Patrick Combs deposited a $95,093.35 "non-negotiable" junk mail check into his First Interstate ATM in San Francisco, withdrawing it before the bank reversed the transaction, citing procedural delays and legal loopholes like the cashier’s check rule. Though he insists on returning the money only if treated fairly—demanding a polite lunch with a bank VP—Combs frames his stance as defiance against intimidation, not greed. Callers debate banking automation flaws, from teller errors to impersonal machines, while Bell highlights systemic issues like nuclear proliferation risks and media suppression claims. Combs’ legal battle exposes broader tensions: banks’ procedural failures versus individuals’ rights to resist fear-driven coercion. [Automatically generated summary]
From the high desert and the great American Southwest, radiating on out to the Tahitian Islands, the Hawaiian Islands, all the way east to the U.S. Virgin Islands, south into South America, and north magnetic north.
Welcome, everybody, to Coast to Coast again.
Another random week of live overnight talk radio underway.
We make room for a little fun tonight.
Uses heavy and light, depending on your point of view, from a point of view, heavy from a light loss point of view.
A computer, uh, computers online, a computer plane crashed, as you know.
Uh, we now know four dead, five more injured, twenty-five more women.
Atlantic Southeast Airlines twin-engine commuter plane went down in rural western Georgia Monday.
Many of the injured are in critical condition with severe burns.
The pilot, who died after being trapped in the cockpit, had reported engine trouble shortly before it went down.
Again, staying with the subject of death, three U.S. diplomats killed in Bosnia over the weekend, not shot, but tumbling over in a vehicle, came home Monday in flag-draped caskets.
Our Secretary of State did what he does best and did the diplomatic thing, led a delegation of cabinet officers and paid tribute.
So it was purely an auto accident, actually.
In Israel, more death.
And here you've got to wonder if the terrorists have not had what they want.
Finally, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has put peace talks with the PLO on hold temporarily as a result of Monday's terrorist attack in Jerusalem.
A suicide bomber from the militant Islamic Hamas movement killed four, including, I might add, an American tourist.
It occurred in the morning rush hour bus traffic, and it is attributed to students of the mechanic, the guy they've been looking for for so long now.
So, temporary hold on peace talks.
Earlier in the day, they had been saying nothing will disturb the peace talks.
We're not going to allow this to occur.
Now, it looks like it may.
It is precisely what those who are setting off the bombs want.
So I guess they're going to get it.
On the other hand, there is not peace.
So if you are an Israeli citizen, you're probably pretty ticked off right now, pretty angry, because your leadership continues to talk peace with the people that are killing your fellow citizens.
Now, it's a pretty weird psychology, and I'm not surprised that they've shut them down.
NASA is going to privatize.
Yes, NASA is moving to privatize its space shuttle program.
NASA says it expects to select a single contractor to operate the $3.2 billion a year program.
They think this will save a billion dollars.
And I wonder how many of you would like to be on the first shuttle flight to be done by the lowest bidder.
I'd be some sitting up there on top of that thing.
Wondering where the lowest bidder might have cut corners.
Any of you who are good at making top 10 lists ought to give me, send me a top 10 list, I'm sure somebody will, about why you would not want to be on, or why you would want to be on, the first shuttle flight done by lowest bidder.
Gvorkian, present at another suicide, a 46-year-old woman, has taken her own life.
It says here, critically or terminally ill.
However, there are those who are suggesting she was not terminally ill.
Certainly she was in a great deal of pain.
Said she was tired of being a bed veg.
Time to say, see ya.
That was her note.
Carbon monoxide poisoning.
The 25th person to die with Kvorki in there.
Here's an interesting story.
Traditional Chinese medicines appear to have the Zrouters, by the way, appear to have the ability to direct alcohol through the digestive system before it can be absorbed into the bloodstream, thus actually preventing intoxication.
That's what Japanese scientists reported Monday in Chicago during the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society.
They say the bark and roots of the angelica tree, the plant ovary of the soapberry camellia, and horse chestnut seeds, good lord, and the roots of the Seneca snake root appear to do the trick.
Sounds like something a witch would make up, doesn't it?
But listen to this.
They say, with these substances, no matter how much you drink, it doesn't matter, you can't get drunk.
The effect, however, has been tested so far only on laboratory rats.
But wouldn't that be something to give that little witch's brew to some of the hopelessly drunk, inebriated?
Can you imagine?
They just buy it and buy it and buy it and drink it and drink it and drink it and nada.
Nothing happens.
I guess that would give you up.
Better than the patch, huh?
Iraq.
We believe, of course, Saddam is, we say, preparing to make military moves.
We are moving troops now, as well as two aircraft carriers.
And I would ask whether you think this is a real crisis, or are we, as in the CIA, shaking Saddam's tree, hoping he'll fall out?
There are reports late tonight of one of the men in Jordan, one of Saddam's top men, saying there is about to be a coup in Iraq.
And Bill of Vista, California wonders, if the enemy of my enemy is my friend, does that mean we join Iraq and bomb Jordan?
No, Bill, I don't think so, but I understand the thought.
