Here's a fun one

[trisk]

What is the name of your state? Kansas

Ah hell I typed all this out once before, and it didn't take... So here we go with take two.

We live in - Kansas
The dork lives in - Arkansas
His business is either based in - Texas or Arkansas, I'm not sure

My ex got fired today, because the owner of the company is thoroughly convinced that she's been stealing "hundreds of dollars" worth of games from his business. They buy and sell used games and DVDs, it's a mom and pop franchise type thing (Replay Games in Kansas, Game Exchange elsewhere). The owner, we'll call him Grant, has been threatening to file a police report unless my ex confesses, at which point he says he wont file charges, because he's a swell guy and doesn't want to see her go to jail and get a felony rap. He's also threatened me with the same stuff because I sell stuff on ebay, so obviously I'm fencing the stolen loot. Only problem with all this is, I sure as hell haven't ever seen "hundreds of dollars" worth of stuff show up at the house, and I can't ever recall her ever giving me any used games to sell.

So. I've been talking to Grant, since not only did he threaten to press charges against me, which would in turn lead to warrants, seized computers, and financial ruin of my ebay-selling-stuff-company, but also because my ex is frothing pissed at him. So far, he can't come up with any proof, but he's sure that she's been stealing because he's "seen this happen over and over with employees" (think maybe he needs to work on his inventory system?). I'll attempt to explain the crux of his "proof", not that this makes much sense to me either:

Recently, a guy traded in 4 copies of Donkey Konga for store credit. I dont know how or why he owned 4 copies of Donkey Konga, but anyway. Before he traded them in, the store had 1 copy. Now they have 5. So my ex obviously stole the copy and sold it to them 4 times. Keep in mind that they have 5 actual, real copies of the game now. Ok, so now we have a store gift card with approximately $40 on it. The guy comes back later, with his gift card, and uses it to buy a new game. The $40 doesn't cover it, so he pays the rest with cash. My ex takes his now empty gift card and sets it aside. Later still that same night, my ex trades in an extra Playstation 2 controller she had, and buys a DVD with the credit. After buying the movie, there's a shiny nickel left over in the system, and it wont let her close the transaction with the nickel still outstanding. So she reaches for the nearest gift card (the Donkey Konga guy one) and puts the nickel on there, cause hey, she's generous enough to give the next random person that gets that gift card a whole nickel. So see!?! This proves she's stealing stuff! How else would she POSSIBLY have RANDOMLY picked that SAME gift card unless it was hers all along!!!

Maybe because it was sitting next to the register? Anyway. So that's all the proof I've gotten out of Grant so far.

Assuming he can find some missing money, and parlay that in to police charges against my ex, am I right in assuming that they'd actually have to find her guilty of stealing something before they could actually come after me for supposedly fencing it? Not that I did, nor do I think that my ex is guilty of anything worse than working for an extremely poorly run company, but since we're living in Grantland today, in theory I'm ok unless they manage to nail her for something, right?

Also, if he keeps up this "confess or I'll press charges!" shtick, can I go after him for harassment or something? From talking to him today, I get the impression that he doesn't actually have a leg to stand on, from an actual, you know, physical, tangible, logical evidence point of view, so he's going to try to cajole my ex in to admitting something so big mean old business man doesn't have the feds put her in a federal pen. Oh, and on a related note, I looked around and found out that anything under $1,000 in Kansas is a Class A Nonperson Misdemeanor, so I can't figure out how he thinks he'll get the FBI involved, unless it's got something to do with the fact that he's in a different state? Anyone know what the usual punishment for a Class A Misdemeanor is in Kansas? I'm assuming it's statute 21-3701 that applies here...

(for the record, I'm mostly hoping that other people find this as absurdly funny as I do, and I've already consulted with my legal counsel [ok, my aunt, but she is a lawyer] but I figured it doesn't hurt to get more opinions from people who know something, as opposed to my ex getting advice from her roommate's step-father [computer programmer], friend's mom [cellphone sales], and her dad [nuclear technician]. So any advice would be welcomed at this point!)

Thanks, Trisk

[Shay-Pari'e]

Just my thought, YOU are really bad at scamming. I had to step back and laugh, because you are actually attempting legal advice.

[trisk]

Good God, believe me, I quit stealing stuff when I got to be old enough to go to a "federal, pound you in the *** prison" (think that's the quote)... Seriously though, the closest I've come to trying to scam these people is trying to get them to sell me their old Atari games at 10 cents on the dollar so I can resell them on eBay... But, believe me or implacate me, I think it's a funny story either way (-: