Check from a scammer bounces victim into jail
David Lazarus
Wednesday, August 30, 2006San Francisco resident Matthew Shinnick tried to sell a pair of mountain bikes on Craigslist late last year. He attracted a buyer, received a check in the mail -- and ended up handcuffed by police in a downtown Bank of America branch and jailed for almost 12 hours.
First, follow the link above and read the story. Then, answer me one question: How do you verify that a check is good other than going into the bank and asking? Calling the person or company on the check does you no good if someone printed bogus checks with a stolen account number on it. I was passed a bad check a couple of years ago, and Mel deposited it into her back account. I shudder to think what would have happened if BofA had pressed charges against Mel for depositing that check for me!
-Chris
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I honestly feel bad for that guy.
That completely sucks.
That being said, I would have requested a certified money order.
I don’t know if it’s possible to be frauded with a certified money order though.
CraigsList actually has a warning at the top of every single for sale item page that warns not to deal with certified checks or money orders, because the scams are so bad:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/scams.html