THE CASE OF THE UNDEPOSITED CHECK Better Late Than Never
“You handled a case for [my relative or friend] years ago, and now …”
That’s how many phone calls to our office begin. Usually, the caller has suffered an injury, and our previous client referred them to us for representation. However, we recently received a call that began that way and went in a direction we didn’t expect. The caller was the mother of a young man we represented approximately 15 years ago. When the young man was a child, he suffered a severe injury due to negligent maintenance at a government housing project. A doorway had been left in a state of disrepair for an extended period at the front of the building. Near the door handle, a broken glass pane sat right at the height that foreseeably made it a curiosity for a child. Our client was that curious child, and he suffered the partial traumatic amputation of a finger when he reached through the broken pane. We sued the governmental agency that owned and maintained the housing complex and won a favorable settlement for our young client. The court ordered the funds deposited in a special bank account until the child was 18. The parents of the child separated around the time of the original settlement, and each parent was mistakenly under the impression that the other parent had taken care of opening the account and depositing the check. However, the original check had just been sitting in a drawer for all those years. In fact, the bank where the court had ordered the funds to be deposited, Greenpoint Savings Bank, no longer existed. The mother had no idea how to proceed. Getting our client his money was more complicated than simply writing a new check. To start with, the case predated the current computerized court system, so we had to bring the case’s filing status up to standard. Then we needed to request that the court modify the original order. When the client, now a strapping young man with a promising future, came to our office with his mother to collect the new check, his smile made navigating all the red tape associated with re-securing the payment worthwhile. While we hadn’t expected to see him again, it was a pleasure to help him a second time.
With AI capabilities growing daily, you need to be even more vigilant against potential scammers. We’ve already heard about AI’s power to create written content and, more recently, use musicians’ voices to sing different songs. So, how does this relate to scammers? Well, TikTok users and other online users have shared a new scam that utilizes AI to drain the bank accounts of their family members called voice cloning. AI Scams: Voice Cloning Could Drain Your Bank Account! Scammers looking to steal thousands of dollars will use AI to replicate the voices of people who’ve posted their voices online via videos like TikTok. They’ll clone a person’s voice and then use it to call their relatives and pretend to be their children or grandchildren who need money as soon as possible. The person on the phone is a scammer, not your family member, even though they sound just like them. Never send money without first verifying whether it is or isn’t your relative. Some online users advise creating secret code words to exchange over the phone to confirm their family member is requesting the money. Always contact your relative and ask if they actually made the call. Remember, anyone who has posted a short clip of their voice can find it cloned with AI and used to scam their families. Stay safe!
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