By DAVE LIEBER
watchdog@star-telegram.com
Here’s something the bad guys know that you should know, too. When you stop payment on a check with your bank, it’s good for only six months.
After that, the check can be cashed unless you ask that the stop-payment order be extended.
Pat and Gayla Lavery had no idea, and they got burned twice: once by the apparent scammer who took their $1,350 check for a vending machine he never delivered, and again, they believe, by Washington Mutual, which cashed the check six months and six days after the stop-payment order was placed. Chase Bank, which acquired WaMu last fall, won’t help the Watauga couple recover their money.
The Laverys said they thought that when they paid $32 to their bank, Chase, for the stop payment in August 2008, the vending machine salesman would never see the money.
Turns out that Texas law is clear: A stop payment is good for six months, and extensions must be requested by the customer and granted by the bank.
It started when Pat Lavery saw an advertisement for a vending machine on Craigslist. Lavery visited Sam Beck, the owner of Discount Vending in Dallas. Beck, Gayla Lavery says, wanted $1,350 and promised that once the check cleared, he would deliver the machine.
But when Beck made a special point of asking which bank the check was written on, Gayla Lavery got suspicious.
"I had a bad feeling about this guy from the start," she said, "but my husband said, 'We’ll give him the check and then go home and look him up on the Internet and we can always stop payment on the check.’ "
That night, the couple found that the Better Business Bureau had given Beck’s company an F rating, mostly for not responding to complaints.
"There were complaints about him everywhere," she said. "I was afraid he was going to be at my bank when it opened so I went online that night and put a stop payment on the check. The bank charged me $32, but I figured it was better than losing $1,350."
They called Beck, told him what they had done and promised to pay cash upon delivery. He said he would deliver the machine, but they never saw him again.
Six months and six days later, Beck walked into a Washington Mutual branch and cashed the check. Part of the payout came from their checking account, and when that hit zero, the rest came from overdraft protection.
The check is endorsed by Sam Beck. (The Watchdog could not reach Beck.)
The couple visited Chase. "They pulled out this big book of policies and showed me all the disclaimers to cover themselves for this," Gayla Lavery said. "There was no disclaimer when I did the stop payment online but apparently being ethical doesn’t matter to large companies like Chase."
She says she sent a certified letter to one of Chase’s top executives in Texas but got no response.
The Watchdog contacted Chase. Spokesman Greg Hassell shared the bank’s policy:
"For personal accounts, a stop payment is good for 180 days. Customers can place an additional stop payment order at any time" for another 180 days for an additional fee.
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