They're going after Franklin D. Roosevelt.
As you know, Roosevelt is widely seen in profile with the long cigarette holder in his mouth.
Well, don't you know, in today's atmosphere, that's going to be a problem.
And so they want to remove the cigarette holder from Franklin Roosevelt's mouth.
Should it be removed?
Should history be rewritten, revised?
I guess that's the way it is these days.
If something becomes politically incorrect, you simply erase it, so it never happened.
O.J. Simpson, the subject of Brinkley on Sunday, the Furman tapes, Central, of course.
Racist, violent, chilling, even frightening.
Johnny Cochran accused the media of literally being racist because he says it favors the two white victims.
F. Lee Bailey was on Brinkley, and I thought he was quite good.
And you recall the line, the famous line, F. Lee Bailey, quote, you say on your oath, Detective Furman, that you have not spoken of black people as the N-word in the last ten years, end quote.
Well, of course, he claims he didn't know about the tapes when he asked the question.
That's hard to believe, but some of the stuff supposedly on the tapes is really, really bad.
Now, there's a late problem with the tapes, and I'm not exactly clear on what the story is.
Now, I've heard that the most important tape, the first one, has been erased.
But then there was somebody on CNN midday who said, oh no, while that tape was erased, the original was not, and we've still got that.
Meanwhile, Judge Ito ruled that the whole brief filed to allow the tapes in was incoherent, that he couldn't understand it, and he kicked it back to them, and they're having to rewrite it.
By the way, kind of a side note here, the L.A. City Council just paid $100,000 to a plaintiff for a judgment against, guess who?
Mark Fuhrman.
For guess what?
You got it.
Excessive force.
By the way, Bailey says if OJ goes on the stand, it's going to add about a month to the case.
Otherwise, look for two or three more weeks of the case, I would say now.
Got this one over the internet.
Hi, Art.
My name is Randy, and I omit the last name.
I'm a police officer in the Seattle area and have been for 15 years.
In December, I resigned because of the very things that you've been talking about on your show these past few days.
I could go on forever about the problems in LE today, but the essence is this.
Cops are just people.
People who get very little respect anymore, are not paid enough, are subject to the corrupt political system.
People who are not at all the cream of the crop.
They're not usually very well educated.
They're usually underachievers, and they have their own self-esteem issues.
What I'm saying is there are good ones, bad ones, like everyone else.
Just like any other group, we cannot be lumped into any one category.
Trust me, the world is not going to come to an end because of a few dirty cops.
There have always been a few dirty cops.
No, I'm not lazy about this.
Remember, I quit to get away from it.
I spent years trying to fix things and be a good cop.
Guess what?
No one wanted a good cop.
People who do not want to know what the problems are or how to fix them, they just want to pretend they do not exist.
You know, that's interesting.
The second part of his facts Appears to, in effect, contradict the first part.
In other words, in the beginning, he says, Well, there's only a few good cops.
Then he goes on to say, But I quit because I was one of those few, or a few bad cops, and I quit because I was one of the few, and there are a lot of bad ones, so I don't know what to make out of that.
Nuclear proliferation, that's a hard word, proliferation.
Senator Luger on the weekend, holding hearings this week, said a couple of things that you ought to think about.
He said, quote, the gravest threat to the U.S. is the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Okay, a lot of people say that.
But then he said of the Russians that highly enriched uranium is now coming out of Russian labs.
The market is there.
There are willing buyers.
And then he said this, quote, terrorists will use this material and square miles of American cities will be vaporized, end quote.
Now that's pretty rough.
That's Senator Luger over the weekend.
Terrorists will use this material and square miles of American cities are going to be vaporized.
What do you think about that?
What's to think?
Hope it's somebody else's city, I guess, huh?
Nothing much you can do about it.
The genie is way, and for a long time now, out of the bottle.
unidentified
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Here's what you missed on Coast2Coast AM with George Norrie.
Is this a plan to break us here in this country and make the entire planet on a more even keel?
I mean, the people that are making these moves, they give speeches on it, they teach it in school.
You know, this business of redistribution of the wealth, destruction of national sovereignty, these things have been written about and talked openly about for quite a while.
And that's what they're trying to create for the United States.
unidentified
Now we take you back to the night of August 21st, 1995, on Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Haley Barber, the RNC chairman, and Don Fowler, the DNC chairman, squared off on Meet the Press.
Now, it was all about the straw poll.
Oh, this is interesting.
Here are the results.
Let me give them to you of the straw poll in Iowa.
Dole, 24%.
Graham, a dead tie, 24%.
Followed by Buchanan, a respectable 18%.
Lamar Alexander, Alan Keys, Morray Taylor.
Richard Luger behind Morray Taylor.
And finally, Pete Wilson at 1%.
Now, what can we draw from this?
Yes, it was just a straw poll, but boy, we can draw an awful lot of conclusions.
Number one, Robert Dole, as I told you, is not as strong as he thought he was, or people thought he was, or the press thought he was.
Does this mean that Phil Graham, who got up even with Bob Dole, is then the obvious frontrunner?
