Sometimes even I’m surprised at how stupid people can be.  This individual is a customer at the bank where I used to work, and he saw me in the grocery store last night, I’m still not sure if he was joking or not.

Customer: Heeey! Hey You!  You!  Guy who works at the bank!

Me: Hello sir, what’s up?

Customer:  Why did they tell me not to write anymore checks?

Me:  Who told you this?

Customer:  Some big shot at your bank, (he says the person’s name and I realize he’s talking about my former employer)

Me:  Did she say why?

Customer:  She kept saying that I was overdrawn on my account, but I calmly explained to her that I wasn’t drawing on the checks at all, I was just writing them out to pay my bills.

Me (trying not to laugh):  That just means that you have spent more money than what was in your checking account.

Customer:  I still have plenty of money in my checkbook see?  (he shows me his checkbook) I’ve got at least ten more to go and probably two or three boxes of checks at home yet.

Me:  I understand that you have checks, but they are only worth what you have in your bank account.  How long have you had a checkbook?

Customer:  This is my first one, your bank stopped giving me free cashiers checks after I got 12 of them to pay my bills last month.

Me:  Well sir, I don’t work for them anymore so I can’t resolve the problem like I used to be able to.  You may want to talk to (person I know will help him at my former employer).  Their number is 555-1234 (I gave him a real phone #).

Customer:  They canned you huh?  I think I’ll go in there and give them a piece of my mind, those B*$tards are always getting rid of the good employees.  You got another job?

Me:  Yes sir, I now work for (credit union I work for).

Customer:  Say, that’s right down the street from here.  You think I could open an account with one of these checks?

Me:  You could, although we would call your bank to verify funds in the account.

Customer:  But I just showed you that I have money!

 At this point my wife called to ask why I wasn’t home from the store yet, so I pretended like it was an emergency and hurriedly got away from that guy before I laughed in his face.

A little piece of financial advice that nobody should ever have to give anybody: Having checks does not equal having money!

The scary thing is that he isn’t the first person I’ve met that has overdrawn like this.