16 Aug
2000
16 Aug
'00
6:08 p.m.
On Wed, 16 Aug 2000 Glenatacme(a)aol.com wrote:
I made a few phone calls today. I live in Orlando FL
so I'll assume the
"system" here is a typical one. Those living in rural areas or smaller
cities might find that they can get better results due to smaller caseloads.
What goes in Orlando, FL, is certainly not indicative of what may go on in
other parts of the country. Priorities may be different, and caseloads
may be far less than in Orlando (which is one of the U.S.A's dens of
iniquity :) (just joking, Orlando is a fine city.)
The State Attorney's office (that's what they
call them here, in most places
it's District Atty.) actively discouraged me from filing a complaint when I
called pretending to be the victim in this scenario. Reasons: small $$$
amount, giant backlog of cases.
Again, where Jim lives may be entirely different. The D.A. may have a
wild hair up his/her ass about mail fraud and may want to prosecute this.
Or they may believe, as should be the case everywhere, that people are
entitled to due process and the service of their public servants.
The County Clerk of Courts also made it clear that
filing a civil suit in
Small Claims would be a waste of time and money. The filing charge here is
$100, and a $200 suit will be referred to arbitration, and will take a year
or two just to make it to court, if it ever does.
And the losing party pays the legal bills generally (in effect you also
sue for court costs). And again, this is entirely specific to the bylaws
of Orlando, FL.
The Economic Crimes Unit of the Sheriff's Office
said they are so inundated
with bad checks that they won't even prosecute a bad check if it's less than
$150, and since they don't know a computer from a compost heap, they wouldn't
touch this one.
...in Orlando, FL.
The USPS rep I spoke with was sympathetic but said
that they don't go after
one-hit crooks. If 100 people complained about this guy then that might get
their attention.
Ok, so the USPS is a bust. Screw them. Their service sucks anyway.
So, it's on you. If it were me I wound hound this
guy until he gave me back
my $$$ just to get rid of me. If that didn't work I would make sure that I
got $200 worth of satisfaction out of him, one way or another.
I've got a wonderful bag of tricks. E-mail me off-list.
Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking for a six in a pile of nines...
VCF 4.0 is September 30-October 1
San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, California
See http://www.vintage.org for details!