| Back in October, John Johnson took a $3,458 check for work done on a customer’s car. The check bounced. Nearly five months later it’s still bouncing, and Johnson hasn’t seen any money.
He no longer accepts checks.
Meanwhile, according to him, the woman who wrote the bad check is still out there doing it. And Johnson is frustrated by local law enforcement’s inability to help him collect.
Johnson’s J and J Auto Repair at 501 W. Nob Hill Blvd. in Yakima is one of many local businesses that get stuck with bad checks, though most aren’t as large as the one he took. And while he blames local police and sheriff’s departments for not locking up the woman who stiffed him, they say there are limits to what they can do.
“I can understand that he feels frustrated,” said County Prosecutor Ron Zirkle. “But my own frustration in this case is the guy wants government to do a lot more than we’re able to do as fast as he wants to do it. He can’t get this done privately so he wants government to do it for him.”
For his part, Johnson says he has done everything he can. The check came from a woman he has known for years, he said, so he wasn’t suspicious. But her bank wouldn’t cash the check, saying the account was empty. He deposited it in his bank, but got the check back with a notice that her account had been closed.
Then he started making the rounds of law-enforcement offices. From the prosecutor’s office he was sent to the sheriff’s office, where a deputy promised to work on this matter. Meanwhile, talks with the customer went nowhere.
On returning to the sheriff’s department, he was referred to Yakima police instead. Nothing happened for a month, according to Johnson. “They told me it could be up to two years before anything was done,” he said. So he contacted local legislators and went back to the prosecutor’s office.
Johnson also contacted local collection agencies. “They told me they would love to have the check but it would be 2007 before they could do anything with it.
“Every one of them knows about this woman. She has done this all over. They said her wages were garnished until 2008 and I would be put on the list.”
Now the county has sent the woman a summons to appear in court, he said. “I’ll be there to see if she shows up. Police told me she has a paper trail a mile and a half long writing bad checks but nothing has ever been done about it.”
The Law
Local enforcement agencies don’t go after perpetrators every time somebody writes a bad check.
“The sheriff and Yakima police require businesses to use a fingerprint or thumbprint and ID before they will investigate,” Zirkle said.
“That’s what a lot of people don’t understand. We need more than just a check signed by somebody in order to file criminal charges.
“We have to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person signed that check, and they knew when they signed it there was not sufficient money in the bank.”
(Johnson was taking fingerprint IDs on most checks at the time, he said, but didn’t bother with this woman because he known her for years.)
Most bad checks for small amounts in Yakima County are passed along to a collection company that specializes in that type of crime, Zirkle said.
“We started a check-enforcement program in my office where I contract with a private company, BounceBack in Denver, Colorado. They’re one of only two or three companies I know of in the U.S. that do this on a grand scale.”
The company tries to get a full recovery for the victim, plus a fee to cover their losses and “the annoyance of having a bad check,” Zirkle said.
“They require people to make full restitution plus go through school to teach them about finances and balancing a checkbook and avoiding problems in the future.”
That doesn’t always work. Zirkle figures BounceBack is successful in about 21 percent of the cases sent to them.
“In 2004 we sent out 872 checks, of which 66 didn’t qualify under their criteria. The total value of the qualifying checks was $107,445. During the year they returned $22,707 to merchants.”
If BounceBack fails, law enforcement takes over. “If it’s a crime and we can prove it, we’ll try to go after them,” Zirkle said. “But we’re not a collection agency. I provide this program totally free to the businesses here, and they can use it if they want.
“And I always tell businesses that this (the BounceBack program) is not competing with other collection agencies. They do different things. This is an alternative service for business people.
“If a person wants to get involved in the criminal process (over a bad check) they can send the check to me, but they have to understand we have a high burden of proof to meet and the process might take longer (than working through collection companies). So the first thing to do is try to collect without filing charges.”
Working with BounceBack frees local law enforcement from getting tied up with a lot of difficult cases, he said.
“If I send them 800 checks, that’s 800 cases we didn’t have to file. That frees up capacity in our courts and our office. With the volume (of bad checks) we get we can’t charge them all criminally without a lot of good evidence.”
If someone is convicted of check fraud, the penalty depends largely on the amount of the check. Smaller checks are a gross misdemeanor charge and can get you a $5,000 fine and a year in jail. For larger checks, felony charges could mean five years in jail or a $10,000 fine.
But those bigger penalties don’t happen often. “The penalty for a first offense is a standard sentencing range of zero to 60 days,” Zirkle said. “The second is zero to 90 days. Before you can get a year in jail, under the guidelines, it has to be up to a seventh offense.”
Zirkle believes that writing bad checks most often is linked to drugs, at least around here.
“It’s a way of doing business for people involved in the drug culture,” he said.
“I think we have been seeing an increase in bad checks, but then we’re seeing an increase in everything. I can’t say that the increase in bad checks is greater than the increase in any other crime.”
Protect Yourself
Zirkle has made presentations about check security to several area business groups, and has some advice to offer to anybody in business.
“My recommendation is to be very thorough when accepting checks, and train your employees well,” he said.
“Do the same thing with every check. Get that fingerprint and insist on a photo ID, so you know the person signing the check is the same as the name on the check.
“Six months from now you won’t remember a particular check because maybe you’ve handled thousands of them, but if you can say to us that you use the same procedure for every check you take that helps our case.
“Write their license number on the check. Get all the information you can. The burden is on all of us to prove that the person charged really committed the crime, so every bit of evidence we can have improves our chances.”
If you do get saddled with a bouncing check, “decide if you want to be involved in the criminal process or just involved in a civil process to try collecting your money. If you just want the money, take it to a collection agency or hire an attorney and sue the person.
Zirkle’s department is working on a new program to be used in District Court that could help merchants collect their money faster.
“We want to be able to tell the person that we’re ready to file charges right now, but we’re willing to take a bail forfeiture if they make full restitution to the merchant,” he said. “We’re just getting that refined now.”
He can understand why a growing number of businesses no longer accept checks, although that frustrates many customers.
“I go to a lot of places now that don’t take checks. It doesn’t really affect me, but for somebody like my mother, for example, who has always done things that way, it’s a hardship. But a lot of businesses can’t afford the risk, they can’t afford that loss.
“Bad checks are such a big problem. I think it’s unfortunate that businesses get put in a position where they can’t use them.”
At J and J Auto Repair, Johnson tells his customers to find another way to pay.
“I tell them I’m sorry but I can’t take their check, and I tell them about what I’ve been through,” he said. “I just say they need to get a credit card or a debit card. If you take checks, you’re gonna get burned.
“So I don’t take checks any more. I know I’m not the only one this has happened to, even with this one lady. I feel sorry for the other people she ripped off. But she’s good at it. She knows what she’s doing. And she knows she won’t get in trouble for it.
“It’s gonna get worse unless they start putting some teeth in the law. Can you imagine somebody committing a felony and they’re still walking around free?”. | 