Well, in a way, just because he tied Dole, in my mind, anyway, it makes him the present front runner, but it doesn't say much.
I am not wild.
Actually, let me see.
I like Bob Dole and I like Phil Graham.
And I don't think either one of them are the right people to run against Bill Clinton.
Buchanan I like, but I'm not, but I worry.
You know, I just, there are a lot of things about Pat that are simply too much for me, isolationism, most particularly.
Lamar Alexander, Alan Keyes.
Alan Keyes and nice guy, but 8%.
Maury Taylor, Richard Luger, Pete Wilson.
I told you Pete Wilson wasn't going to do much, and he did not.
So I'm not excited about any of the present field.
Everybody in the poll, of course, came out and put the best face on it said we're happy so what does this mean that i was right about the media hyping dole that he is not the frontrunner everybody thinks he is does this mean graham is strong or just that dole is not now there is a better way to put it that's the way i put it that graham is not strong it's just that dole is not pat buchanan definitely
stronger than most people thought, but still a long shot.
Bradley looking as though he's going to make an independent run.
And the straw poll, of course, very interesting.
Why was Bob Dole so weak?
You know, I would say because he's weak.
Why was Graham so strong?
I would say he's not.
He's just looks pretty good compared to Dole.
is buchanan strong enough do we need a new candidate have both parties lost touch with us as uh senator bradley said could an independent win and what would happen to the two big political parties in america should we elect a third party candidate did you know that recent surveys show uh the u.s uh people in
the u.s by a margin of two to one want a third political party by the way does anybody out there know what has happened to the republican 11th commandment the one that says we shall not criticize other republicans right down the drain i would say more news and a couple of fascinating items in just a moment you're listening to art bells somewhere in time on
unidentified
premier radio networks.
Tonight, an encore presentation of Coast to Coast AM from August 21st, 1995.
Thank you.
You're listening to Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring a replay of Coast to Coast AM from August 21st, 1995.
Interesting fact about the Citadel in South Carolina.
Forty percent of all the CEOs, heads of corporations in South Carolina, are alumnis of the Citadel.
Shannon, of course, is not.
Sam Donaldson over the weekend said she's a heroine.
And here somebody has sent me the top ten reasons Shannon Faulkner quit the Citadel.
Ten, she only wanted the uniforms for Rush Limbaugh's feminazi movement.
Nine, she wanted to move to Idaho and live with Mark Furman, where she could live off the eggs people throw at their house.
Eight, she developed severe mental stress trying to figure out how to use the urinal in her dorm room.
Seven, after spending the last two and a half years and millions of dollars of other people's money in court trying to get admitted to the Academy, she figured she's now qualified to join O.J. Simpson's dream team.
Six, after her teary resignation press conference in the rain, She was offered a position as a test pilot for Tammy Faye Baker's all-weather mascara.
Five, after spending $25,000 to remodel a dorm room specifically for her, she was told there wasn't enough money left to buy her a set of Richard Simmons deal-a-meal cards.
Two, with her newfound fame, she wanted to work on her autobiography and soon to be made into a movie book entitled The Thing That Wouldn't Go Away.
And one, Senator Packwood made her an offer she could not refuse.
Now to the story of Patrick Combs.
This was reported by NBC last night.
And I was so amazed that I called Patrick Combs on the phone.
Got his machine.
And you never know.
We may hear from Patrick tonight or tomorrow.
But here is Patrick's story.
You know the junk mail.
If you've been living in a place long enough, you begin to get a lot of junk mail.
I get it.
Most of us get it.
You know the kind where you see a check with your name, usually it shows through a little clear screen.
spot in the envelope and you can just see a check in there and you go yes but it's one of those offers you know and inside the check says this could be yours um this could be your check only in little tiny print somewhere it says non-negotiable it's a big come-on you've all seen them well patrick combs Of San Francisco thought, what the hell?
So he took the check just for the fun of it, he says, like depositing monopoly money, he says, and deposited the check in his checking account.
Now, bear in mind, he did not sign it, he did not endorse it, he just put it in the deposit envelope and put it in the first interstate ATM there in San Francisco.
Well, guess what?
They honored the check.
He was sure some teller would look at this and laugh.
The teller looked at it and put $95,093.35 in his account.
He freaked out.
He called the bank, but the bank, over a period of several days, apparently insisted that it was in his account, his money.
So, in frustration, he drew the money out of the bank and got a cashier's check for $95,000 in change and put it in a safety deposit box.
Then a couple of days later, the bank realized what they had done and went, oops, and they came to him and demanded it back.
Well, he has not given it back yet.
Now, he says he might give it back.
All he wants is the bank president to call him up and say, let's go to lunch.
Not a big demand, I suppose.
Thus far, no comment from First Interstate.
Now, I'm not an attorney.
But I wonder what an attorney would say.
Now, he didn't sign the check.
It's the bank's mistake.
I suppose legally he's got to give it back, the more I think about it.
No way he could keep it, is there?
Or could he?
Is it the bank's error, legally?
I would tend to say he's probably got to give it back.
