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Patrick Combs is an average guy. An average guy who, in 1995, decided on a whim to deposit one of those fake checks so common in junk mail.
On May 19th, I was one of thousands of people around the country who received a ‘junk mail’ letter touting a get-rich quick method for making $95,093.35 in just three weeks. That letter also came with a for the same amount, $95,093.35. Everything about the check looked real except for the words ‘non-negotiable for cash’ typed on the top right hand corner. For very little reason at all I deposited this check into my ATM.
He did this as a joke — he was certain the bank would never honor the “check”. He was wrong. Soon he had nearly $100,000 sitting in his bank account. Man 1, Bank 0 tells the story of this unexpected windfall, and what happened once the bank learned of its error.
Patrick is a natural-born storyteller, and he’s able to wring a lot of laughs from this anecdote. (The story stretches for several pages — be sure to read them all.) He’s even turned the story into a stage show! Check the bottom of the page for flash-embedded video of Patrick at a live telling of this story.
[Man 1, Bank 0 — Don't try this at home!]
This article is about Funny Money Saturday, 29th July 2006 (by J.D. Roth)
July 29th, 2006 at 7:34 am
Just to be clear, it is not the bank that would be out of pocket - the bank must have received the money or the credit would have been reversed. The money must have come through from the junk mail provider. Good job!
July 29th, 2006 at 9:03 am
If you read the linked story it is clear that the bank should have and could have reversed the credit, but failed to do so in a timely manner.
Other banks in the chain refused the check relatively promptly so the junk mail provider never had the check register on their end.
The bank was out the money.
July 29th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
100,000 dollars might seem like a lot of money for the working class you and me. For the investors, bank executive, CEO it is weekend party money. We all pay them with bogus fees and hidden charges, well connected lobbyist make sure of it. I want every bank to get stuck, maybe just maby than the balance will start to even out.
July 29th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
[...] News, Humor, Finance, Legal, Interesting, Financial | no comments yet | permalink Written byPatrick Havens Man 1, Bank 0 Patrick Combs is an average guy. An average guy who, in1995, decided on a whim to deposit one of those fake checks so common in junk mail. On May 19th, I was one of thousands of people around the country who received a ‘junk mail’ letter touting a get-rich quick method for making $95,093.35 in just three weeks. That letter also came with a for the same amount, $95,093.35. Everything about the check looked real except for the words ‘non-negotiable for cash’ typed on the top right hand corner. For very little reason at all I deposited this check into my ATM. [...]
July 29th, 2006 at 10:53 pm
I don’t like this story. First, it’s not funny at all. Another thing is that banks resorts to more restrictions and find the way to pump out more money from their clients.
They compete with each other for their clients, and it’s good. But in the given circumstances all of them impose restrictions / self-protection and even the honest regular customer will suffer, because by default, any bank will deminish benefits/promotions and impose more hidden fees to cover such sort of possible cheats/omissions in their system.
So, the guy works against us, working class regular consumers. Big guys never feel this problem, for them plus/minus $100 is not even the thing to waster their time.
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:16 am
[...] re-enactment of Super Mario Bros.!! This Place is Not a Place of Honor The Making of Goldeneye 007 Man 1, Bank 0: Guy deposits junk mail cheque for $95,093.35, and gets it! Scamming the Nigerian scammer AOL Said, ‘If You Leave Me I’ll Do Something Crazy’ [...]