So my roommate is getting Free Money, what the heck?

Factual Questions
1

I know this is hard to believe but my roommate recently received a $4000 check from some company or organization he has never heard of. It puzzled the heck out of him so he called the bank and they confirmed that said company/organization did indeed have an account with them and that they had enough funds to cover it.

So he went ahead and cashed it. He bought a PSP, some presents for his girlfriend and paid off some bills.

A week later, (today) he received ANOTHER ONE for the same amount!!! He intends to cash this one as well.

My question is:

Should he be cashing these checks? They’re in his name but…it just doesn’t seem right.

Can the people sending him the checks ask him to give the money back? If they do, does he have to comply?

Is he in legal trouble already?

Any further comments are welcome.

PS: this isn’t one of those bogus “my friend’s penis itches” stories where the friend in question is actually you. It really is my roommate so what he does with the checks doesn’t affect me. Still, this is very weird.

2

Scrutinize it for any “by endorsing this check, we own your soul” type statements.

IANAL but he should probably call them. If they are intending to pay him, they’d probably say why, if not, they probably want that money back. I imagine the law would not be on his side if it were their error, since he has no reasonable right to the money.

3

Actually, he has not seen the physical checks, he’s receiving them at his old address and his mother is depositing them into his account. I suppose that if there was such a statement, she’d have informed him and he’d have told me about it.

Yeah, calling them is certainly the most cautious thing to do but i figure he’s not going to do that.

4

[QUOTE=Gozu]

PS: this isn’t one of those bogus “my friend’s penis itches” stories where the friend in question is actually you.QUOTE]
But don’t you wish it WAS?

5

Generally, if you have no way to reasonably assume the money is rightfully yours, they will be able to demand it back or claim you stole it. That’s what I know from hearing stories, etc. I was in a situation where I was given something incorrectly, which I took, and was later made to pay for or i’d be charged with stealing, which I did as it was only about $5. But I think the same principles would apply.

6

You may find this interesting; it’s very long and a little drawn out, but worth the read. For those who don’t have half-an-hour to spare, it’s about a man who jokingly tried to cash a bogus junk-mail cheque, and found his account credited with the money. In the end, despite him seeming to have a legal claim to the money, a lot of nasty threats by the bank forced him to give it up as not worth the hassle (particularly as he knew it was morally wrong). Good story, but on that basis, I’d be cautious (though your room-mate’s case may not be analogous).

On preview: link seems to be dead, sorry - I’ve left it in anyway in case anyone else can find it.

7

When you say:

do you mean that you called the bank named on the check? Are you sure it’s a real bank? - it sounds like the setup for a scam to me; perhaps something along the lines of:

-You receive a check
-You phone the bank’s contact number, printed on the check, you are assured that everything is rosy (but you’re in fact talking to a scammer in a rented office)
-You deposit the check, your balance appears to increase (but the payment is still going through the system
-You get a phone call, apparently from the issuing bank (but actually from the scammer) saying it was an error and could you please write out one of your own checks to repay the money (perhaps they say you can just pay back 90% of it, to hook you). Perhaps they actually ask you to get a banker’s draft issued - these are as good as gone from your account as soon as they are issued and as good as cash to the recipient)
-A week or so later, your own bank calls you to tell you that the check you paid in is bogus and will not actually be credited to your account
-Meanwhile, Mr scammer is busy disappearing with your money.

My advice:
Look up the phone number of the issuing bank in the directory, check if this is the same as the contact details on the check. If it isn’t, report the matter to the police/FBI.

Whatever happens, don’t act hastily with anything - refund scams rely heavily on a fast turnaround so as to take effect before the bogus payment bounces.

8

[QUOTE=hownowbrownsow]

I’m not sure I do actually. All that temptation, all the worry.

9

As well as the possibilities of some weird scam, I suppose there’s also a chance of it being some money laundering scheme.

Or, more likely, it’s a screw up at some company’s pay-role department.

