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Making $95,000+ from Junkmail? 55

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the you-gotta-be-kidding dept.
frank writes "You can read a well written story about a man who deposited a junkmail advertisment check written for over 95,000$ and actualy had it clear. He has posted his story on the net and if you're looking for something to dream about, this will fill the bill. Why don't these things happen to me? " I don't know if this is legit or a hoax, but it's really cool.

Making $95,000+ from Junkmail?

Comments Filter:
  • by Zack (44)
    Would you folks please stop bitching about the site? If you don't like it, don't read it. We don't need your worthless comments. If you don't have anything nice to say....

    I for one had not seen this before, and thought it was pretty funny. Mabye my Publishers Clearing House one for $31 Million will go through... somehow I doubt it though.
  • I see it that way...
    Approx. 2 weeks ago a man recieved a $20 bill from a store as change, and thought it looked fake. It wasnt one of the new bills, just had things that looked fake about it. He took it to the bank to try to get it changed for smaller bills, hoping the bank would either tell him it was fake or not.
    Since he didn't ASK the bank if it was fake, they assumed he knew it was, and now he is in jail for 5 years for distributing counterfeit money. True story, happened in Kansas.
  • I would have thought that the 1995 copyright notice at the bottom of the page would have been a tip off that this isn't "news". However, it is true.
    - []
  • Ok its old, Big deal, I'd not seen it before. I thougth it was interesting. Although he would have been smart to call a lawyer the molment the bank guy started threatening him, and let the lawyer do all interacting with the bank.

    But maybe not as much fun. And I would have kept the cash, I could use $95,000 (Thats about £57,000) That would *NOT* Suck.
    --Zachary Kessin
  • I saw this on about 2 years ago, it's still a good story


  • Those stories made my day. Reminds me when I was a teenager and got in trouble enough that the too forgiving police did not think I was going to make it in life. I have great memories that I may never do again. Its nice to see stuff like this from others as it is funny.
  • Nothing like a 90-second conviction. Did you see the link at the bottom of the pages? There are 4 parts. Might I suggest you read them all?
    Aaron Gaudio
    "The fool finds ignorance all around him.
  • He never endorsed the check, and the check was valid. So technically, he didn't.
  • Start your own page. I found this entertaining; even though I had heard about it, I hadn't heard the full story. If you think slashdot stories are lame, why do you keep looking at them?

  • I was always happy to read the extensive list of responses to /. articles, maybee until now. It would really suck if /. turned into a spam target. It just goes to show if something is great and lots of people use it and get something from it, people will abuse it and bring it down. Many great loads of respect for rob and friends for creating a great place to find new info and share thoughts in a semi unrestricted arena. Let's hope the spammers don't bring this down any. Down with SPAM!

    Net. Admin.
  • So he gave it back. Hmmm. I think this qualifies to be put into the same box as "I was kidnapped by aliens and they made me pregnant and I had the alien's kids"; reporter: "so where's the baby"; abductee: "oh they came back and took the kid away". It might be true. It's an amusing story. But why would ANYONE not keep $95k? I don't know a single wunch of bankers that's actually short of cash.

    Proverb: if you want to be believed, KEEP THE EVIDENCE!!
  • > I thought at least a community like Slashdot would be a bit different

    You're new to slashdot, arentcha?
  • it is a true story, and a good one too, but this guy does sound like some (gentle) kind of con-man. after all, he's in the business of selling such worthless junk as "motivation" and "inspirational", which are barely half a step above get-rich-quick schemes.

    I think I'd have kept the money too, and had a lawyer handle the whole thing instead of doing it myself. Then again, he only ended up in the situation of having a legal claim to the money through a set of coincidences and luck, so that would probably have fucked it up.

    given the laws that he quotes, I'm surprised that it was *his* bank that ended up losing the money (for as long as he kept it); I'd have expected the original junkmailer to get charged, which would have been just perfect.

  • It's true, it WAS on TV news for a while.

    Just because it makes it on the news doesn't mean it's true. Newspeople are people just like you and me, but probably not as smart.

    BTW, a friend of mine concocts hoaxes purporting to be insider information on Star Trek projects. More than one has made it into various news outlets. We're especially proud of one project that made it into Australian newspapers as "true" information.
  • least in Germany - the fine is set to 500.000 DM = 255.000 Euro = about US $280.000

    For juristic details see g.html [] (will be updated further in the next days).
  • Proverb: if you want to be believed, KEEP THE EVIDENCE!!

    Did you actually read the article?

    At this point, knowing that I wasn't out to keep the money, I called up the bank's senior legal counsel and told him I wanted to give the money back. "I'm the world's easy guy to get the money back from - all you have to do is write me an official letter from the bank that addresses this fiasco from a fair point of view. I invited him to meet with me, to draft such a letter and come to a resolve, and we did."


    "After a month of negotiations, I got my letter and was ready to return the money."

    If you think the guy is a liar, just go find him and ask if you can see the letter.

    Jay (=
  • Another BS story that is stupider yet!

    As others have noted, this story is quite old (I first read it in early 1996) and seems to be a transparent attempt on the author's part to promote his book and speaking business. (I've never been able to understand why people think vibrating air molecules are worth money, but then, I'm not a professional bullshitter.) Once a shill, always a shill. Maybe Combs or whatever his name is can get a job huckstering for Ed McMahon.
  • Who cares whether it's true or not?
    It's a good story, and a well-worth
    read, IMHO...

    On the question if it belongs here,
    Slashdot belongs to Rob, and he
    decides what this site should be,
    and what it should not.

    If you don't like that, leave.
  • The difference is that the bank isn't supposed to accept checks that aren't endorsed. So to prove that he committed bank fraud, the bank would have to show that he either forgot, or believed that the bank would ignore or overlook the missing endorsement.

    Also, the check was technically valid, since, as the author of the article pointed out, printing "not negotiable" on a check, doesn't invalidate it, as it does for other negotiable instruments.

    So the reason the bank demanded the money back wasn't that the check was invalid, but that the check had been returned by the issuer and the issuers bank. p The bank might be able to sway a court in the direction of bank fraud if they were able to show that he both was aware that the check was intended just as a sample of checks he could receive from others, and not as a real check, even though it looked completely valid - even to the point that the bank itself let it slip - and expected the bank to accept an unendorsed check.

    In other words, they would have to demonstrate that their banking services are unprofessional, and insecure, and in addition the defense would ridicule them about slipping the midnight deadline for demanding a return... So even if they could get a court to agree, it would cost them big in public relations.

Memory fault -- brain fried