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Google Writes Customer a Bad Check

mobilejones.com — If I tried, I couldn ’t make up a story like this. First, there was the problem, then, there was the solution, and now comes the comedy. I hope you’re wearing your laughing pants.

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  • Axon77, on 10/11/2007, -1/+53You should definitely charge them a $25 Returned Check Fee.
    • Tunguska, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10Attention Google:

      Cheque yo'self before you wreck yo'self.
  • travbrack, on 10/11/2007, -1/+233You made me put on my laughing pants for nothing.
    • plantfood, on 10/11/2007, -19/+9i once laughed so hard my laughing pants turned brown
    • canewediggit, on 10/11/2007, -1/+45i'm not wearing any pants, can i still read it?
    • superjer, on 10/11/2007, -11/+4i once laughed so hard my pants burned down
    • heyitsgarrett, on 10/11/2007, -2/+30Aw man. I was just taking my laughing pants off in disappointment, and then I read your post. Now I have laughter everywhere :(
    • MasterDwarf, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Thank god my laughing pants were in the wash. :-/
    • MasterDwarf, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Thank god my laughing pants were in the wash. :-/
  • Niddik, on 10/11/2007, -2/+19I'm guessing that Google keeps their funds in several separate accounts, but forgot to distribute the funds equally to all of them.
  • j1a1g1, on 10/11/2007, -3/+8A picture of it would be nice
  • shibbz, on 10/11/2007, -7/+80Where the ***** do I get laughing pants,
  • andy3109, on 10/11/2007, -13/+2Enron?
  • thrallie, on 10/11/2007, -14/+58It's kind of pathetic to complain about some stupid check issue on a "blog" and then submit it to digg claiming it's funny. Matt Cutts goes and comments on your blog entry, and then you bash him for being a dog? What the ***** is wrong with you. You are receiving money from one of the largest goddamn companies in the world and you call the man feeding you a dog. Nice....nicee...
    • Laughto, on 10/11/2007, -6/+8You are confused.
      • jcaino, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1dugg you up laughto....

        i dont think the OP was calling the actual matt cutts a dog, but rather thought it was just some imposter.
    • kretik, on 10/11/2007, -5/+2The stupidity of suggesting he called him a "dog" is really beyond... well, stupid. He could have used any other term to convey his (very valid) point that some random dude claiming to be from Google is not necessarily from Google.

      Oh and BTW, Google is hardly one of the "largest" companies in the world by any measure except stock price, which is meaningless and inflated anyway. Go read the Fortune 1000 and tell us where you see Google there.
    • SavageBlackCat, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Technically he didn't receive money - the check bounced, remember.
    • dcode, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3"You are receiving money from one of the largest goddamn companies in the world and you call the man feeding you a dog. Nice....nicee..."
      When is she receiving money?
  • VaporBro, on 10/26/2007, -1/+44Your server wrote me a bad check
    • ronaldb, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Oh hai! I'm in ur surver writing bad cheks. K by!
  • d722002, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7http://www.duggmirror.com
  • speedk0re, on 10/11/2007, -9/+51ZOMG GOOGLEZ IS BROKE EVERYONE SELL!!
    is that the reaction you were looking for?
    buried for stupid blog spam
    • Rhino2, on 10/11/2007, -7/+1SELL SELL SELL! I JUST SOLD ALL MY SHARES AND THEN SOLD 1000 SHORT AND BOUGHT 500 PUT OPTIONS! ALL ON MARGIN.

      thank you digg. This can only turn out good.
    • Darwinian, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2actually this story is a cheap dupe of something that was dugg about 6 months ago, the other article was much better written.
  • michaelfrankie, on 10/11/2007, -1/+36I've got parachute pants, fancy pants, and smarty pants but I have no laughing pants.
    • gmprunner, on 10/11/2007, -4/+17What about squarepants?
    • futzy99, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2Flood pants?
    • gonegoogling, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3laughing thong?
    • Shadowhawk109, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Crazy pants, all the time, get some? Everybody, everybody, the longest pants? Long, long, long, long, long, long pants?