And I would also tend to say that he deserves having lunch with the president of the bank up there at First Interstate.
They're a good bank.
They're my bank.
I wonder how many other people now will try this.
I wonder what happened to the teller who put $90 some odd thousand dollars in somebody's account without looking at the check very carefully, without seeing an endorsement on the back.
Boy.
What a mess, huh?
Anybody catch the Tyson-McNeely fight, not me?
89 seconds it lasted.
Shorter than the national anthem that preceded it.
McNeely gets $500,000.
Tyson, $25 million.
The people seem to be very angry.
I wonder if this kind of thing will end boxing altogether.
All right, well, there you are.
I've got a call in to Patrick Combs, the guy who put the check in the bank.
And if we hear from him, we will put him on the air.
That would be, I think, fun.
In the meantime, here we go.
West of the Rockies, you're number one on the air.
They think they've found Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat.
This story was on Encounters last night.
By the way, the promo at the end of Encounters, Eric, who sent me facts from Grants Pass on the alien autopsy footage, is indeed the Roswell supposed film, or is it Roswell?
Whatever it is, yes, they were promoing that on the 28th.
You're not going to want to miss it.
At any rate, they think they found Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat.
It occurred after a May 15th, 1948 earthquake.
That was the day of the birth of the nation of Israel, by the way.
A military satellite found it with a surveillance photo, and you can quite clearly see it.
It is a ship.
An archaeologist is just about to begin digging to dig it up.
He is the archaeologist who was used as the model for Indiana Jones in all the Indiana Jones movies.
So they're going to begin to dig up the ark.
Now get this, folks.
It's larger than the Queen Mary.
The odds of it being anything in nature, as they look at the satellite photographs, the odds of it being anything formed by nature are about 100,000 to 1.
What if this really is the Ark?
What if it is evidence of what once occurred to the world before?
unidentified
What if it is evidence of what once occurred to the world before?
I'm a very firm believer, because uh I pretty much believe that aliens have been visiting this planet for like longer than humans have been around, of course, you know.
And just throwing some fingers around like 2 million years for the human to evolve from extraterrestrial visitation at all.
I'm just not sure.
If you meant to ask whether I believe...
I would say I continue to investigate it, but I have seen even I really haven't seen anything that would cause me to say I believe.
So that's your answer.
Even though I'm sure a lot of people out there have other ideas, even though I investigate intensely things in this area, do I believe, as an article of faith, we're being visited?
No.
I don't.
Does that surprise you?
Any more than I would say I believe or have faith in other things that I cannot put my hand on yet.
Wildcard line, you're on the air.
Hi.
unidentified
Say, you said the other night that you were finishing up your book.
I mean, the people that are making these moves, they give speeches on it, they teach it in school.
You know, this business of redistribution of the wealth, destruction of national sovereignty, these things have been written about and talked openly about for quite a while, and that's what they're trying to create for the United States.
unidentified
Now we take you back to the night of August 21st, 1995, on Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Okay, what I wanted to tell you is I learned something that was so interesting today, and it's about daytime soap operas, and they're obviously named because soap manufacturers sponsored them.
I'm really looking forward to that thing next Monday night on the counters, the film.
Oh, yes?
I'm involved with MUFON pretty much a lot in Houston, and if I'm going to be making some copies, if you'd like a copy that tape, I'd be glad to send you one.
Yeah, I've got a satellite dish here, so I'll put it on Fox and grab it off satellite.
unidentified
Good deal.
Let me ask you, Art.
You were talking about this UFO thing earlier.
You know, you were saying how you would have to say no to believing in them.
Well, let me ask you this.
Well, all of the stuff we always see and read about and pictures and stuff, albeit a lot of it's probably, you know, not UFOs or hoaxes or whatever, do you leave open the possibility that there could be an existence of them?
I kind of felt that because I know in the past when you talked about it with Dreamlander all, you know, you feel pretty strong about it enough to want to have a program like that.
And as so many times is the case, because we are live, we can deal with things as they come along.
This is a most amazing story.
Junk Mail.
NBC covered this story last night.
Junk Mail.
Everybody gets it.
As a matter of fact, sometimes you get these letters with a sort of a little clear window in them, and you can see what looks like a check, and you think, oh great!
Some kind of refund or I've won or something or another.
Anyway, a check with your name on it.
Usually, though, when you look a little closer, you notice it says non-negotiable, very small lettering, usually, non-negotiable.
But it says it could be yours.
If only you fill this out and you're the lucky winner, whatever, you know how it goes.
Patrick Combs of San Francisco apparently thought, what the hell?
So he took this check.
Now, this is the way NBC covered it: to put the check in the bank, in his account, without signing it.
Didn't sign it.
That's very important, I think.
Went to a First Interstate ATM.
I like First Interstate.
They've always been good to me.
And I used their ATM here in town.
That is our bank account.
Well, guess what?
First Interstate took the check, $95,93.35, and put it in Patrick's account.
Now, Patrick said it was like putting monopoly money in the bank.
He thought it'd be funny, I guess.
He called them, though, after he figured out the money was in his account and insisted that it be removed, I think.
