Financial Advice FROM Dummies

Sadly, I know very little about finance, investments and/or the stock market. And I'm the first to admit that I could benefit from sound financial advice. However, it doesn't take a genius to tell the difference between good advice and the warped (read: illegal) recommendations from the functionally insane.

My former coworker, Brian, passed a gem onto me that I thought I would share. You may remember Brian as the guy who thought it was perfectly legal to sell photocopies of textbooks to the students of the local college where we both once worked (using the college's copy machine, no less!). I guess you can best describe him as a dangerous combination of drive and ineptness.

Anyway, Brian and I were sitting around one slow afternoon talking about... um... Shoot, I can't remember! But it was definitely about something I couldn't afford, because that's why Brian advised me on a "good way" to get some fast cash. And not just any advice, but something that he's road-tested himself!

The Advice:

• Write a check to yourself from your own checkbook. (Is your checking account at a zero balance? That's cool. Write that bad boy anyway!)


• Deposit the check back into the same account via your bank's ATM machine. (Fortunately, an ATM can't tell the difference between a real deposit and this rubber-tastic one.)


• Use the same ATM to withdraw a portion of the funds. (Of course, this was back during the halcyon days when ATMs let you withdraw money from current deposits. Why can't you do that anymore? This is why.)


• Congratulations, you are now flush with funds! Spend it as wisely as you obtained it!

Wow. Just wow. I mean, I'm not a criminal mastermind, but with Google's help, I do know that most check kiting scams involve two or more banks-- so that there's a delay before the scammers are found out. But if you perpetrate fraud on only one bank, then it will take them less than a day to discover that you are a scheming moron.

When asked, Brian told me that the bank refrained from pressing criminal charges (maybe because the damages were less than $1000), but his account was immediately closed (surprise!), and since then he had been unable to open a new checking account anywhere else.

The kicker is that he was recommending this plan to me. He still thought this was a good idea in case of an emergency. I can't imagine what that emergency could be. Maybe I'm in desperate need of the free room and board offered by Cook County Jail, but I'm too squeamish to assault somebody?

You know, I haven't seen Brian in several years. Maybe he had one "good" idea too many.

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