Gentlemen:
Sorry in advance for the drama, but I just had a weird bit of commerce transpire..
We've decided to take down the scraggly buttonwood trees that line the back of the property and plant clusias (for those of you who don't live in a tropical hurricane zone, the clusia grows into an attractive 20ft hedge that requires zero maintenance and has no issues with heat, drought, or salt-water inundation). Struck a nice deal for 14 of them with a guy on Facebook™Marketplace®, and I took off from work to meet him at my house for the dropoff this afternoon. He said a check would be great. As the guy's helper was unloading the large plants off the trailer, I saw he was trying to do an electronic deposit of my check on his phone.
Fine.
Or so I thought.
"Sorry man, it's telling me that I am exceeding the max deposit amount of $250, so here is your check back since I cannot deposit this. You got cash or Venmo?"
"You've exceeded a deposit amount? I didn't realize there was such a thing."
"Believe me--I have deposited much bigger checks than this, so I don't know what's going on. We will have to work out a different payment, though."
It was an immediate red flag, like this guy from the other side of the state just deposited my check through his phone app, told me some BS about over-the-limit, and now wants me to double-pay through Venmo.
I was on hold with my bank for an uncomfortable 15 minutes ("Gotta go, man; taking too long. We got a long drive home") before a CS rep came on and verified the payment hadn't gone through. The only way to assure it wouldn't post would be to do a stop payment for $30, which I did.
Long story slightly less long, I hung up and paid the guy through PayPal, doing a friends & family payment for our initially-agreed amount, which was $25 less than the tip I told him I'd give him as his helper was unloading. He drove away, and as I was pulling out to return to work, he came right back and jumped out of his truck.
"Hey man, you shorted me $25. You gave me your word as a man."
"Yeah, my bank charged me $30 to make sure the electronic payment won't somehow go through later tonigh, and so I...."
"You gave me YOUR WORD, MOTHERFUCKER."
For a few seconds there I thought it was going to escalate, but he turned back to his truck and laid some rubber driving off. I also half-expected a few/all of the trees from the yard to be gone when I got back home from work, but they're still here.
BBI brethren, what say you? Was I being tight-underpantsed here, or did I do the smart thing by averting a swindle? I've never heard of "exceeding a maximum deposit amount of $250," and a quick google search shows no such thing either.
Just curious.
Even Venmo and the like is an ongoing scam if you're a seller. They send you a fake confirmation text from another number making it seem like you got the money and then they drive off with your stuff.
If I learned anything in the military, anytime something feels off it is.
He backed up your ill feelings by going
redneck and lowering the bar with unnecessary profanity which tells me he isn't very professional. That was uncalled for and had you actually unintentionally shorted him that display certainly lost any chance of a positive resolution.
I would have agreed with him and asked if he wanted to see pictures of me doing his mom or did he already have enough from the home movies.
If he wasn’t willing to work on personal checks, he shouldn’t have taken the one you gave him.
not knowing the market where you are and not being familiar with the specific plant, that sounds like a steal up here in the Northeast.
If I were going to buy a common shrub like Rhododendron, Forsythia or Hydrangeas they are probably $50+ each from a nursery maybe $30 from Lowe's or a place like that - and that's for small, not large.
As for the rest of it, I don't use facebook, but I feel like 50%+ of the transactions on craigslist are scams, so I wouldn't be surprised.
Just curious, what was the tip for? for him to take them off his truck? and you told him beforehand you were going to give him a tip?
not knowing the market where you are and not being familiar with the specific plant, that sounds like a steal up here in the Northeast.
If I were going to buy a common shrub like Rhododendron, Forsythia or Hydrangeas they are probably $50+ each from a nursery maybe $30 from Lowe's or a place like that - and that's for small, not large.
As for the rest of it, I don't use facebook, but I feel like 50%+ of the transactions on craigslist are scams, so I wouldn't be surprised.
Just curious, what was the tip for? for him to take them off his truck? and you told him beforehand you were going to give him a tip?