Anyway, they left it in the account.
They insisted it was his.
It was good.
Finally, in frustration, he withdrew the money out, took the money out of the account, and got a cashier's check for $95,000 and put it in a safe deposit box.
I wonder if it was at the same bank.
Well, we're about to find out.
Anyway, finally, some days later, the bank went oops and went to get the money back from Patrick.
As of yet, I don't think he's given it back.
As a matter of fact, Patrick is out of town.
We found him in Kansas City, Missouri.
We've got him on the phone.
What does Patrick want?
Well, the NBC story said he'd just like to have, say, lunch with the bank president.
So far, no comment from First Interstate Bank.
And I was asking, should the bank get their money back?
I'm not altogether sure.
Let's see what Patrick thinks.
From Kansas City, here is Patrick Combs, I think.
Patrick, are you there?
unidentified
I am, Art.
It is really, really a pleasure to be on your show.
Here's how confident I am that I didn't commit an act of fraud.
I would not be talking on television across the country to 60 million people telling them what I did if I wasn't absolutely confident that I had not committed an act of fraud.
I know what fraud is now because when he said that to me for the first time, he put fear into me.
And my fear said, did I accidentally commit fraud?
Is my whole life going to go down the tubes on an incident?
Sure.
And I called the best lawyer in the Bay Area who specializes in bank check fraud.
And I told him my story, which is very scary to do, because you're like, what am I telling myself here?
And he'll take me to prison?
And he laughed, and he said, you didn't commit fraud.
Art, you're in for the surprise of your life that I got the shock of my life in the Hastings Law Library in San Francisco when I was reading about check law.
You can write a check to someone and you can stamp non-negotiable right across the front, and non-negotiable doesn't mean anything on a check.
I should say, because I get a lot of that stuff myself.
unidentified
Well, see, when I read that law, it hit me like, you know what really happened here, and nobody in the media has paid attention to it yet, but I've been trying to tell people that that company in Ohio that issued these checks mailed out 40 million real checks.
Because what you do to figure out if a check is real is you look in the law book and you see, does it match these four criteria that every check has got to have?
And whether they write non-negotiable or not, it does not matter.
If it matches those five four criteria, it's a check.
Now, it went back through two banks that had acted as clearinghouses, and then on June the 5th, that's the key date, my bank was notified by memo from another bank in Chicago that the check had been dishonored.
Every law book published about checks will tell you that a bank has got a midnight deadline for bad checks.
If a check is dishonored, they have by midnight of the next day to let you know.
If they don't let you know by that date, courts almost always rule that they lost the legal right to the money.
especially when they find out on june fifth and then they wait until june twenty first with in which to tell me uh...
You know, tellers, people are writing me from all over the world, and they're reading my website.
And I'd like to give it out to your listeners later on so they can see the check for themselves and the correspondence from the banks, and they can see the deposits list and everything.
But tellers have written to me now, and I've written back and asked them, how do you think this could possibly have happened?
And their response is, I have no idea because what tellers talk about in their day, what's exciting to them is if they handle a big check.
If they handle an item over $5,000, it's office talk.
Did any part of your book include a stunt like this?
unidentified
You know, there's one part in my book that reminds me of, there's two parts in my book that remind me of this.
I put a line in my book in a chapter called Bold Decisions that does say some of the most exciting, adventurous things in your life will happen because you made a bold and irrational decision.
And it was my way of saying to people that we all get inspiration, but if you try and think out every decision as if you're buying a home, sometimes you talk yourself out of a good thing.
It's Bill Gates, you know, saying that it's Bill Gates being a 19-year-old at Harvard and then telling the first guy to make up the personal computer that he had made software when he hadn't.
The wrong path, in my view, is that government is expanding its power and individuals are losing their freedom to make decisions for themselves.
The more crisis we have in terms of the economy or potential terrorist attacks or a swine flu and all these wondrous things that are coming at us from all sources, the government comes along and says, okay, we'll solve your problem for you.
Just allow us to expand our power and we'll take control of your lives and, you know, we'll solve the problems by making you a slave.
And then you won't have to worry about decisions anymore because we'll make all of them for you.
So anybody that's awake, I would say, should share my concern.
But yes, the government is leading us down the wrong path.
And it's primarily because we're allowing it.
unidentified
Now we take you back to the night of August 21st, 1995, on Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Oh, well, see, NBC then misled us a little bit because they sort of tried to indicate that you went back to the bank after you saw the money in your account, trying to get their attention, trying to tell them, look, it's not real.
I feel very fortunate because early on, somewhere along the line of my life, I learned principles of success that make any person feel far more valuable than $100,000.
He put some junk mail he got into his first interstate account.
And they credited his account with $90 some odd thousand dollars, $95,000 plus.
And he's still got it.
He's got it locked up in a box, in a check, in a cashier's check.
And we were just discussing, Patrick, certainly your attitude, I think, is commendable, that you want to do the right thing.
But I've got to be honest with you, if I had the money and I began to see that I might have a legal right to it, I'd think long and hard, long and hard.
