Threatened With Prosecution Over Bad Checks, Many Years Later

Many years ago, as a teenager, a Texas man wrote two bad (NSF) checks to a pizza store. The checks were never paid, but he didn't ever hear anything from the store or the police.

More than ten years later, the man's mother (who he lived with when the checks were issued) was contacted by somebody who claims that the man owes $25,000 in restitution and court fees, and that if the man doesn't pay that he can go to prison.

The man has never had anything show up on his record, no warrants or charges, during employment background checks. Could the demand be real?

On its face, it sounds like a scam. But it is not clear how the scammer would have learned of the incident if no action was ever taken on the bad checks.

The man should check for collection activity on his credit report. He should also contact the court in the county in which the checks were issued to see if any cases were ever opened under his name.

If the person who called left contact information, he should investigate that information to try to determine if it is an actual debt collector (unlikely), a junk debt collector (more likely) or an unidentifiable person or entity that is trying to trick him into paying them a great deal of money.

The statute of limitations for the crimes at issue would almost certainly have run inside of two to three years. The amount does not seem reasonably related to the probable amounts of the checks, even allowing for court costs and a decade of interest.