The Uniform Commercial Code disagrees with you. AS Check is what is called a Negotiable Instrument. She gave her employee this Negotiable Instrument, promising to pay the holder of that instrument a certain amount of money. The employee transferred that Negotiable Instrument for consideration (money) to a 3rd party. The right to collect on the Maker's promise to pay is what was sold by the employee. Now the new owner of that promise to pay is trying to collect on the promise. The employee has been paid TWICE - once by the buyer of the Negotiable Instrument and again by the employer. BUT, it is the holder of the Negotiable Instrument that owns the now-defaulted promise to pay.
it 's a dispute resulting from a business check of hers that a former employee cashed (at one of those check cashing places Wurkn2hard =========================== What I would like to know is why was the check cashed at one of those rip joints when there was no purpose in cashing it there. ..
1*The employee has been paid TWICE - 2*once by the buyer of the Negotiable Instrument 3*and again by the employer. Flyingifr | ========================== 2*This is why the employer should not have reimbursed the former employee. The employee had already gotten her money out of the check so there was nothing to reimburse her for.
Employer didn't know this. She didn't know the employee had cashed it at one of those places. If she'd have asked for her check back she would have found out that the employee didn't have it, and she would have found out why. But, she didn't ask for it back, and that was her biggest mistake. To reply to someone else's question: Only the former employee knows why she cashed the check at one of those places. The rest of us don't know the reason.
Re: Re: Judgements & credit 1*Employer didn't know this. She didn't know the employee had cashed it at one of those places. If she'd have asked for her check back she would have found out that the employee didn't have it, and she would have found out why. 2*But, she didn't ask for it back, and that was her biggest mistake. 3*To reply to someone else's question: Only the former employee knows why she cashed the check at one of those places. Wurkn2hard =================== 1*Another reason why I don't pay till I get the check back. You don't know what's going on till you do get it back. 2*I think I already said that. The first thing to do in any bounced check incident is get the check back. 3*I believe that was my question: It just seems very odd and strange that it was cashed at one of those rip off places. I would be grilling the former employee about this. LB-59
1*it's a dispute resulting from a business check of hers that a former employee cashed (at one of those check cashing places) that didn't hit the bank until the business' account had been closed. 2*If she loses, she will pay right away. 3*if her credit is going to be damaged regardless, there's not a whole lot of point in rushing to pay, like, the same day or anything...right? working to hard ==================== 1*Your friend did not close the account correctly or the check wouldn't have bounced even though the account was closed. Checks can still be paid on a closed account if done right. 2* TO late she's already got a judgment to go on her reports by then. You can't erase a NEG. simply by paying the debt. 3*Rite. ..
1*if your friend has a signed receipt that she made the check good, then what makes her think she will lose? 2*the check cashing company needs to go after the employee who endorsed the check pd11604 ================== 1*Because she did not make the check good to the party that took the loss on it. All she has is a piece of paper that states she gave the employee $X.XX . 2*Seems to me they already have.
No, they never went after the employee who endorsed the check. At this point, that former employee is perfectly willing to pay the legitimate amount in cash, but she doesn't know *whom* to pay it to. And no one is willing to pay this rip-off joint $800+ for a $400-and-change check. So, I guess that means it has to go to court, where the judge will tell them they're wrong and can't collect that much, but my friend's credit will get ruined, anyway.
1*The check cashing place is asking for way too much money. They want the check amount, the filing costs, the cost of paying a process server, etc., which is all legitimate and fine. BUT, they also want *hundreds* of dollars for their "time" that they spent "working" on the file, at $10.00 per hour, Wurkn2hard ================ They can't apply their customer agreements to your friend like this because she is not their customer. Also they aren't allowed to collect any thing that isn't permitted under state law governing bad checks. ..
I can understand why she's upset. It's almost extortion. In order to settle, they'll want $800, which is *way* more than they're entitled to. But if she has to go to court to have a judge tell them they're only entitled to the correct amount, she's going to have a judgement for that amount. It's kind of like this: I owe you $100, so you sue me for $500. My choices would be to pay you $400 extra that you aren't owed or argue in court that I only owe $100. If I do that, though, my credit will be damaged. I'm screwed no matter what I do. workon 2 hard ============== You have just given the reason why reporting judgments needs to be outlawed. If I were your friend I would be tempted to separately sue the Check Cashing place for the 800 and the employee for 400. After I paid this. .. ..
She needs to check her state's laws on returned checks! In TX, the maximum fee is $25. Not a dime more for bs "processing". If they are over-charging her, look in the statutes in see if she can counter-sue, then they might be willing to settle out of court.
Re: Re: Judgements & credit 1*That is what i was saying here: they aren't allowed to collect any thing that isn't permitted under state law governing bad checks. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 2*The over charges may be because of this: They can't apply their customer agreements to your friend like this because she is not their customer.
