Chapter 14- Banking and NSF Cheques

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Disgraced+investor+Earl+Jones+declared+bankrupt/1909273/story.html


Summary
Disgraced financier Earl Jones was declared personally bankrupt by a Quebec court. Jones was faced with multiple charges: fraud and theft charges. After hearing the testimony form petitioner Christina Ross in court, the controversy was exposed. The controversy was about how Jones forged Christina Ross and her sister’s signatures on a document, and later endorsed a cheque made out to their father’s estate and deposited it in his own account and bounced three $31,000 cheques. More information was exposed in the court house about how Jones shamelessly used client capital to cover interest payments to his clients. As a result, from their dollar damages that have been estimated at up to $500 million, 175 people appeared to have been left high and dry from. Even more ludicrous, Jones was revealed that he had used $12.3 million from the trust account of his corporation for his own family’s personal expenses. Furthermore, Jones bank statements from 2000-20007 were missing. In the end, Jones spent one night in jail and was charged with four counts of fraud and four counts of theft and his company Earl Jones Consultant and Administration Corp. was officially declared in ruins.

Connection
In Chapter 14, particularly in section 14.1, we learned that writing cheques that “bounces” was not good for our reputation, costs us money, and could even damage our credit rating. As a result, it could even make borrowing money difficult because our credit rating was poor. In this article, Jones had three NSF cheques with each amount worth around $31,000, which already gives him a bad reputation when borrowing money from the bank. However, with his illegal situations such as having forged signatures and endorsed a cheque out of a person’s father’s estate to deposit for his own use had no doubt made it far worse than bounced cheques worth thousands of dollars. I can say that his credit rating and a simple thing such as trust from any bank had been severely damaged in a way that it can’t be resolved.

Reflection
I found Jones to be a real pathetic man as to go so low to lie and cheat on others, specifically his clients whom they trusted him with their hard earned money to be just wasted by this fellow. Jones even used the company’s money to pay for his cars, real estate, repairs, furniture, credit-car bills, his children’s education and various investments. What was the use of getting a salary if you could just take funds and what not from where you work as living expenses? I think what he did was a bad influence on his children and many others, and there was one lesson learned: Don’t assume everyone is trustworthy especially strangers.