      /homestarrunner

      *murmurs something nonsensical about "lightglobes"...
  • D4r7h3v1l, on 10/11/2007, -2/+25It wasn't that funny, but now I'm curious about these laughing pants...
  • Laughto, on 10/11/2007, -8/+3Shouldn't it be 'cheque'?
    • speedk0re, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11depends on where you live bud.... stateside it's a check
    • bonlebon, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Unless you are in Canada, eh!.
  • amrush4th, on 10/11/2007, -11/+4*google says to self: ok lets put 2323423098209380928309 billlion in account A and $0.59 in account B". What are the odds that this person was sent a check to account B. Ok, well they would be 50%, but thats not my point, my point is, thats funny.
  • VMark, on 10/11/2007, -8/+2Buried as lame. :|
  • macabaret, on 10/11/2007, -0/+17You wouldn't believe how many zeros that check had on the end of it.
  • Lister169, on 10/11/2007, -1/+33Even my laughing pants didn't laugh at that blog.
  • WaltDismal, on 10/11/2007, -3/+10I can believe Google has grown too big to have everything under control. Hope they don't become another Microsoft. Their HR department seems to be slow as an elephant's bowel movement. I do contracting. They had an urgent need related to managing accounts, possibly AdSense, 6 weeks ago for someone with my skill set. Well, after they got my resume, no response and they tell me their key HR lady is out until July 16. The elephant can't move fast perhaps. Perhaps they're suffering from Too-Big Disease and this check thing is an example of that.
    • digboy99, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Perhaps you are not the droid they are looking for?
    • zoom1928, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3After fighting them for over 9 months to get our first AdSense check, I'll believe they'll do anything dishonest to not pay money they owe. Maybe the guys at the top are honest, but none of the people I've dealt with there are honest. They won't even give you their last name so you can complain about their actions. They know as long as there is no accountability they can get away with most anything.
  • kishkan, on 10/11/2007, -5/+4Boo-Hoo, she got a check and it bounced. Well, maybe the bank didn't know how to process a Google check for only $0.89
    • superjer, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Sounds like time for a new bank?
    • Rekzai, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3You need at least $100 to cash out.
    • jman8888, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Minimum is like 200$
      • zoom1928, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Like $200? Their written policy is a $100 minimum within 30 days of the end of the previous month. Typically they'll try not to pay money they owe for much longer than that, but that is their policy. Even if you pay extra to get them to use DHL(the only non-USPS option they provide) to send the check they'll still hold it sometimes for weeks.
  • BrettTheUser, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7That is kinda funny.

    They probably put enough money in their account to cover all the adsense checks for each billing cycle, but since this check was cut especially for the poster at a time they don't usually cut checks, there probably wasn't any money in the account, and no one thought to check.
  • ellabee, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2Hey look - all the google ads are for underpants.
  • joefreeza, on 10/11/2007, -5/+5Google is a huge company and I hope you guys realize that they probably have HUNDREDS of accounts. Google did not go bankrupt- This has happened so many times before.
    • WilliamDavis, on 10/11/2007, -0/+13Are you sure? I totally thought this meant Google went bankrupt!!!! I almost leaped from a window. I'll wait a bit now.
  • Tabou, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2Could it be that your bank teller doesn't know what the hell he/she is doing? What bank is this that tells you whether the check is NSF or not right when you're depositing it? I thought the process took up to 24 hours for out-of-town checks.
    • geoffpado, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2He DID say it took a while.
    • hramos, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Usually checks used at retail locations, or dropped through the deposit box, are processed by a data entry group early the next morning so that the balances may be updated by the late afternoon batch run. However you may process a check at any which time you decide, and it seems this bank's policy was to process walk-in client's checks on the spot, since it doesn't really take that long for a single check. It should only take as long as it takes to enter the data, their check system should quickly respond with either a valid code or a NSF code. May be the teller took time to make sure the check was actually NSF since you don't want to rapidly tell your clients that the check bounced.
  • Mattja, on 10/11/2007, -2/+11My laughing pants shrunk because this was SO DAMN HILARIOUS

    And now I'm left clutching my balls and hopping in agony.

    Thanks very much.
  • jimmyjtn, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2This happened to me once, I tried to cash a check and the teller told me that I couldnt cash it because I didnt have enough funds in my checking account to cover it in case the check doesnt clear or something. I doubt it was a problem on google's end. I bet if she deposited the check everything would've been fine and the money would've been in her account couple days later
  • xbmodder, on 10/11/2007, -6/+4There are three plausible scenarios:
    1) Your check got sent to someone else and they processed it
    2) Many corporate banks use psuedo-accounts where depending on the depositor and the name it will log it to a database. This also allows google to easily remotely void checks. Also their system could have linked you up with the wrong account.
    3) Someone at the bank screwed up.
    -----OR! Always have to consider this is fake. It does sound a bit fake...
    But, as more people are talking about "Laughing Pants" let's explain it to some people who may not know that this is a reference to one of the better SNL (Saturday Night Live) sketches. As Jean brands were popular in advertising in the early 90s SNL made their own parody jeans. These were called "Bad idea Jeans"
    To take a moment to go back in history: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/90/90abadidea.phtml
    • mobilejones, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Sadly for me, it's not fake xbmodder. I wish it were. But I'll tell you it has been annoying.
  • bonlebon, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3Ok guys, time to pass on the hat and give the girl her money.