Re: Re: Judgements & credit I wanted to thank everyone for all the information and input on this. I always appreciate what a great place this is to come for advice from others on these kinds of things. I also found out something that I *think* is good news for my friend. The lawsuit does not have her name on it as defendant; it has the name of her business, which is now closed. I would assume, then, that even though she's going to lose in court, the public record of the judgement will reflect the business name only and not her name. Thus, I wouldn't think it would ever appear on her personal credit report. The business was a sole proprietorship, so to sue the business is to sue her, of course. However, when the CRA's gather public record info, they're just looking at names, right? So, if her name isn't on it, there wouldn't be any reason for it to show up on her credit unless someone bothered to do some leg-work. Right? Anyone want to tell me I have this wrong before I get too excited? Ha ha.
Re: Re: Judgements & credit Another new (and promising) wrinkle! If she's not properly named, there might not even be proper service of the complaint (or worse yet--no real cause of action or "case"), depending on the rules of civil procedure in your area. Any judgment received might be a nullity. She should consult with a lawyer who goes to court ... just pay for 1/2 hour if she can. It wouldn't necessarily be stupid to play possum, let them get a worthless judgment, then ask them if they want to settle for a very reduced amount or pay to do the whole thing all over again. They might just decide to take the costs they've sunk in this thing so far out of the hide of their malpracticing attorney... If I'm going to sue someone, you bet I'm going to put "Bob Smith d/b/a 'Bob's Septic Service'" on the style of the complaint. I'm not going to style my complaing "Me vs. Bob's Septic Service" under any circumstances. There's no real defendant there unless there's a corporation or LLC (in which case there should be "Inc" "Corp" or "Company" or "LLC" and "A Florida Corporation (or LLC)" on the style).
Re: Re: Re: Judgements & credit There isn't any time to consult an attorney; court date is Monday (1/12), first thing in the morning. That said, I have a few moer questions about what you've said: 1. Wouldn't any claim of "improper service" be sort of nullified by the fact that she *did* receive the served papers and respond to them? 2. By "play possum", do you mean don't show up for court? One can't really "play possum" once one has filed a response to the complaint, can one? 3. When you say "There's no real defendant there unless there's a corporation or LLC", are you sure about this? Since "Company X" is, in fact, herself...isn't she still the "real defendant"? 4. How do CRA's get their public records info? Don't they just scan the records for names? If so, then if her name doesn't appear in any public record, isn't it true that there's very little risk of this judgement showing up on her personal credit report(s)? ** #4 is most important, if anyone knows. If I'm right about that one, she's not going to worry about the rest. She'll just "let it ride", lose the case, pay it, and go get the money back from the former employee.
Re: Re: Re: Judgements & credit Given all the water that's already gone under the bridge, I think she may have waived the issue of whether the court has established jurisdiction over her personally, but it wouldn't hurt to spring it at the beginning of Monday's hearing. "Your honor, I move to dismiss this cause on the grounds that the Defendant has named no natural person or corporate entitity in its complaint." Now, if she did not have a proper fictitious trade name filing, this could backfire and she mightn't be able to defend the case under the laws of her state. Also, Defendant might be granted an (improper, IMHO) on-the-fly amendment to add her name to the style of the case, which we definitely don't want. As long as her name doesn't appear on the judgment, you're right that CRAs are unlikely to put the tradeline in her reports.
Re: Re: Re: Judgements & credit The former employee may have committed fraud here. I would still like to know why the check was cashed at one of those gyp joints. Something don't seem right about that. Why would there be any need to go there when the employe could have gone to any bank especially the one the check was drawn on, or even a grocery store. This deal don't line up with the normal operation of a check cashing place.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Judgements & credit A lot of employees are unbanked. And there are banks that don't want to cash checks drawn at that bank for non-customers. They make them stand in a special line that moves more slowly, thumbprint them, and I've even heard of banks not doing it period (which seems to me like it vitiates the meaning of the check, but somehow they get away with it). Grocery stores are getting out of the biz of cashing payroll checks. That leaves the check-cashing places, which have sprung up for good and sufficient reasons...
Re: Re: Re: Re: Judgements & credit I asked, since it's been brought up a couple of times. Here's why, according to former employee: She didn't have a bank account of her own, and the bank (B of A) that the check was drawn on would charge her a fee to cash it because she's a non-customer. The fee at the check cashing joint only came to twenty cents more than the bank's own fee, and the check cashing joint is open twenty-four hours, so she could take care of it at night. So, that's where she went. Apparently she'd been cashing her checks there for a long time; it was only the last one that was problematic. And by the way, there are no grocery stores in this area that cash checks anymore, at least as far as I know.
