Josh Elledge - Chief Executive Angel
If you received a check in the mail today for $95,093.35 what would you do with it? This is exactly what happened to Patrick Combs and his story goes like this.
What started out as a practical joke ended up to be no laughing matter, for the bank that is. You see, it seems that when Patrick Combs received this non-negotiable check in the mail as a promotional gimmick, he decided to deposit the check into his checking account. He seriously did not expect what happened next.
Instead of getting a bounced check notice from the bank, the entire $95,093.35 was deposited into his account. After waiting 7 days for the bank to reverse the process and extract the money from his account, just the opposite happened. Mr. Combs was informed by a bank employee that the funds were available for withdrawal. What?!!
Still expecting that the bank would catch their error and take the money back, Mr. Combs resisted the urge to grab the cash and take off to Mexico and left the money alone for another agonizing 2 weeks. Nothing happened. In the meantime, a trip to the law library revealed that “in the United States, when a bank receives notice that a check paid into your account has bounced, it has 24 hours to notify you and, if it fails to do this, you are safe to spend the money”. Still being skeptical that he could really spend the money, he withdrew $95,000 in the form of a cashier’s check and safely put it into a safe deposit box, and waited some more.
So what happened to Patrick Combs and his $95,000 “heist”? Find out for yourself and read the rest of the story…
