Check-Bouncers Get Their Names Posted --- (Hope JimRob doesn't get any ideas)

NW Cable News ^ | 09/16/03 | Staff Writer

[bedolido]

EASTON, Pa. (AP) -- Those who pay their tabs with bad checks get top billing on the marquee in front the Park Avenue Market.

It's Vic Ricci's way of getting back at customers who bounce checks.

The 52-year-old grocer said he started doing it in January when an infrequent shopper bounced a check for almost $200. He said he tried phoning the man, but the number was no longer in service. Then he went to the man's home and the man said he desperately needed food for his family.

"I said, 'Give me a call every few weeks so I know you didn't forget about me,'" Ricci said. "He never did."

So Ricci cleared a spot on his marquee that normally displays specials and exposed the man publicly. A few days later, the man showed up at the store with about $100, Ricci said. He said he wouldn't remove the name until he recovered all the money.

Ricci said he wouldn't publicly humiliate someone who makes an honest mistake, or who makes payment arrangements.

"Your name only goes up there if you ignore me," he said.

Ricci said he's gotten only positive response from his customers, with the only concern raised being legalities.

"People ask me if it's legal. I say I don't care," he said. "If you can't pay a $25 check, how can you pay a lawyer? If someone wants to take me to court, I'll go."

Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Just don't write any hot checks to JimRob.

[dts32041]

I don't use checks I use Paypal once a month 20 bucks helps run the servers.

Now if a 1500 of us did this once a month, I would have to see that silly ostrich looking at me every three months.

[NittanyLion]

Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry bounces a clown check and the bodega owner posts it by the register.

[RightField]

#5
I used to take registration money for the local Pop Warner league. We had a cork bulletin board propped up on the registration table with all the bounced registration checks from the previous year on it, for all to see. We actually recovered some of the money, too!!

Whatever happened to shame?

[Alberta's Child]

There was a story like this a few years ago out of a small town in a rural area of the South. The bizarre part of the story was that a new mayor had just been elected -- and at the age of 17, he was apparently the youngest mayor on record.

The citizens of the town elected him because he had a very creative way of dealing with the town's ongoing problem with tax delinquencies -- he would order the public works department to turn off the streetlight in front of any house that was in arrears on its tax payments.

[jimkress]

Whatever happened to shame?

Bill Clinton and his democRAT supporters, political and media, made shame irrelevant. After all, everyone does it, don't they?

[Earl B.]

"People ask me if it's legal. I say I don't care"

This is so dang typical. The guy is a crime victim. He has been ripped off. His goods have been stolen. But people don't care that theft is illegal. Instead, people are concerned that publicly posting the names of unrepentant thieves might somehow violate the crook's rights.

ARRRRGGGGGgghhhh!

[freep_toad]

Well said, EB, and how very true.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Well I googled 'til I dropped and still couldn't find the names in the House of Representatives' Bank of the Sergeant-at-Arms (I believe it was called) scandal.

Since it appears that the list of names was never released or it's been purged I will assume that every Democ-->rat member of Congress during that party's control of the House was a crook.

I do know for sure that Ms Barbara Boxer was one of the worse criminal check bouncers.

[carenot]

Instead, people are concerned that publicly posting the names of unrepentant thieves might somehow violate the crook's rights.

The man that owns the little store about 6 blocks from me started taping the returned checks on the inside of his popcorn machine. Some were years old. Most were paid

[Grampa Dave]

One of our local grocery owners did this a couple of years ago in his three stores. Anyone whose name was on that list could not go through the check out lines unless they paid cash for the bad debts and the current groceries.

They had two lists:

1. Check bouncers

2. Those who used bad credit cards (before the now instant online checkup).

The checkout clerks knew the customers fairly well in the stores. I was behind a babe who parked her Jag in the parking lot, went to the organic food, expensive meat cuts and expensive deli items.

She ended up in front of me in the check outline. The clerk said that she could not check her out because she had two big checks that bounced. The clerk pointed to her name on a list on a clipboard. The Jag Babe screamed for the manager. The female manager just loaded the Babe's food items back in the cart and told her to shop at another store. The Jag Babe went to her Jag and left. I haven't seen her since then.