Man Tried to Cash Check for [span style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;"]$360 Billion[/span]
We've seen a lot of stupid criminals over the years, but this guy is so far off the end of the graph that you almost want to submit his name to the Guiness Book Of Records. The super-genius below is Charles Ray Fuller, who was arrested for forgery when he tried to pass a check for $360 billion! Yes, BILLION. ($360,000,000,000).
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He says the check was given to him by his girlfriend's mom so he could start a record business. Riiiiiiiiiight.
[a href="vny!://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/050108dnmetbillion.b623795f.html"]Link To Full Story[/a]
There are some countries that don't have 360 billion cash laying around - did he think a bank would have 360 huge just laying around waiting for a really big check to roll in??[a href="vny!://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/050108dnmetbillion.b623795f.html"][/a]
We can only wonder where HIS are.
[img style="WIDTH: 226px; HEIGHT: 351px" height=367 src="vny!://www.gshotts.com/HUMOR/Blondes/blond.jpg" width=226]
Michel wrote:
That reminds me a long time ago I needed to exchange a traveller check of 50 $ in Yugoslavia. I had to go to 3 banks before one got enough dinars to exchange my check... everywhere they told me sorry, we don't have enough money at the bank for such an amount...
I'm guessing the beer was pretty cheap.
I once stayed in a hotel for $3 - there were two of us.
Travelling in the third world one can go quite aways on a few dinars
Michel wrote:
That reminds me a long time ago I needed to exchange a traveller check of 50 $ in Yugoslavia. I had to go to 3 banks before one got enough dinars to exchange my check... everywhere they told me sorry, we don't have enough money at the bank for such an amount...
I'm guessing the beer was pretty cheap.
I once stayed in a hotel for $3 - there were two of us.
Travelling in the third world one can go quite aways on a few dinars
P.C. wrote:
We can only wonder where HIS are.
[img style="width: 226px; height: 351px;" src="vny!://www.gshotts.com/HUMOR/Blondes/blond.jpg" height="367" width="226"]
Do you really think she wishes that??
Sure ... maybe when she's 70 and she can't remember where she left her package of depends ... she would wish she had a pair of big brains instead of a pair of big ole floppy boobs.
Well I think if she had any brains at all, she'd be wearing something that gave a little support to those puppies.(//vny!://discoverseattle.net/forums/richedit/smileys/Happy/12.gif)
....or smart.
hmm the cheque probably would have worked in Zimbabwe.
Michel wrote:
van_guy wrote:
I once stayed in a hotel for $3 - there were two of us.
I don't think I ever went under 5 $, but I must say I like my luxury, which means not having to bring the camera bag in the humidity of the collective shower because I don't feel the room is safe for even leave all my photo stuff behind the time to go pee or take a shower... that's it, I'm a bourgeois, I admited it lol
Oh believe me if i had an option i would have went for a deluxe $5 suite as well - when you are in a town of a few hundred and you are in the southern gobi desert you might be surprised at how few hotels there are to chose from.
BTW for $3 you don't get a shower or a bathroom - a bed pan was available - there was an out house about as nasty as i have ever used around back. There was a lock on the door so camera was safe.
Michel wrote:
Is it true that there's a lot of "borrowing" by the locals in Mongolia (what we would call stealing in the West)? I most of the time never leave the camera stuff alone in the "bedroom", except for when I go to the shower. I don't trust any place even with a lock when your stuff worth more than a year or more of the median income of the locals.Not that I think that they're not honest, but I know that misery and poverty can tempt them to try something.
1992 was tough time there. Really tougth time. We had to cut Romania from our list after what we saw that summer, even the ex-Soviet were considered rich there and told us not to go there, that it would be big trouble.
I found the Mongolians to be very good. I can only think of one or two mongolians that I didn't like and I was there for about 1 year.
Mostly we paid out workers 3-5 dollars a day... so it wouldn't take a whole lot of camera to be worth a year's salary.
I'm sure there are unscupulous Mongolians, probably more in Ulaan Bataar, there are just too few people in the country side, where I was, if someone showed up with a camera everyone would know that he/she stole it.
