing" for two days, after which it will either "clear" and it's money in your account, or "not clear" and it vanishes.

One of the variants of this is that the check clears because it's written against a perfectly good account, often that of a business, and the business doesn't question it until they are doing their books at the end of the month or they receive the canceled check and go "WTF? we didn't issue this", at which point the check goes from "cleared" to "not really cleared after all".

And the reason the person depositing the check is on the hook is because they are the last person who definitely had the money. Obviously, you can't make the company whose account the bad check is written on pay. And if you make the bank responsible for "clearing" the check, you can bet that this scam would instantly evolve into one in which the person depositing the check is a confederate of the scammers and who claims to be an innocent victim who no longer has the money.


A lot of this is possible because ordinary consumers don't want to wait a week or more before being able to draw against a deposited check, and they shouldn't have to because the overwhelming majority of checks are perfectly good.

Sin_City_Superhero: Intoxoman: I did manage to get a very hot 26 year old former Hooters girl as a roommate

You know the drill....

Pics or it didn't happen.

No pics for you sorry. She puts up with my 48 year old self so I'll refrain from putting her face on Fark.

ChuDogg: At the very least, if banks want to protect themselves. Give a notice after 2-3 days that the check has cleared stage 1. After, 30-45 days it clears stage 2 and the money is non returnable.

Um, that is in fact more or less the current system. I'm sorry that you (and many other people) don't understand it, but it is.

And no, the bank didn't accept the risk when it cleared the check through stage 1. A check is a promise to pay by the issuer of the check. The bank is merely an intermediary, passing it along for you, and doing you a favor by advancing you the money before the issuer has paid. The bank has no obligation to honor the check -- it didn't issue it. And it's not as if the bank is buying the check off of you for its face value.

And frankly, why should the bank be at risk? It has no way of knowing where you got the check, you are the one who has to evaluate whether the payer is good for it before spending their promise of money.

I am pretty sure that if the system worked the other way around, this thread would be equally full of people complaining that the banks don't clear their checks for two weeks and saying that dumbasses who deposit bad checks should be the ones held responsible, not the banks...

Goimir: Do you know how long it takes a check to clear? It's not measured in days, or hours, or minutes. It's measured in seconds. It goes through the network and it's done.

Sure, it can take seconds to verify that the funds are available in the account that the check is written on.

It takes a lot longer than that to verify that the check was written by somebody authorized to write checks on that account, especially when the targeted account is a business.

One favorite version of this scam goes something like "oh, I have this $5000 check from Bob's Checking in Vancouver, WA from an insurance claim. Can you deposit it and send me the $2000 difference?". It's going to take more than a few seconds for the bank to learn that Bob's never issued that check.

Or did you think that the only check fraud is writing checks on non-existent accounts or accounts with insufficient funds?

So basically, take your pick: do you want to wait weeks for your good checks to clear, or do you want your money right away and be willing to accept the risk when bad checks come back? Because you can't have both.

I work with a lot of college kids at my business. This one very attractive girl had graduated and put her apt stuff up for sale on Craigslist. She was bragging in the breakroom how this middle aged guy came over to buy her bed for $75. She started to strip the sheets off of it and he offered her $25 more for the sheets. She was laughing because they were cheap sheets from Wal-Mart or something.

All of the guys looked at each other and we all burst out laughing at the same time.

Finally one of the younger guys said "You know, that dude is rolling around in your bed with those sheets wrapped around his face spanking it like a monkey watching the Banana Channel, don't you."

She said "Hey, if that what gets him off, who cares. I just made $100."

Ah Craigslist...

And now, for a completely unrelated picture:

czetie: sotua: How does a check clear, then become "no good"?

/honest question
//not familiar with US banking practices... in this country you get a check deposited, it's "clearing" for two days, after which it will either "clear" and it's money in your account, or "not clear" and it vanishes.

One of the variants of this is that the check clears because it's written against a perfectly good account, often that of a business, and the business doesn't question it until they are doing their books at the end of the month or they receive the canceled check and go "WTF? we didn't issue this", at which point the check goes from "cleared" to "not really cleared after all".

And the reason the person depositing the check is on the hook is because they are the last person who definitely had the money. Obviously, you can't make the company whose account the bad check is written on pay.

Why not? If I get a check stolen, I fail to report it stolen, and somebody cashes it, my bank will be more than happy to let me holding the bag. (If I did report the check stolen and they cash it anyway, then the bank is on the hook)

/there is in fact a law on HOW to report stolen checks, which includes taking an ad in the paper, too, but again, that's local, not US.

sotua: Why not? If I get a check stolen, I fail to report it stolen, and somebody cashes it, my bank will be more than happy to let me holding the bag. (If I did report the check stolen and they cash it anyway, then the bank is on the hook)

/there is in fact a law on HOW to report stolen checks, which includes taking an ad in the paper, too, but again, that's local, not US.