And I'll tell you what it would depend on, and see if you're in agreement with this.
If the people at the bank were cool and nice and friendly and decent people and they were nice to you, then my inclination might be to give it back.
But if they were really nasty and really just coming at me, you know, head-on, you got it, then I don't know, I might give my backup a little bit.
That's about what's happening?
unidentified
You got it.
You put your finger on it.
I put it in these words.
I put it like this.
You know, they would have the money back already if when they first called me, they were nice, friendly.
And that's where this whole, you know, take me to lunch thing came from because I almost imagined that they would.
I thought 12 years at their bank, you know, they will, when they find out that they legally lost money, they're going to get a VP to call me and treat me really nice and then, you know, and thank me for not spending the money right away.
Now, but I refuse to give that check back under circumstances where I'm being intimidated, where they're trying to make me give it back out of fear.
I mean, you could have gone down and at least gotten yourself a brand new 100 megahertz Pentium or something like that.
unidentified
I would love a brand new color PowerBook or a brand new Mustang.
Exactly.
I have a million things I would love to do with that money.
It does take responsibility to just sit it in a safety deposit box and even one in their own bank.
I did not want to lose money that might not be mine.
And I am clear as a bell that the money, that I have an absolute legal claim to the money.
But I'm clear on the fact that if I allow my life to be ruled by fear and intimidation, whether it's my fears or somebody else trying to intimidate me, my life will get boring, my life will get unadventurous, and I will feel worse about myself.
And that's where this kicked in.
You know, on the day where, oh, you're not going to deal with this, I'm referring to the bank deciding not to deal with this in a legal, upright fashion where we talk human, being the human being, but to try and cover for their mistake by intimidating me and by putting the fear of be Jesus into me.
You don't happen to know who the teller was, do you?
I don't want to name, but I mean, have you had any discussions with the bank about the fate of the teller?
unidentified
Let me tell you this.
I worry that a teller will lose their job over this because the bank made a mistake and people realize that.
But everybody think about this.
The tellers get paid $5 an hour and they're part-time trained.
If they make mistakes, it's because they're not being trained the right way.
But I view it differently when a VP makes a customer service mistake.
Because VPs are paid a lot of money and they're supposed to have excellent social skills and customer service skills.
I wouldn't want anybody to lose their job over it, but if someone had to reevaluate the way they were treating their customers or doing their banking business, I would hope that it would be somebody high up in the company.
Mike in Portland says the fraud occurred when he punched the numbers into the machine with his card and pin number and then manually entered the check amount into the machine.
How do you respond to that?
unidentified
Mike is wrong because fraud is based on intention.
If I can punch numbers into a bank, let's say if I, Mike, if I walk up to my ATM machine and I literally have a monopoly $500 bill and I punch $500 into it and then I slide that orange dollar bill into the ATM,
I'm not attempting fraud because the opposing party would have an enormously difficult time convincing a judge that I actually thought that I could get I was actually trying to get the bank to give me money.
No, I'm just saying, you know, I was altered or signed or something, then it would have shown that I was trying to get their money, but I wasn't trying to get their money.
They'd also have a better case, too, if I had spent the money, because that would show that I was trying to get their money.
So again, getting back to what you want at this point, you just want a bank vice president, at least, to come to you in a nice, polite way, maybe take you out to lunch, say, look, we want to get this settled.
We don't want any hard feelings.
We're going to reopen your account for you.
Give us our money back.
unidentified
No, see, the more I think about it, the more I think, you know, I've got to stop saying, you know, what I want the bank to do because this is all about the way I want to live my life.
And I don't want to live my life allowing anybody to rule me by fear or intimidation.
So I'm just going to do what I have to do to not be ruled by fear and intimidation.
And if the bank comes on in any way like that, then I'm going to stand my ground.
And I am fully, you know, I'm going to stand my ground.
And if the bank doesn't, if that fear and intimidation factor goes by, then you're going to see me give a check back.
Here is a simple fact that a lot of Americans don't seem to understand.
Cashier's checks can be voided by the issuer.
And if he went to this bank and bought the cashier's check, and it's their cashier's check, they have a record of the number of the cashier's check and they know what it is.
Trying to get a hold of the piece of paper that's in the safety deposit box is just a loose end.
He's correct in the fact that the issuing bank can void a cashier's check.
He's incorrect about what it takes for them to void a cashier's check.
Let me put it two different ways here.
Number one, if the caller goes to Brady's own bank checks and looks up what it takes for a bank to cancel a cashier's check, he'll see that the majority of courts rule that even if a bank has a good defense, it cannot cancel its own cashier's check unless the court tells it it can.
Any cancellation before that results in my having the right for a civil suit.
The second way I'll tell you that the caller is wrong is if he calls the author of Brady's on bank checks, the definitive book on banking law that First Interstate Bank told me they used themselves, the author told me if they cancel your cashier check, you get a lawyer because you have a civil suit.
Well, it looks like to me First Interstate is tangled with the wrong person here.
I mean, some nice old lady maybe who was just joking around would have just given it back, but you sound a little sharp for them, and I think they've got a big headache on their hands.
