Bankruptcy and small claims court

[uwishtoo]

On July 16th I entered into a buyer/seller contract for payments for some old items I had for sale on some auctions. I didnt get the payments until August 8th - I cashed them on that date and distributed the money to the people that I had sold most of these items on consignment for - so of course I dont have the funds anymore.

I closed my bank account with that bank due to a disagreement with a loan officer and I notified him that I would be doing so way back in June - well before the auctions ever happened. The account was closed on August 23rd.

On August 25th I received a call from the former CU telling me that I owed them 1800 for the MO's that turned out to be counterfeit.

I suppose my question is two fold here:

# 1 - why cant this debt be included in with the bankruptcy since the CONTRACTUAL sale agreement was done when the buyer won the auctions, which was well before my filing of bankruptcy and my meeting with the trustee on the 26th ? I look at it this way- if the buyer had paid with paypal after the auction ended that date would have been before the date of my bankruptcy meeting and WOULD have been able to be included. So is it my fault she paid my money order ?

# 2 - if it cannot be included, then what is my best defense against this fraud?

I did nothing wrong knowingly - in my mind the credit unions and banks were all notified according to the USPS wwebsite that this was going on while I didnt have a CLUE that this would happen. Doesnt the credit union have some kind of responsibility for not educating their tellers what to look for ??

Ideally I would of course, like to have this included in my bankruptcy rather than going through the mess of small claims court.

Any help would be appreciated.

my email is uwishtoo@att.net

Thank you

 

[Michael Wechsler]

I'm confused -- what fraud are you talking about? I'm not sure I understand the transactions involved. Second, I'm not sure what the credit union has to do with this. If you enter a transaction which involves you making a payment, the other party is not required to accept any endorsed checks from anyone else. The agreement is directly with you. There are other issues but I'm not clear on what happened.

Certain items cannot be discharged in bankruptcy -- and I'm sorry that you are experiencing this. I wish you the best of luck.

On July 16th I entered into a buyer/seller contract for payments for some old items I had for sale on some auctions. I didnt get the payments until August 8th - I cashed them on that date and distributed the money to the people that I had sold most of these items on consignment for - so of course I dont have the funds anymore.

I closed my bank account with that bank due to a disagreement with a loan officer and I notified him that I would be doing so way back in June - well before the auctions ever happened. The account was closed on August 23rd.

On August 25th I received a call from the former CU telling me that I owed them 1800 for the MO's that turned out to be counterfeit.

I suppose my question is two fold here:

# 1 - why cant this debt be included in with the bankruptcy since the CONTRACTUAL sale agreement was done when the buyer won the auctions, which was well before my filing of bankruptcy and my meeting with the trustee on the 26th ? I look at it this way- if the buyer had paid with paypal after the auction ended that date would have been before the date of my bankruptcy meeting and WOULD have been able to be included. So is it my fault she paid my money order ?

# 2 - if it cannot be included, then what is my best defense against this fraud?

I did nothing wrong knowingly - in my mind the credit unions and banks were all notified according to the USPS wwebsite that this was going on while I didnt have a CLUE that this would happen. Doesnt the credit union have some kind of responsibility for not educating their tellers what to look for ??

Ideally I would of course, like to have this included in my bankruptcy rather than going through the mess of small claims court.

Any help would be appreciated.

my email is uwishtoo@att.net

Thank you

 

[uwishtoo]

answer to lawprofessor

I didnt write checks to anyone, I sold some stuff on Yahoo auctions, got the money orders, cashed them and then they turned out to be counterfeit. The CU hasd everything to do with it in my mind, they had the obligation to check all incoming checks or money orders for being fraudulent. It is posted all over the internet, I found that out too late for me of course, but the CU should have shown some training in their employees being able to know and recongize the MO as being fake. I had no clue -

The fact that I felt that they should be included in my bankruptcy was due to the fact that the transaction and sale took place BEFORE my bankruptcy was completely through the courts. So in my mind, the contract was in stone at that time. If I had gotten the money orders like 2 days earlier I would have been able to include them since they would have been within the time of my bankruptcy and me being able to add things to it. But too late, I settled out of court and just ate the 1800 loss of merchandise and funds.

The other day I got another USPS MO for another auction and this time I called a hotline that the USPS has set up to check the validity of the MO's and that one was fine. So now that I know about the fake MO's being passed around, which I didnt the first time, I will check them out now when I sell and get tha kind of payment.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

I didnt write checks to anyone, I sold some stuff on Yahoo auctions, got the money orders, cashed them and then they turned out to be counterfeit. The CU hasd everything to do with it in my mind, they had the obligation to check all incoming checks or money orders for being fraudulent. It is posted all over the internet, I found that out too late for me of course, but the CU should have shown some training in their employees being able to know and recongize the MO as being fake. I had no clue -

The fact that I felt that they should be included in my bankruptcy was due to the fact that the transaction and sale took place BEFORE my bankruptcy was completely through the courts. So in my mind, the contract was in stone at that time. If I had gotten the money orders like 2 days earlier I would have been able to include them since they would have been within the time of my bankruptcy and me being able to add things to it. But too late, I settled out of court and just ate the 1800 loss of merchandise and funds.

The other day I got another USPS MO for another auction and this time I called a hotline that the USPS has set up to check the validity of the MO's and that one was fine. So now that I know about the fake MO's being passed around, which I didnt the first time, I will check them out now when I sell and get tha kind of payment.

OK, now I understand. You sold items online and received money orders and checks that turned out to be counterfeit. You got them cashed somewhere -- did you sign anything? Was there an agreement or receipt they gave to you? Did it say whether or not your presentation of these checks and money orders for cashing meant that you were guaranteeing the validity of the instruments? If so, then they had a definite contractual right to come after you for the money. Otherwise we are talking about a whole different issue -- but I'll bet that these people have been in business for a while and likely have some type of protection as such. Can you update us with this information?