Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/03/04/in-1995-patrick-combs-deposited-a-fake-junk-mail-check-for-95093-and-the-bank-cleared-it.html
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[ETA: My initial reaction to reading the condensed story was “well, money is a made-up concept anyway, and where did this money come from?” Checks are just transfers from one account to another, but I bet the junk mail company would’ve noticed. Clearly the bank gave him their own money, and then took months to notice.]
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The bank done effed up, but didn’t Combs commit fraud by attempting to cash what he knew was a fake check? Good on him to get the bank to admit to its mistakes, but…what am I missing here?
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Intent matters for most laws, so if he didn’t intent for the bank to cash the check then he might not be guilty of fraud (though there are likely lesser laws that he would be guilty of; banking law is Byzantine). Still, even if he would have ultimately been found not guilty, he’s extremely lucky the bank didn’t try to press charges. As a joke, this was an extremely careless one.
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The experience changed Combs’ life. He became a motivational speaker, […]
In other words, it ruined his life?
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I remember reading the article and the page(s) that Combs wrote up about the whole thing. My take on it back then was “he did it as a joke that escalated past the ‘no longer funny’ line”, but it was a little bit of everyone’s fault, starting with the company that made up the fake check as advertising*. Combs is partly to blame for depositing what was a bogus check. The bank screwed up a few times by accepting a ‘check’ that was missing several key things that make a check a check (like the MICR line using that specific toner), and just letting it go through their intake system regardless when the check scanners bounced it.
All in all, a comedy of errors, and there were lessons everyone learned from it.
(* I’ve seen loan companies with worse morals than the local paycheck loan places sending out junk mail with actual, valid checks that have fine print on them saying “by cashing this check, you agree to a loan of X amount at an interest rate that the mafia would call brisk” - The few times I’ve gotten those, they went right into the cross-cut shredder.)
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That’s actually the easy question. No, it wasn’t legally his. Even though the bank made the error, he clearly knew the check was fake. It’s pretty well established law in the case of a bank making an error in a customer’s favor, that if a reasonable person would realize that was an error, they cannot keep the money. That question isn’t even close.
Ethically? Well…I guess that depends on what drives your ethics. Personally, I would have reached the same conclusion he did. Well, actually, I never would have tried to cash the check in the first place, but if I had, I would return the money. Regardless of what the law requires.
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Is the opposite true, though?
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You expect banks to be subject to the same laws as us ordinary peons? What are you, some kind of commie?
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My best friend’s half brother was one of the unfortunate fools to have a bank mistakenly deposit a ridiculously large sum of money in his account. It made national news when the guy tried to cash out and run with the money on a huge spending spree. It landed him in jail.
My friend and I still shake our heads about it.
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That’s dumb.
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“JUNK MAL” - the image-gen mush attached to this post
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The check has four dollar values on it. That’s how you know it’s worth a lot.
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You might be asking yourselves “how did you become the man you are today?”
Well I’m here to tell you it all started when I had an address…
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