Either way, your roommate is digging himself a big hole by spending this money without having any idea where it’s coming from. Someone is going to want it back sooner or later and he has no idea how polite they may be in asking.

10

Nice try Mangetout :smiley: I didnt’ do any of those things because I never got the check. Told ya, it’s my roommate.

In any case, He never got to look at the check because his mother deposited it for him.
I’m familiar with the scam you describe though I thought it was done with bogus money orders.

I don’t see how calling the presumed issuing bank would help. Couldn’t the check be a counterfeit from a legitimate bank? In that case, calling the issuing bank wouldn’t help. They’d assume the check is valid and still tell you there are enough funds to cover it and you’d end up in the same situation.

Still, i’ll tell him about the possibility so that he’s more cautious about spending any more of the money. It definitely seem wiser to not touch it for a while and see what happens.

11

Checks, especially CASHIER’S CHECKS (the best kind), are counterfeited all the time and it still takes the bank a week to find out. The bank will want their money back.

That’s why you don’t take one over ebay, especially if it for over the amount and the request change.

WARNING POTENTIALLY NON WORK SAFE BANNERS

Read THIS STORY.

12

Sheesh.

That’s why you don’t take one over ebay, especially if it’s for over the amount and they request change.

:smack:

13

I realised that as I typed it; the ‘you’ was generic - because it really doesn’t matter to me who this is happening to; the advice is the same.

14

Gozu, I ANAL, but 2 of my siblings are, and they both agree that what your roommate is doing is probably illegal. And they only say “probably” because it’s possible there’s some legitimate reason for these checks. (One prosecutes fraud for the State, but not this kind of fraud, so this isn’t their specialty – so grab a grain of salt and read on FWIW.)

Just because a person is sent a check, that doesn’t necessarily make the money their property. It’s not like getting sent unordered merchandise followed by a bill.

For example, suppose John Smith buys a house from another John Smith, and a check is sent to that address made out to John Smith from someone the current resident has never heard of. If the current JS believes he is not the intended recipient, he violates the law if he cashes the check anyway.

In your roomie’s case, the fact that he called the bank to verify funds – but not the sender to verify that no mistake had been made – likely would be the nail in his legal coffin. If he weren’t afraid that the company would say, “Sorry, it’s a mistake”, why would he not bother to contact them?

This case just doesn’t pass the “reasonable person” standard. Any reasonable person who started getting thousands of dollars a week out of the blue from an unknown organization would assume something is likely amiss, and would be required to perform some due diligence before depositing the money.

Can’t blame it on Mom, either, since his mother told him about the situation and he did not contact the sender, and he has since received another check which he intends to cash.

Please do him a favor and advise him not to cash the second check, and to immediately contact the company and explain that his mother deposited the first one without consulting him and ask what’s going on.

FWIW.

15

PS: They both agree also that it’s possible your roomie is being defrauded somehow, but the facts as you’ve given them don’t match any scam they currently know about. (Ditto here.)

16

Occam’s razor: perhaps your friend is getting an unremarkable parental subsidy, and for reasons only known to the ancient god of roommates, your friend feels the need to sell you a story.

Just a thought.

17

I think it’s most likley that they are loan checks. On some of those it’s really hard to find the small print that spells out the details. I wouldn’t trust my mother to notice small print.

18

What Waverly said.

Or, similarly, it’s the parents money but they’re making up the ‘mysterious cheque’ story so he doesn’t know he’s being bailed out (or because they’re moving the money for some odd purpose).

I don’t think we know enough details to come to a decent conclusion – but I’d agree with everyone else that he shouldn’t be spending the money unless he’s sure it’s his. He’ll have to pay it back at some point, people tend to notice missing money sooner or later.

SD

19

Not only has he never seen the check, neither have you.

If it smells like BS and tastes like BS, it is BS.

What’s the source? Has some of your stuff disappeared lately, say like
your credit card?

20

Wayback Machine has it, minus most of the pictures.