News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
The busy summer retail season is also often a busy season for hot checks. This summer has been no exception, according to Sisters Police Chief Rich Shawver.
Shawver said there has been no particular pattern to the rash of bad checks that has hit Sisters in the past couple of months.
"It's just from one end to the other," Shawver said. "They hit them all.
"We're not the only ones," Shawver noted. "Bend has been deluged with bad checks, and I assume Redmond has, too."
Two suspects in particular have allegedly been active in Sisters. Police are currently building cases against two suspects in separate series' of incidents. Shawver said police are also investigating a forged check case out of Scappose concerning a check that was passed to a Sisters business.
According to Shawver, bad checks must singly exceed or add up collectively to more than $200 before the district attorney will act on them.
Shawver urges Sisters merchants to take the extra steps necessary to protect themselves from bad check writers, or at least to make tracking them down easier.
"The biggest thing they (merchants) can do is require positive photo identification," Shawver said.
Clerks should write driver's license numbers down on checks and, obvious as it sounds, make sure that the photo on the i.d. matches the person standing before them.
"All merchants, in my opinion, should follow the basic business plan (provided by the county district attorney)", Shawver said. "You're not in business to be a bank or to give your profits away."
Shawver noted that many merchants who have been burned had a sense that something was amiss with the person who ultimately scammed them. Shawver urges merchants to heed their intuition in those circumstances.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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