September 16, 2024 - Two weeks ago, a system error at Chase Bank was allowing people to deposit checks and then immediately withdraw the money they deposited, regardless of the amount of the check. Not really a big deal if the checks being deposited were good. And even if they weren’t good, under normal circumstances, most people wouldn’t know about the error and wouldn’t be able to take advantage of it. But in this case someone with a large Tik-Tok following found out about the issue and decided to broadcast it. And that is when the chaos began.

Once word of the problem at Chase got out, a whole bunch of not-so-bright people decided that they would write some large checks that were no good, deposit them in their accounts and then withdraw the money. And a lot of these not-so-bright people even filmed themselves doing this and made foolish statements. In one video that I saw, the person making the video actually bragged that the cash had had just withdrawn was “free money.” There were even videos of people lined up at Chase ATMs to try to scam the bank. You really have to wonder about some people, but as the old saying goes, you can’t fix stupid.

Writing checks that you know aren’t good is a crime. It’s fraud and it can be prosecuted at both the state and federal levels. In most cases of check fraud though, the person writing the check is trying to pass it off to someone who doesn’t know much about them. They’re probably using a stolen identity and think that it will be relatively difficult for anyone to track them down. But not in this case. Every single person who participated in this particular crime did just exactly the opposite.

Everyone who tried to take advantage of Chase had to have an account there. Every single one of them had to deposit a bad check into that account at an ATM, using their own PIN. And every one of the ATMs used was taking pictures of them as they made their deposit. In other words, Chase knew immediately who committed the crime, got it on camera, knew the amount of money being stolen and had all of the contact information for the people involved.

So this group of master-mind criminals now have a couple of problems. First, Chase has informed them that they owe the bank the money they took. Second, the bank has now announced that it has been working with law enforcement on this case. It’s a pretty safe bet that some of these folks are going to face some significant fines and perhaps even some jail time as a result of their actions.

What in the world were these people thinking? How do you get to the point where participating in something like this sounds like a good idea?

Note to self: If you are going to steal from someone, don’t steal from someone who knows everything about you. 

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