RTA: the scam did not involve stolen checks, but completely fake printed up checks. They were going to teach the guy how to print his own checks. As far as the bank could tell he might have printed it himself.

RumsfeldsReplacement: secr

Why would somebodies personal secretary be responsible for making sure people in a given city or county are not robbed?

I love how FTA gives such explicit instructions on the logistics of how to perpetrate this fraud. With what you read in the article, it would be easy for anybody to use VersaGold to print fake checks and run the same scam!

Our former secretary fell for this EXACT scam (down to the Versa Gold software) a few years ago, so I'm getting a kick...

Ctrl-Alt-Del: ChuDogg: I still don't get how this is legal. Sorry, Mr Bank man, YOU cleared the check, YOU knew the risk, YOU put the money in my account. Sorry, my transaction is done with you. Sorry YOU got scammed by clearing a bad check. That sucks, I feel really bad for YOU. But I will be taking MY money now.

That's not the way it works. When you present a check to your bank (the depositor bank) to be cashed or deposited in your account, you are, just by the act of presentment, making several very important guarantees - that the check you are presenting is authentic and unaltered, that the signature on it is valid, that the person on whose account it is drawn authorized its issuance, and that you have the authority to cash or deposit it.

If the check is subsequently dishonored, the person who made the warranty (i.e., you) is on the hook for the full amount. This is true up until the point that depositor bank (the bank you cashed it at) receives final settlement from the payor bank (the bank it was drawn on) - a process which can take days or even weeks, depending on how they process their checks.

As a service to their customers, many banks offer to pay the full amount before that actually happens. But if the check is subsequently dishonored after the nominal "clearing" time and that final settlement, you have to give all that money back.

It's worked that way for 50 or 60 years at least.

And in the digital era, we have far more advanced ways to guard against fraud and information crimes...which is what check fraud amounts to.

Don't defend it, it's indefensible. The consumer shouldn't be the person in charge of verifying the authenticity of a check, and the bank's verification should be fast and final.

Again, how is this any different from credit card fraud, EXCEPT that CC companies actually stand behind their customers?

Kyro: carrion_luggage: "Hey Bubba, how come them A-rabs only care about flyin' and steerin', not landin' them planes?"
"Heck Luke, I don't know. You gonna eat that bear claw?"

Hahaha! I get it, because they're in Georgia and are therefore a bunch of hillbillies, right?

And Deliverance! Purty mouths and lynchin's!

I'M NOT SAYING GEORGIA IS FULL OF HILLBILLIES



BUT IT'S FULL OF HILLBILLIES

RumsfeldsReplacement: carrion_luggage: When he contacted Gwinnett County police, they told him to contact Lawrenceville police, since it was their jurisdiction.

"Because police work is hard, man. Like, those Lawrenceville police should definitely handle this one. Oh sure, we could CALL the Lawrenceville police, but that would mean using the phone, and, like, I've got a really sticky donut in this hand and a cup of coffee in the other hand, so... (shrugs apologetically)

Or maybe, just maybe, the Gwinnett police more important things to do, such as investigating rapists, drug dealers, and pedophiles. Sorry the police do not also function as your farking secretary.

That's right! These fine cops aren't here to SERVE and PROTECT you!! Oh wait....

czetie: ChuDogg: At the very least, if banks want to protect themselves. Give a notice after 2-3 days that the check has cleared stage 1. After, 30-45 days it clears stage 2 and the money is non returnable.

Um, that is in fact more or less the current system. I'm sorry that you (and many other people) don't understand it, but it is.

And no, the bank didn't accept the risk when it cleared the check through stage 1. A check is a promise to pay by the issuer of the check. The bank is merely an intermediary, passing it along for you, and doing you a favor by advancing you the money before the issuer has paid. The bank has no obligation to honor the check -- it didn't issue it. And it's not as if the bank is buying the check off of you for its face value.

And frankly, why should the bank be at risk? It has no way of knowing where you got the check, you are the one who has to evaluate whether the payer is good for it before spending their promise of money.

I am pretty sure that if the system worked the other way around, this thread would be equally full of people complaining that the banks don't clear their checks for two weeks and saying that dumbasses who deposit bad checks should be the ones held responsible, not the banks...

I don't know of a single bank that clears checks in a multistage process to the account holder.

As a matter of fact, I'm pretty confident one doesnt exist in the continental U.S.

If you know of one, please link directly to the page on their website which describes exactly how they inform the account holder a check has cleared "stage 2" and thus ready for spending without risk of chargeback.

It doesnt exist.