SORN scam 879

Erm, no, there would be a pile of summons in the name of someone who didn't live at the house. Wouldn't have anything to do with any of the people actually living there.

Fair enough, that is a 'belt and braces' way of doing things, but as far as most people are concerned - there's a name, address and signature on there that absolves them of any responsibility for the car from then on, and that'll do.

Really getting the money is one thing. Tracing them afterwards is another. But even if you could trace them, it'd be a legal minefield to get any money from them as it'd be one person's word against the other, and then usually have to involve the small claims court, and even then you can't get blood out of a stone - if they've got no money you won't get any out of them. I don't know what happens after that - do the small claims court refer it to the County Court, ending up with a CCJ for the debtor? I wouldn't know.

At the end of the day, a few simple checks can be done to confirm the validity of a banker's draft - well one really - find the phone number of the bank with the sort code on the draft, phone them up, and ask if it's one that they issued. If you're dealing with cash it's a bit more tricky - there are a lot of fake notes floating about, but the majority are genuine, and a lot of people do pay for cars with cash, that they've drawn from the bank that day (by walking in, cash cards have limits obviously). All depends on the sort of person you're dealing with, but appearances can be deceptive.

Thing is, how well does your average bank branch actually check notes as they're paid in over the counter? I've paid in varying amounts of cash up to around a grand (so admittedly not huge amounts) on different occasions, and not once have I seen them run every note under a UV light, or rub the coloured bit on plain paper to see if it comes off, or tear it to look at the foil, or anything else for that matter. They've just counted them up, and put them in the till.

They may well do a proper check at some point on the whole of the bank's stock, at close of play, but I've never seen them do it in front of me for anything I've ever paid in. So if was to have been given fakes (or at least a proportion of fakes included in the money I was paid for a car) I can't see how it would affect me, as by the time they found them they wouldn't be able to attribute them to my account. So *from my experience* I can't see how being fake notes would make a difference - all it would mean is that the bank would be down by £love at the end of the day, and feeling a bit silly for it, for not making proper checks. They'd probably only question them if they either looked decidedly dodgy, and-or it was a much larger sum of cash, and-or they'd had a fair few recent reports of dodgy notes in that area.

Well, as I've said above, I'd take proper steps into verifying the payment before completing the deal and handing over keys to the car. With a banker's draft it's easy if you're not a complete imbecile, and with cash it's a tad more tricky, but if you found out later that the notes were dodgy, it'd be damn near impossible to prove that those particular notes came from the person who bought the car from you, as you can bet your bottom dollar they'd deny it.

So, some form of a name, address and signature to absolve me of any future responsibility for that car will do for me, thanks.

Peter