"Grrr....." Topic

Remember "S"? (the girl that "Uh…Justin" from: TMP link )
So "S" is the gal that cuts my yard…she'll turn 14 in March.

So this past Friday I am at work and on break. I am checking my bank account…
The numbers don't add up.
So I go and check out the debit transactions, transfers, ebts, etc. All come out.
Then I check the checks…
Lo and Behold…
I call my lady. "Sweetie do you have the checkbook there with you?"
"Sure." She says.
"Can you please look at check #XXXX and tell me what the amount of it was for?"
She takes a moment and says "Thirty Five Dollars".
"Hmmm…okay." I say.
"Is something wrong?" She asks.
And I explain it to her.

It seems that our little miss "S", decided to give herself a FIFTY DOLLAR tip…
Yeps…the check for thirty five dollars has been "changed" to make it look like EIGHTY FIVE DOLLARS!
And whats worse is that it's an obvious bad forgery/alteration, WHICH SHOULD'VE BEEN CAUGHT BY THE BANK TELLER!!!

So I am working with her grandparents, etc…
They were over at the house last night. I explained to her what the actions could possibly be (Law Enforcement, legal actions, etc…), and I looked at her and said "I'm going to ask you this one time and now is your time to come clean. Did you do this, yes or no?"
She couldn't look me in the eye.
She dropped her eyes, and looked off and shook her head "no".
I know she did it, she knows she did it, and I think her grandparents know she did it, but are giving her a slight benefit of the doubt by checking the teller…

So today her grandparents are down at the bank trying to see if they can see the security tapes to see if "The teller" changed the check.
I know what they are going to find…
They are going to find out that their 14 year old granddaughter, not only fraudulently altered a check, but lied to everyone about it, repeatedly.

This is going to be "fun"…NOT.

Ouch.

Don't wait too long to report it to the authorities. Even if you already got your money back. If it doesn't get reported, and she doesn't get a good scare, she will think it was no big deal and that she effectively got away with it.

so,slightly off topic, but this got me curious..

how common is cheque usage still in the US?

here (UK, as you can tell from the correct spelling ;) ) it's pretty much a dead duck now as far as personal use goes. Most high street stores will not take them anymore,and me? i last wrote one about six or seven years ago!

We still use them at work (I work in finance..) but thats about the only place I see them.

how common is cheque usage still in the US?

Based on my experiences here over the past 13 months, 5 or 6 times more common than in the UK or Ireland.

I haven't used a check in a store for almost a decade. Always use the debit card for that. I always use checks though for bills, I will NEVER use auto withdrawl. I have heard too many horror stories about companies continuing to pull funds out of peoples accounts even after that person stopped using the service and I personally know one instance when a auto withdraw house payment went crazy, drained that persons checking account and his savings (since he had auto roll over onto his savings) caused the the banks to dun him for over withdrawl and the home mortgage company charge him late fees for not paying his house payment. After withdrawing more then $15,000 of his money. Took a weeks worth of work to clear up the trouble with the bank and the mortgage company and took him months to get his money back.

auto withdrawl = direct debit right?

thats the most common way here of bills to be paid (accounts for all of my household bill payments.

is there nothing like the DD guarantee in place with banks?

I use Checks to pay bills, every thing else is Cash or Money Orders. I hate Credit and or Debit cards !!!!!!!!!

I seem to use them a lot. I still use checks to pay bills. I've been burned on automatic payment plans before. With a check I can control how much money they get. I also use checks locally at small businesses that require deposits for things, like the lawnmower repair place. We used to be able to get chinese food with a check at a place that does not take cards, but they are cash only now due to some idiots. There's the occasional mail order place that I will write checks for, and just last week I wrote a huge check to the replacement window company rep who came out to measure our windows. When they complete the job there'll be another check.

We use the debit card only in big name stores, and no longer have credit cards at all.

Most places with bills I have to pay, and certainly all the utilities, I pay online through my bank website. The only automatic withdrawals I have are for loans (the bank is going to get its money anyway)and my church and the only cheque I have written in the last year was for my lawn maintenance company (they are not set up for anything else).

Canada has (or had the last time I heard the stats) one of the highest penetrations of debit card usage. Canadian debit cards, from what I am told, are more restrictive in what you can do with them than the US versions although the differences are not clear to me.

The only time I seem to use cheques is to enter wargame tournaments.

Interesting.

As pinkcat said, cheques are almost dead in Britain. Most shops, petrol stations etc won't even accept them anymore. Plastic, especially since the introduction of 'chip and pin' is regarded as much more secure. Cheques are seen as a bit of a liability partly because of the problem experienced by Murphy.

Most people pay regular household bills like electric and stuff via direct debit, which sounds similar to auto-withdrawl. It seems that our system has more safeguards built in though. No one gets their accounts emptied by mistake.

Nasty problem, Murphy. Presumeably this was a kid you trusted, before. I'd fire her and call the cops.

I'm surprised anyone still uses cheques. Though it seems pretty prevalent in the US, given the number of times they appear as evidence in Judge Judy type shows. Weird.
--
Tim

wow and a kid too,

but then again there has been a rise of bank tellers risking everthing to give kids more money, even with a camera watching everything they do.

How can this work, Murph? You've got to write the amount out on the second line.

The tellers at that girl's bank are incompetents.

About fifteen years ago, I cashed my paycheck at my bank without looking at the total.

Just as I walked out the door, I realized something wasn't quite right.

When I went back in and questioned the teller, she didn't say a word, just started her fingers flyhing over the keys on her calculator.

After she was finished with that, she coughed up the other hundred dollars.

Don't get me started on the disrespect I get at my bank now.
It's my money, but the official door greeters and the occasional teller start telling me how I'm going to get the credit card for which I have been preapproved, without ever having actually applied for it.

An entire generation that has been raised to never take no for an answer and that they're never wrong.

To add to The Tin Dictator, there's also a statute of limitations.

JW