Wildcard line, you're on the air with Patrick Combs.
Patrick, suppose you did as he said, even because you're angry at the treatment they're giving you, and you fought this right down to the bitter end, and you won.
In other words, there it is.
The final decision.
The money actually is yours.
Besides changing all of America's junk mail forevermore, would you at that point, when they said the money is yours, then would you give it back?
And I mean, I can give you a perfect example of how this works.
I went to an ATM machine at First Interstate.
I asked for $100.
And it gave me back, I think it was $120.
Okay, so it's $20 more than I had in there.
I wrote a check, sent it back to the bank, sent them a brief note, and got this terrific letter back from a bank vice president pointing out that that money is not my money.
It's someone else's money.
And he also said that at any time I wanted a loan at the bank, they'd come in at any time because I demonstrated my faith and integrity.
Well, because apparently there is a legal question.
unidentified
Can I say something here?
Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, it begs two questions.
My instant response is, it's not my money because I didn't earn it.
At the value and consideration level, I didn't earn the money.
It's not mine.
But it also begs a very serious question, which is, then what is the law for?
You know, are you...
Why do we have...
Why is there...
Why are there tomes and court cases on what entitles a person legally to money?
And if a bank is supposed to dishonor a check by a certain amount of time in order to save people from hardship, and we don't follow the rules when it's in our favor, but the bank wants us to follow it when it's in their favor, then what are we talking about?
Patrick, somebody else called him Peter, so I'm...
Patrick, I just wanted to say that I really commend what you're doing.
I think it's pretty cool.
Thank you very much.
I think you started off with exactly what you're saying.
You started off doing this because it was something neat, and now the bank's trying to push you around.
Exactly.
Still, you're holding on to it saying, hey, it's a principal thing.
And you're not going to push me around.
I think that's pretty neat.
Thank you very much.
It's not, you know, I really appreciate that because it's not easy for me to stand up against this bank.
I live now on a day-to-day basis wondering if I'm going to be in court for the next two years.
When was the last time they contacted you?
July the 6th.
It's been that long.
Yes.
You know what?
The last conversation I had with the bank was like this.
It took every ounce of, the hardest phone call I've ever made in my life, and I called them, and I said, it was the day they expected me to return the money, and I said, I'm not going to give the money back unless we reach a different agreement, because I know that I gained a legal right to that money, and I am upset because of the way that I've been treated in this situation.
And what I asked him for, and he was in complete agreement to get it for me, was a letter, an official letter from the bank, and some new ATM cards.
He said that he would get me a letter, and he said that he would try to get me ATM cards.
And granted, that wasn't in his control.
That was another department's control.
I've never heard from them again.
I did.
I got a letter from, you know, that was July the 6th.
And then on July the 25th, I got a letter from my bank, and I opened it, you know, anxious, nervous, wondering if it was going to be the one that put me in court.
It said, Dear Patrick, we appreciate you being a longtime customer of the bank.
You know, we respect your business.
We're glad we hope you're happy.
We're happy with having you.
And we want to offer you as a thank you a $1,000 worth of accidental dismemberment and death insurance.
Well, you know, on the first couple days when it was just completely fun.
It was just completely fun for three weeks because I just had a great account balance that I didn't intend spending, but it was really fun to walk around.
You know, if you give someone your phone number, you give it on the back of your bank receipt now.
Now, here's what my mother said to me in the airport.
She's in fear.
I'm going back to San Francisco, and she looks me in the eye and she says, Patrick, I'm not going to tell you not to do things like this in the future or to stop doing this because when you stop taking risks, your life becomes boring.
A lot of news stations joining at this hour, so a brief recap.
We all get junk mail.
You've seen them.
NBC covered this last night.
You know, the envelope arrives and you look at it and through the little window you can see what looks like a check made out to you, right?
So you rip open the envelope thinking it's a refund or something and it's some incredible amount of money offered to you.
This could be yours, it will say, if only you are the grand prize winner.
And the check, of course, always says non-negotiable on it.
As did this check, the check in question.
Patrick Combs of San Francisco got one of these in the amount of $95,093.35, according to NBC.
We'll check that out with him in a moment.
Because, yes, he's our guest.
And so what he did is he took the check without signing it and put it in a deposit envelope, put it into the ATM, entered the amount, walked away.
A few days later, lo and behold, it showed up in his account.
The money was there.
Anyway, finally, after enough time passed, he drew the money out of the account, wisely or not, and got a cashier's check for the $95,000 in change and put it into a safety deposit box, same first interstate bank.
You know how they work.
The bank keeps a key and you've got a key, right?
Well, after that, the bank all of a sudden went, oops, what have we done?
Actually, it took, as I understand it, the Federal Reserve Bank to determine that this was not a proper check.
And the bank came back to him.
Now, NBC said, what does he want?
Patrick says he just wants lunch with a bank VP.
And that would do it.
He'd give the money back.
But, see, we've got Patrick on the telephone right now.
We found him in Kansas City.
he's exiled in kansas city uh...
and so we're talking about whether you have to give the money back or what The money is his.
