With the stroke of a pen

By Cindy Landrum  

MARCH 9, 2011 2:57 p.m. (0)

Les Cooper tried for months to collect on a $369 bad check a woman had written him for a new mattress set.

She told Cooper several times she would come back to 101 Home Furnishings to make the check good – at the end of the week when she got paid, after she got home from a trip, and by 5 p.m. the day a police officer knocked on her door and told her she needed to pay up.

“I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt,” he said. “I just wanted my money.”

But after a long string of broken payment promises, Cooper turned the bad check over to the 7th Circuit Solicitor’s Office’s worthless check program.

He had his money within days.

Since its inception in 2004, more than $4 million has been collected for Spartanburg County merchants and local government through the program designed to recoup money for business owners and keep bad check writers out of a clogged court system and overcrowded jails.

“I’m just so thankful for this program,” Cooper said. “It’s a real godsend to small business owners.”

Greenville County began a worthless check program on March 1.

Before the worthless check program started in Spartanburg County in July 2004, merchants had three ways to try to collect on bad checks.

They could try to collect the money themselves, they could take time to go to an overcrowded magistrate’s court system and get a warrant that would have to be served by an overworked Sheriff’s Office or they could hire a private collection agency.

“I lost more money in bad checks going through the old system,” Cooper said. “It was about useless to get a warrant.”

Each alternative cost merchants time or money or both, said Assistant Solicitor Wes Boyd.

“A lot of these merchants are small businessmen and it affects them personally and directly,” Boyd said. “Sometimes the expense and time it takes to collect on a check is more than the check is written for.”

If they decided to turn the check over to a collection agency, they were out money, too.

“We don’t think somebody should have to pay to get their own money back,” said Sheila Davis-Henderson, director of the worthless check program.

There were thousands of unserved bad check warrants when the program started.

The program has holders of bad checks complete a one-page information form and submit the bank’s legal copy of the bad check.

The Solicitor’s Offices tracks down the offender and sends a letter demanding payment for the bad check. The victims receive the full amount of the check plus the bank-levied service charge.

The bad check writer is also charged $41 in court costs and a fee ranging from $50 to $150, depending on the amount of the check. If they pay before an arrest warrant is issued, they won’t have a criminal record.

If the offender fails to pay the full amount, the case is referred to court for prosecution.

Most cases are settled before they get to magistrate’s court, Davis-Henderson said.

Of the 17,254 checks turned in to the program so far, 8,949 were collected and the cases closed before a warrant had to be issued, she said. Another 2,602 cases were dismissed after a warrant was issued because the person paid up. The defendant can petition for the case to be expunged from their record, Davis-Henderson said.

Four hundred twenty-eight cases were dismissed after authorities determined the signature had been forged.

The rest of the cases are either making their way through the system or have been adjudicated.

During a busy week, the Solicitor’s Office sends 200 to 300 letters to bad check writers.

“The letter coming from the Solicitor’s Office gets their attention,” Cooper said. “They can see it’s no longer between me and the person I wrote the check to.”

He said he’s collected only a fraction of the last bad check he signed out a warrant on.

“To this day, I’ve received about $150 on that $1,400 check,” said Cooper, who said the man has two vehicles and a motorcycle, property he could sell to make the check good.

A week before Cooper got stuck with the check, a nearby convenience store was robbed by a man who handed the clerk a hand-written hold-up note.

Minutes after the robbery, the parking lot was full of patrol cars. Bloodhounds were called in to try to track down the man who got $750 out of the cash register.

“I was robbed with the same instrument – a pen and a piece of paper,” he said. “The only difference was the piece of paper in my case was a check. You can go in and rob a bank with a pen and a piece of paper and you’ll go to prison for years. They’re doing the same thing to us with bad checks. They’re robbing us.”