I have a collegue who was working in poland during that time frame. He was working at an operating mine (i.e. they had money) but they would go into town to a restraunt the restraunt would have NO food, so they would go to another - it would sometimes take 4-5 restraunts before they could get a cup of tea and a sausage. They couldn't buy pens. Freakin' difficult to operate any kind of business without food / pens / ...
Michel wrote:
Yeah for Mongolia I was more referring about the concept of "borrowing", not necessarily dishonesty or poverty stricken people tempted by stealing. I was asking because I saw a documentary about a French couple who crossed Mongolia on horses, and they've seen their horses stolen 5 or 6 times during the night. The day after, they had to buy other horses. At the beginning, they explained with a smile that it was typical in their culture to borrow things they needed (thanks to what in anthropology and political science is called primitive communism), but at the end, they disn't sind it funny anymore. I lived near Maliotenam for a year in Northern Québec, and the Innu people were doing the same, but I just couldn't do it or get use to it as a Kawish (white). They don't lock their door so basically everybody is free to get to your place and take some food in the fridge or cabinet without asking. Kind of shocking when kids from school once came to my GF place (she was their teacher) and we had to check anything including the cat who could have been taken away as a new friend. for them.
I found this in the North - I worked north of Yellowknife on the Arctic circle - but I didn't see that in Mongolia. BTW I pitty the french couple - if you've ever been on a mongolian saddle you'll know why. I highly recomend the camels though. I can see how buying a pair of horses every few days would wear on you after a while.
Now of course this traditional borrowing is practiced by the traditionals. The Natives in Uashat just a few km west more "whited" would probably found such attitude unwelcomed, and still, some people seems to profit from this traditional borrowing just as an excuse to steal. Dying habit here, hence I was wondering for Mongolia.
Yeah I didn't see that at all. Some stuff went missing from our gear but it was toilet paper and cleaning supplies and fuel - so it was real live pilferring.
For Poland, after we got the camera stolen, we went to fix the car, a Fiat Panda in Eastern Europe with no Western car at the time... good kuck). Fortunately the Polski national car was an old Fiat model from the 60's maybe, just like the Lada is a Fiat 128 from the 70's.) It took 3 guys 3 hours to find in a scrapyard a piece of rubber that could hold our window. They cut it with a sharpened butter knife and put the window in place by pulling on the rubber surrounding the window with a rope. It worked ! I was sure it would cost a fortune, all these efforts and that they would made me pay 3 times the price. Well, 3 mechanics for 3 hours : it cost a total of 75 cents !
Gotta love a story like that.
We still ha time before crsing the Soviet border so we went to the flea market a few km away where lots of stuff from both countries was sold. I was sure we could find the camera there. I was ready to steal back the camera, runout of the market and get into the car where my GF was aiting with the engine running. Sadly, when I went to o surprise, a table full of used camera, they were all Eastern block model, still they were probably stolen from other tourists. No Olympus there. I'm sure the GF camera would have been on sale there in 2 or 3 days. If not, the stealer just would took the train to Warsaw or Moscow and sell it there for a huge profit.
Yeah tuff to say - but it probably wouldn't fetch top dollar in nowhere's ville poland.
Never saw real coffee at that time in Poland indeed, it was a mixture of burned cereals (well I think that's what it was). And forget about the idea of getting sugar to help swallow it, or milk. I had once sugar, it took them 5 minutes to understand what I was asking for (I draw a cube over a cup with arrow pointing down into it on a piece of paper, the entire train station was trying to help but they didn't had a clue) I loled when a customer suddenly exclaim "ahhhh sugrilla sugrila" (or something that sounds like that).Then the sugar came ah ah, it look like anything except a cube or a little pouch, no wonder they didn't get it. Milk, yikes, I once bought a bottle, in glass, like the ones there was here before the cardbord pint. Yikes, it was a mixture of yogurt/cheese/milk that I spit automatically. And it was still on sale. brrrrrrr.
I kick ass at charades.
Tough time.
Sounds like it..
So as I said, when the Soviets told us Romania was worse than Poland, we just cutted it. 2 months of that was enough. The GF was getting crazy, she just wanted to arrived to Austria as fast as possible, ah ah I wonder why? (//forums/richedit/smileys/Happy/12.gif)
GF - you can't live with 'em - pass the beer nuts.