A professional bad check writer

[call_me_dude]

What is the name of your state? CA




Hello,

First of all I am in desperate need of answers to this question. I have a friend who purposely writes bad checks (About $300 a piece) to merchants, alters the reciept to make it say cash, then gets the money back. The thing that baffel's me is he is doing this to his own account. He called it in stolen, and even made a police report. The thing that trip's me out is he switches his signatures on the check, and it does'nt even look like he wrote it. Day after day he recieves letterts from merchants wanting their money for the returned checks. What does he do, simply mail in the affaidavit with his real signature, send a copy of the police report, and a letter about "What happened".

I ask him if he's scared because he's on the store camera, he tell's me no, and "I just look like an average shopper, I act like I'm shopping, pick out items that average $200, and pay" He claim's they don't keep the tapes day after day because if they did they would have building's stacked with tapes (Which sound's true). He also deposited somebody else's stolen check ($2000)into his account, and claim's he did'nt do it. He did this so he can withdraw it out. He claims the ATM he was at did'nt even have a camera (Which is usually right in front of your face). He say's the tape would'nt exist because it's over two months ago.

He constantly covers his tracks, and believe me, he does a good job. My question is, if he gets caught (About $3000 in bad checks and the ATM thing) what is the amount of time he'll do? One person told me five years on up, the other says one year, the other did'nt want to comment.

This guy is a college student, and everyday his heart races when his phone rings. He tells me he'll stick to his story, which is a good one. If he does get caught, this is his first offence, which should make his sentence "lighter".

Please give me your opinion on this, I must get him to stop before it's too late.

Thanks......

Tha dude

 

[JETX]

Contact your local police department and let them handle the 'dude'.

 

[HomeGuru]

The dude is an idiot.

 

[GKris]

It would depend on what he would be charged with. From what you described it could range from forgery to shoplifting to straight theft. If caught the punishments could range from 6 moths probation to 5-7 years in jail. This person most definately will get caught, the business of fraud is so big that there are divisions of folks who only work those types of crimes. Merchants have their loss prevention folks trained in it, the police have their people trained and even the District Attorney's office have a division which only handles fraud cases. These people are very good at what they do. I can guaruntee that eventually the bank and the merchants will put 2 + 2 together, its what they do. If it was a one time deal, like over the scope of a few weeks these checks were written - the bank will take the hit and pay the cash back. If it continues though, they will continue to pay it back while conducting their own investigation and bust him in a huge way. As far as store's keeping tapes, the 7-11 corner store has usually 5 tapes that they rotate through their VCR. Larger stores like chain stores Walmart, Sears, Ect keep tapes for at least 45 days. The tapes are the type that record 10-15 cameras at the same time on them. Its not a standard VHS tape becasuse of the problem storing them. Usually one tape will hold 12 hours of 15 different cameras at the same time. Its a matter of picking out the right screen, they simutaneously show the videos running on one TV screen, each one is about 5x5 inches in size. So his assumption about the tapes is dead wrong. All its going to take is one person looking at his transaction history to add it up.