    Seems like google has all the geniuses in the technical part, but some defuses in the accounting department. Payable accounts are a bitch.

    Now on the serious side, take your issue to a civil court, get your money and give a kick in the nuts to google's credit rating.
  • david5t, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Google AdSense EFT could have prevented this somewhat.
  • mhender, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Will laughing shorts do? They're denim and very short.
  • einfeldt, on 10/11/2007, -5/+1Lame. Inaccurate. Buried.
  • nlschd, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7"Matt Cutts goes and comments on your blog entry, and then you bash him for being a dog? "

    You do realize that that was a vistor (Carol Anne) and not the blogger himself?

    Here is what the this blogger said in reply to the comment:
    "

    Carol Anne,

    Matt is Matt. I know, because 1)Brian the Adsense operations management guy told me that Matt contacted him, 2)I left a comment on Matt’s blog which is why he came back here. Please don’t bash the one guy who is helping when he didn’t have to. Thank you, Matt."
  • LonesomeFighter, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3"How does a gazillionaire company like Google have a bank account with so little money in it?"

    Here's the #1 problem i found, Google is ONLY a billion dollar company. I'm not sure how much gazillionaire is, but i think it's more than a billion.
  • epf2001, on 10/11/2007, -3/+0i think those checks are for deposit only. did you try to cash it rather than put it into a bank account?
  • bashfulczar, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4I left my laughing pants at the dry cleaners.
  • m4ttjirM, on 10/11/2007, -3/+0if it was just an accident you should really chill out about that lol. Is it really something getting that mad about? I'm sure it would be fixed within 2 weeks. Hopefully you aren't living on that check it's probably not that ***** big lol. you called him a dogg after he was saying sorry, LMAO!
  • weebit, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2*weebit falls outta chair laughing.*

    OH *****! does that mean I don't get paid this month?

    /sniffles
  • SprostonGreen, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0Perhaps.. the circumstances themselves are amusing. The presentation totally killed it though.

    Also buried for stupid blog spam.
  • mentor972, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6It's the start of the DOT COM CRASH 2.0 !!!!!
  • Notyavgkat, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1how bout it - http://digg.com/tech_news/My_Check_from_Google_Bounced
  • digboy99, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Maybe they should have used Google Checkout.
  • Mk3890, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Laughing pants?
  • BigTrey, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1This is idiotic for the fact that when the teller told her there were insufficient funds, it was in her OWN bank account NOT google's. She wanted to cash the check not deposit it. It's standard practice in banking to not cash a check if you yourself can't cover it. Buried for idiocy
    • mobilejones, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0BigTrey - you clearly have difficulty with reading and comprehension. Check out that phonetics thing.
  • phenom2k7, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Cut the ***** and just tell us the amount that was on the cheque please. Thanks.
  • Darwinian, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1is it just me or was this story posted several months ago on digg, only it seemed more realistically written. Anybody?
  • analogtyler, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1The check is almost definetely written from a ZBA (zero balance account) as are most payroll checks from large corporations. These are generally accounts that are linked to larger funded accounts but according to the banking system have no actual balance. They are used to help companies organize their accounting.

    The teller is likely new or not very knowledgeable if he/she didn't cash/deposit it. Its really funny how people assume google is "broke" like they wouldn't be able to cover adsense payouts.
  • azntiger1000, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Actually I would prefer Google to give me a bad check because this way I have a reason to get more money from them.
  • Exstatica, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Google adsense checks are for deposit only...

    https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=32858&topic=8452

    its a security feature to prevent someone from cashing a check with a larger amount and not having it linked to any kind of deposit account. cause all it takes is a fingerprint and ID to cash a check.
  • krunk4ever, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Maybe I'm misunderstanding something. When you go cash the check and the teller tells you “There aren’t sufficient funds in the account to cover your check.” It's not that the check's account has insufficient funds, it's your own personal account. Checks take a few days to be fully processed, unless you bank at the same bank the check was written from, and even then, different regions of the same bank aren't always using the same system.

    So when a teller tells me the account doesn't have insufficient funds to cover the check, that's telling me that MY account doesn't have enough funds if I wanted to cash the check. The way cashing a check usually works is that it's really you're withdrawing money from your own personal account and when the check clears, it'll deposit that amount into your account. For low figure checks, they don't really care and cash it for you. But for large sums, they usually don't allow cashing unless you have an account with them that covers the amount you want to cash.
  • Sortaburnt, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Google,

    1m in ur bank account, killin ur fundz.
  •  

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