Unfunded Checks

Once upon a time, a Filipino couple rented a house. They issued PDCs for the rent. Everything went smoothly until...

One day, she received a notice of termination for utility services for the leased house. She tried contacting the tenant to inform them. But they could no longer be reached.

When the couple first saw the house, they seemed like a couple who "could afford." They came in a sports car and were accompanied by bodyguards. The weird thing is, they wanted to move in a week from seeing the house.

The owner checked her bank statements and was surprised to discover that PDCs going back six months bounced. The first few rental payments were okay. The bank never informed her about the returned checks.

The owner forcibly entered the house with the village admin. She was SHOCKED by what she saw.

The ACs were left continuously working for months (the last time the tenant was seen in the house. There were puddles of water on the floor from the ACs, and the ceilings bore signs of water damage.

Since the unpaid bills and damage to her property far exceeded their security deposit, she wanted to sue them. Alas, she found out that they used fake government IDs.

End of Story.

Lessons:

1. Verify the IDs submitted by tenants. I'm now under the impression that company IDs are better than government-issued IDs since the former can more easily be verified.

2. Check your bank statements periodically. Apparently some banks don't inform clients about returned checks. The owner’s main branch pointed their finger to the branch where they deposited the check.

A lesson I learned was to continuously deposit unfunded checks. Banks impose penalties on the issuer's account each time a check is returned. When the bank account balance becomes negative, banks will automatically close that account. So when the next check bounces, it would be due to issuance from a closed bank account. This would prompt the bank to flag the issuer's name in the negative database which is shared across all banks. They won't be able to open new bank accounts and possibly have their credit card canceled.