Hello Pjcas--
No; the $250 was the alleged maximum deposit amount imposed by his bank. The shrubs were $50 each, which was the cheapest price I found. As someone above alluded to, you get what you pay for when dealing with Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, etc. I got the check back, but at this point I'm hoping he didn't save a photo of it which would give him my account and routing numbers. The fact that he protested three times, "I didn't even take a picture of the check" makes me nervous.
not knowing the market where you are and not being familiar with the specific plant, that sounds like a steal up here in the Northeast.
If I were going to buy a common shrub like Rhododendron, Forsythia or Hydrangeas they are probably $50+ each from a nursery maybe $30 from Lowe's or a place like that - and that's for small, not large.
As for the rest of it, I don't use facebook, but I feel like 50%+ of the transactions on craigslist are scams, so I wouldn't be surprised.
Just curious, what was the tip for? for him to take them off his truck? and you told him beforehand you were going to give him a tip?
Hello Pjcas (Pt II)--
I had never met this guy, but a day after we agreed on the deal through messaging, he told me he gave me too good of a price and he was coming a far distance; that even though he quoted me free delivery on the quantity ordered, could I kick in more $$? When he arrived today, I offered I would give him another $25.
Quote:
14 large shrubs for $250?
not knowing the market where you are and not being familiar with the specific plant, that sounds like a steal up here in the Northeast.
If I were going to buy a common shrub like Rhododendron, Forsythia or Hydrangeas they are probably $50+ each from a nursery maybe $30 from Lowe's or a place like that - and that's for small, not large.
As for the rest of it, I don't use facebook, but I feel like 50%+ of the transactions on craigslist are scams, so I wouldn't be surprised.
Just curious, what was the tip for? for him to take them off his truck? and you told him beforehand you were going to give him a tip?
Hello Pjcas--
No; the $250 was the alleged maximum deposit amount imposed by his bank. The shrubs were $50 each, which was the cheapest price I found. As someone above alluded to, you get what you pay for when dealing with Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, etc. I got the check back, but at this point I'm hoping he didn't save a photo of it which would give him my account and routing numbers. The fact that he protested three times, "I didn't even take a picture of the check" makes me nervous.
got it. I think you have to take a picture of the check to deposit it through mobile banking (at least you do with Bank of America mobile app). I don't know if those pictures save anywhere or only in the app.
I don't feel like he's going to use your routing and account number because if he was, he would have just kept quiet and took the check with him. But since this incident he probably knows you will be suspicious.
Hopefully I'm wrong and you'll be fine. But if I was the one selling trees to a stranger I'd be asking for cash.
There is also a daily limit on the amount of what a person could deposit using the mobile app. I don't recall what the amount was (I'm thinking like over $10k) but in those instances the deposit would decline and the customer would either have to take the check to a branch to deposit in person or depending on their previous banking history with us, we could temporarily lift the restriction if there weren't any restrictions on their account or any obvious red flags. A member in our fraud department were always the ones to review those cases and lift the restriction.
To me it sounds like you did the correct thing in calling your bank and stopping the check. If he's banking with a different bank than you, your bank won't know until your check goes through processing.
I think there are two scenarios:
1) He was telling the truth, the deposit didn't go through. However, at this point he has taken a picture of your check, and it's without a doubt the right thing to do to cancel the check.
2) He lied, was trying to get you to pay with another form of payment, then ostensibly use the picture of the check to subsequently cash it.
I think scenario #1 is probably a little more likely.
As far as daily limits go, he may have made other electronic deposits that day that made your subsequent check exceed the limit. Maybe he only had $250 remaining for that day that he could electronically deposit, and misunderstood the bank's message. The other thing he could've done is called your bank to ensure the check was valid. You already called your bank, so while you were on the phone, perhaps it could've been worked out right then, without cancelling the check, and then he could've simply gone to his bank to cash it.
As far as daily limits go, he may have made other electronic deposits that day that made your subsequent check exceed the limit.
This is probably the answer. Chase has a mobile deposit limit of $2,000 per day and $5,000 per month for most account holders.
I've used FB Marketplace to sell. It's a good platform to unload stuff. You just have to be careful and use your street smarts.
Never give away your personal account info to a stranger.
Um, how does one stop payment on a check that was already cashed?