EPTDecember 20th, just last year, a "friend" I met at a party a year back (we hungout 5~ times after that) messages me on facebook. The kid was from some highschool party, he was really good friends with a dealer from my grade, but he himself, he was only in Grade 10. Anyways, so he shoots me a message, and he tells me if I could cash a cheque for him his mom gave him for Christmas, $200. Eh, what the hell, he said he will give me $10 bucks, and I'd be improving a relationship, why not, he doesn't have as TD account, maybe you can't cash cheques without having an account with them, I had that issue with Scotia Bank at one point in life.
Anyways, he tells me that his cousin and him will pick me up at 6:00pm, they ask me where, well I'm at my house, might as well just give them my address. I get in the car, a beautiful 20 or so year old woman driving this dark crocodile green jeep, the cousin next to her, covered in tattoo's, maybe 25. I take a seat in the back with Jake, he didn't seem in the talking mood too much, I figured he's just high, eyes seemed red.
Quick side story, I was supposed to hangout with my friend, and they were late, and so my friend actually arrived to my house and well I didn't want to leave her there, so I told them, she's gonna come with us, drive behind your car, and I'll go chill with her after we finish the situation.
The initial reaction was a little hesitant, I guess it wasn't what I was expecting, but we started moving and the cousin started talking, he seemed like a really nice guy, and any stressed sort of cleared. I felt secure, anyways, small chat on the way to the bank with the cousin really. We talked about what I do, and anyways, not too important, oh I found out he just got out of jail recently and isn't allowed to have any bank accounts or anything.
We come to the stop at a parking lot next to the bank, nobody is getting out and there is a brisk silence. The cousin pulls out a pistol and tells me the run down. Not a $200 cheque, a $6800 dollar cheque. I've been in shitty situations like this before, maybe this helped my composure, don't try any funny shit, "I shot someone and that's why I went in before, and nobody is putting me back there again." On the outside, I seemed calm. My brain was deep in thought, what could I do here? I come inside, there is only one person in the line, damn I wish I had more time. Should I just tell them they can't cash it? Should I just turnaround, give him the cheque back, and tell him no?
In the next split second I possibly make the most passive aggressive decisions I've made in my life, that put me into 16 days of hell. I bring out my phone, "hun, trust me now, get their license plate on their jeep, and come back in 15 mins, ily <3". The cheque needs to be validated, this bank had one of the validation machines, otherwise it takes 5~ business days. I wait 15-20 minutes (it's something that needs to be done on every cheque over $2500 here. I come out, walk to the jeep, hand him $6500, "$300 for the bullshit stunt you pulled man". As I walk to any direction, just to seem like I'm going somewhere while waiting for my friend to come back.
Here is where I got confused, the cheque was fine, if it was fake, they'd take the money out of my account, but no, it's fine! So the cheque will go through, and I just made myself $300. We were supposed to go to some lights in the zoo, but it was getting pretty late, so we just went to the bar I work at, had the daily special, a couple beers, and headed home. Kind of dropped the situation, but when I did get home, I'm curious. Am I allowed to be safe? I start reading all kinds of cheque fraud articles, and curious what can happen. Turns out - the cheque takes a few days to go through, and an account can be closed before it's processed, fucking me over in the process.
Quickly I assumed the worst. Well shit, what did I have on this guy... Jake, the cousin's brother, I've slept at his mom's house, his dad's house, had his phone number, have him on facebook, know a couple of his close friends. The cousin, well shit, was he really his cousin? To this day I don't know, apparently though, he was. What info did I have on him? His cellphone number, and his license plate, in some way associated to Jake (maybe just paid the kid), and a cute 20 year old, convict, carries a weapon. What to do...
Now next day, I start searching for Jeeps online. 2000-2004 models in dark green is what I'm looking for, if any recently sold. In the meantime, I'm texting the fucker cousin, threatening him with cops, and well, initially the plan I had, not as smart I thought. I was going to go to the police station right away, but what do I tell them? How can they hope to find him? And do I want a person who was in jail for 7 years for murdering someone while drunk with a gun after me, a guy who KNOWS where I live? Kept asking where I was, "out with friends the reply each time". I made sure to never be at my house, always asking a friend here or there to stay over, but fuck, when we were talking in the car, I even managed to tell him where I work.
Cops were sort of out of the question, I needed the money back, $6500 is a lot of money, and I think it wasn't even the money that made me take this route of approach, it's fact that I hate frauding so much, and if I just gave him the cheque, he'd do it to some other unprepared person another day, nope, I wasn't going to take this shit, he will learn not to mess with kids like this. I hopped into my car, told Jessica (lets call her that, the girl that was with me there), what happened, and we started diving around the city. Every used car dealership. We started in the southwest of the city, close to where Jake's parents lived, and were going asking around asking for records of sales from all managers. If they sold a dark green jeep to a tall built tribal-tattooed man, possibly with a younger blonde woman, told them it was a stolen vehicle, and that the cops need identification before they can begin a search for said people for us. This was all total bullshit, and it was all we had, and pretty sure every owner knew they didn't have the right to give away those details.
This way day four since the incident, it was a long shot, but we agreed to meet up on the morning of the 23rd and we went searching. First two places turned us down, they didn't say we can't do this, but they really made no effort to do anything, I asked really nicely, but the man at each dealership said "I don't think so", that was that. This was taking a really long time, we went to two dealerships in 4 hours to learn absolutely nothing, I told Jessica, few more hours, and if we have no luck today, we will just drop this, I'll go talk to Jake, I don't care, nobody steals $7000 and gets away with it. I know where the fucking kid lives, if his cousin tries to go after me, I'm not just going to stand there, you know I've had shit in life I've had to deal with before. We have been friends for some time, she disagrees with lots of choices I make, this one was no exception, almost always I manage to prove her wrong, but when I looked into her eyes, I was unsure whether I could this time. Google maps, the next dealership, they gave me access to their computer to see the sales for Q3 and Q4 of 2012, couldn't find what we were looking for, but I could not believe they gave us their records like that, it gave me hope that maybe we could find something.
Holy shit, holy SHIT, 4th dealership, an address we could actually go to, a car were looking for, looks like it, yeah there's many cars like this in the city, but MAYBE?!. Starting to really feel like Sherlock Holmes.
I gotta go study, I really didn't think this would take this long to write, just the background to what happened took forever, and it's hardly as detailed as I wanted to, and I feel like I'm rushing it already. I'm maybe 40-50% done, sorry for leaving it at a cliffhanger spot like this, I'll finish it in the coming days. This definitely will be one of the memorable experiences in life, one that I am pretty proud of doing in the end, and I hope you enjoyed the read so far. Please lookout for the second section.
If anything wasn't clarified, or if anyone wants more background about something, or my thought process, feel free to ask.
Cheers!
