Legal Question in Criminal Law in California
I received a call today from the office of a Detective Mullinax stating that I had an outstanding debt for a check that bounced in 2004 while I was stationed there. This call stated if not paid I would have my info given to the county courts to get a warrant issued for my arrest, so my parents paid because I did not have the full amount in the bank to cover. I figured that this had to be done so that my pension will be stopped if I were to end up arrested, and my financial situation would be much more dire that it already is. Since I just filed for bankruptcy, would this have triggered this type of collection. My question is what is the GA statute in years for bounced checks and did I get scammed?
3 Answers from Attorneys
You were scammed. Writing a bad check is not a crime unless the person knew prior to writing the check that there were insufficient funds to cover the check. Threatening to have someone arrested to enforce a past debt is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. If you are interested in pursuing this matter, please feel free to contact my office.
You mention GA, which is Georgia. You need to repost your question in the category for Georgia attorneys to advise you. In California, this sort of thing would be considered a scam.
Sounds like a scam to me. Bouncing a check isn't a crime unless it's done deliberately. Even then, paying the debt would not erase the crime.
Besides, real detectives don't act as private debt collectors. And a debt from 2004 is probably not enforceable any more.
Mr. Roach is right that your question is about Georgia law, so you should re-post it under that state. But I'll be very surprised if the answer in Georgia is different from what it would be here in California.
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