I was reading a post by Stare At The Sun where he was talking about trying to sell his car and it was sounding like a bit of a scam was being worked on him. A reply to his post reminded me of this story.
Patrick Combs deposited a junk mail and obviously fake check in the amount of $95,093.35 through an ATM completely as a joke and to his shock and dismay the check cashed. The rest of the story which is a detailed account of what happened next is a great read. I found the time (maybe 15-20 minutes) to read the whole thing totally worth it. It's a very funny story and will explain a few things about how the banking system works. The later point explains the segue from Stare At The Sun's post (or actually a reply to it bolded here:
"Thirty days later your bank does its accounts and discovers that his 2000 check is from a fake account, and removes the deposit from your account. You've now sent him $1000, and your car, and he hasn't sent you anything."
Here is the link to the story:
Patrick Combs
The story shows up in the pop up window so just scroll down to start the read.
