Check Bounced offered to pay refused now want 11x the amount

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why_

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This will be long but I will try to get all relevant information into this one post so that a good idea of what is going on can be mentioned.

Back almost a year ago we allowed a couple to move into our house. My wife and the female because they were not married agreed on $350 dollar rent which included utilities and split food down the middle. However I felt that was low and me and the male friend sat down and he told me that he thought that was too low and wanted to raise it to 500 I agree'd we shook hands and that was the end of it. So there is the first agreement.

During the course of this I was a long distance truck driver and gone sunday night - friday evening. Basically I would be home 36 hours for the most part. My wife and the female went to the store of something of that nature and got groceries. My wife wrote this female a check for 59 dollars with plenty of money to cover the check. 2 weeks later I got screwed by the trucking company that I was working for so I was stuck in Indiana and I asked my wife to come get me. My wife told this unnamed female hold the check till after we get back and I could give her cash. She was told the check was not good because it was going to cost my wife 300 to 400 dollars to drive to indiana and get me. This female said "Okay".

2 months later they come up one sunday morning to my office and let us know they are moving out right now and that the check that was written bounced. (At this point I did not even know there was a check). I said I am sorry and I will pay the check plus the merchant/bank fees so 59.00 + 30 + 25 max. She said okay and they moved out now they moved out and had not paid rent one yet. So no rent, no utilities at this time had been paid by them. They had contributed to the grocery.

2 weeks later I recieve an email with an excel document saying I owe her for the check plus all her checks that bounced plus all bank fees from every check and every mechant saying its my fault that because my wifes 60 dollar check bounced it caused 300 dollars of other stuff to bounce.

Her words.

Returned Deposit : $56.00
Bank Fees: $400.00
Merchant Fees: $150.00
Total Due: $606.00

She broke down All the fees, charges, checks that bounced because of this, the check bounced twice in her deposit on 5/9 and 5/12 2005.

I felt this was a little high when you think that 606.00 / 56.00 = 10.812 x the amount of the check.

At which point I told her that at the time of her move I prorated her rent/utilities to
275 for rent 21.72 for power 45.72 for cable 14.28 for city water 28.50 for gas total being 363.50 and I would subtract that from the 606.00 and pay her 193 dollars and we can call it even. She said no. This drug on for a few months and I finally got tired of it and being threatened with legal action. So I wrote a promisary note saying I would pay the 600 dollars at 50 dollars a week starting from the day we recieved a signed copy.

We gave them 2 copys to sign one for them one for us. They never returned a copy so I never started paying them the money because 1) I did not feel it was owed to them in that amount. 2) The promisary note included a no legal recourse when agree'ed to.

We have numerous emails with all this and the legal threats and things like "Why dont we just forget it and move on" from them.

Now a few weeks ago I got an email asking if I was going to pay the note. I never got a chance to respond, now on my wifes birthday we get an instant message stating .

That they went to the magistrates and talked to a laywer and supposedly they said that they can charge me and my wife with check fraud since we did not reimburse them within 15 days of the signing of the promisary note(which we dont know if it was signed because there was never a signed copy returned to us)

She is now threatening to take criminal charges as well as take it to small claims and charge us . 600 dollars for the promisary note, 65 to file, 15 per person served, personal damages negligence basically the total amount of the suite would be

606+48+65+30+656.69 = 1405.69 plus +386 for legal fees.

I am a little confused as to what is legal I do want to fix the check but I refuse to be extorted which I feel like is happening. She also knows that I am the only person working in my house due to 3 children at home and she knows that I am currently in bankruptcy which happened a few months after she moved out because I could not keep up with the costs that were incured while they where here and my normal bills and I only make a little over 30k a year. Which means by all practical purposes I have no money.


NOW: the whole time she is threatening me she is also including things like "Wouldn't it be easier just to honor the promisary note" and things of this nature like she does not have a leg to stand on and just trying to play me and my wife like we are stupid. I need to know if they do have a leg to stand on so I can figure out what to do.

I'm lost, and confused. Anyone help?
 
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