Due to circumstances, I found myself in line for 4.5 hours with a credit card application in my hand. I was reading through it and something caught my eye because of the recent A4V thread. If you are mailing in a payment, you’d send it to
1234 Processing Street, Somecity, SS XXXXX
But, if you write “Accepted for value” or something similar on your check, you had to send it to
98765 Freeman Ct, Soverign City, AC YYYYY
Any idea of why they have the different address? Would it be processed the same?
Just a WAG: So that they can promptly and immediately cancel your account because they know you will be a tremendous pain in the ass to deal with down the line?
WAG #2: It goes straight to their legal department for handling.
WAG #3: It short circuits the “A4V” argument at its inception because if you sent it to the normal address, you failed to follow the contract terms.
If the woo folks follow instructions, they very neatly self-identify, making their disposition that much easier
If they don’t, they violate their own “everything is a contract” nonsense by breaching the one real contract involved.
Comply, we nail your ass much more easily; don’t and it is open-and-shut breach of contract (assuming, in addition to the A4V wording, they also enumerate the know variants used by the loons)
I assume that your FotL will write Accepted for Value instead of actually paying? Can you write Accepted for Value on your check that actually is a real payment?
I guess what I getting at is, Saint Cad, you need to send your payment with “Accepted for Value” written on it to that second address, and report back what happens.
I Googled it, but I’m too lazy to wade through all the hits. Can anyone summarize what “accepted for value” means? Is this some sort of sovereign citizen thing, or whatever it’s called?
On my reading of Cecil, and similar sources, this seems to be a ploy to avoid paying taxes or other debts to the government. I don’t understand how the argument could also be applied to credit card bills.
It’s a sovereign citizen thing. They think that if they owe a debt but write “accepted for value” on a check for a lesser amount and the check is cashed, that means the debt is settled. So if they owe the credit card company $5K and write them a check for $50 with “accepted for value” in the memo blank, in their delusional magic-words thinking that means the credit card company said “sure, that’s OK, no need to pay any of the rest back!”
As the argument is completely incoherent, you can apply it to anything with equal validity.
Not only does the OP suggest that the A4V sh*te is being used in dealings with banks and credit card issuers as well as with the gummint, but it also suggests that people are writing A4V on cheques, rather than on bills or demands. (Possibly people are sending in cheques for part only of the sum claimed, and writing A4V on them in the belief that this means if the payee negotiates the cheque the entire debt will be cleared.)
But there’s little point in asking exactly what these people believe, or why they believe it. Regardless of what they will say they believe, what they actually believe is that “A4V” is a magic spell which makes debts evaporate.
Myself, I find that “billus nullificandus!” works much better for this purpose.
Did it actually use the words “accepted for value” as the example of what you needed to send to a different address? Or was it maybe “paid in full”?
I’m not sure what the deal is now - as with the new laws on checks and stuff - some of this may have changed, but at one time - at least is some states - you could write “paid in full” or similar language with the idea that if the person accepted the check - they were agreeing you either didn’t owe them anything else - or were agreeing to settle for that amount. It wasn’t totally crazy.
These are called “restrictive endorsements” - and I have seen some coming from the other side as well. Checks for $10.00 or such - that when I sign the back I am also agreeing to switch my phone company or something. This was in the last three years. Not sure if it was legal or not.
I’m not surprised they would have a different address for “paid in full” - and it wouldn’t surprise me if this still happens a good deal - by totally honest people that just want to make sure that everyone is on the same page as to what is owed.
Try sending in your credit card payment slip (Bal: $5000, min: $200) with a check for $100 with “endorsement of this instrument by payee, its agent or assign, constitutes acceptance as payment in full for this account”
This was the older, “sounds a bit more credible” version of this “take it from my secrete account” crap making the rounds now.