And if you would again, legally, in other words, the money is yours, if not morally, Patrick, legally, in the best legalese you can muster, give us the best case once again for the new audience that this money legally may be yours.
unidentified
In short, I've got it three different ways.
Number one, the words non-negotiable don't mean anything on a check.
Number two, if a bank does not tell you that the check was dishonored within 24 hours after they found out it was bad, then the money legally becomes yours.
And then the third reason is called finality of payment.
When a bank issues a cashier's check for the exact same amount as a deposit that they took in, the courts consider that end of story.
While I'm very sympathetic to this situation, I'll bet you any judge would inevitably side with the bank since there is the clear admission that this really was not a legit check.
Also, need I remind you, the bank has lawyers on staff.
You'll have to pay big, big bucks for yours, Mike, up in Madison, Wisconsin.
Now, I think his first point is probably not true.
You're saying it was a legit check.
unidentified
Correct.
I think that a judge might take this opportunity to change that law.
I think a judge, because, I mean, if the guy who wrote the law book himself, you know, he's got a footnote in that book that brought it to my attention that says this is a dangerous law.
If you can write sample or non-negotiable on a check and it doesn't mean anything, then it's a dangerous law.
But what I'm saying is some people, that's exactly how I feel about my situation because, remember, in what I just said, you're driving the car faster than you think the law should allow.
It is that the laws are used most times for the bank's benefit.
And when occasionally the law works the other way around, even though it would be a technicality, I kind of admire you for standing up and saying, no, wait a minute here.
everybody should know and you really mean is up that if you win the money if the money turns out to be an argument I mean, what kind of fool would I look like if I didn't give it to charity after saying this?
And intelligent, intellectual individuals like yourself have given him two or three ideas and causes to fight for.
And so now, a very insecure guy who thought he was going to get his butt thrown in jail has had a few guys say nice things, and now he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.
Now he's trying to plug his book.
Now he wants people to call him on his Internet site.
This is a 29-year-old who's never had anything in his life and now has got his 15 minutes of fame and he's playing it for all it's worth and it's repulsive.
And let me add one more thing.
As the owner of a big company with a lot of employees, I tell you what, this guy has screwed himself out of a job because I don't know anybody who owns a company that would ever hire this guy.
He's not showing any signs of leadership, any signs of common sense, or any signs of moral and ethics.
He's holding a big guy hostage, which means what?
It means one day if he's ever had a bad experience.
He's one of those guys who would flip and fall at work and then claim workman's comp and wear a fake neck brace.
Well, you know, mostly when, you know, when an attack is that big, I feel like there isn't a response because his blood is pumping harder than it's ever pumped before.
There's nothing in the world that I could say that would make him feel any different about me.
The things that I like to say to other people, and I don't mind him saying it either.
It's just his opinion.
The things that I would like to say to other people, if they're wondering how I feel about that, is, first of all, I have an enormous amount going on for myself.
At least that's how I feel about myself.
I don't feel like an insecure person who was given ideas by other people.
He's right that I surely did not set out on any crusade at the beginning.
I'm not a Ralph Nader who said, you know, I'm going to stick this in here because I'm going to stop junk mail checks.
But if he himself goes to my website and he reads the account, I can't believe that he wouldn't notice that when things start to happen to you, you form opinions each step of the way.
With each changing week, you learn something new.
I have become educated through this process.
Other people aren't educating me.
I've learned about banks and NSF funds, banks' unfair handling about money practices.
We'll try and get to the bottom line when we get back in just a moment.
unidentified
*Gunshot*
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Now we take you back to the night of August 21st, 1995, on Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
All right, is it reasonable that he would ask of the bank all you know, all he has asked of the bank?
Well, but wait, he asked for a letter.
That seems reasonable.
And he asked to get his account restored.
unidentified
I understand.
But the reasonability of it is not the issue.
The issue is who really legally, you know what I'm saying, morally.
No, you're confused yourself over whether you're asking yourself a legal question or a moral question.
Morally precedes everything else.
Otherwise, you're into situational ethics.
And if the tide was turned and it was off your back and you were losing $95,000.
Do you get upset about the fact that the law does not conform to your morals?
Because I do.
I think that each of us has got a moral character.
Exactly, but don't worry.
No matter what the law states, I believe that your moral character is first and foremost.
And for you to compromise your own moral character with some kind of appeasement and rationalization just diminishes your own character.
The first thing I'd like to say is that I agree with this man wholeheartedly.
Because what he's saying is I have no ethical or moral claim to that money whatsoever.
And if I've been misheard on this radio to say that I believe I have an ethical moral claim or that I am trying to keep the money, I have been misheard because in every step through every interview I've done, I have said, I want to give the money back.
But I am not trying to keep this money.
I'm trying to point out to people, though, that legally I have a claim and my bank didn't approach me like that saying, you know, hey, you're honest and you say that you don't have an ethical claim to it.
We're honest and we say, you know, that we made a lot of mistakes and we lost the legal right.
But instead they bent me over the hood.
You know, I mean, they basically scared me to death so that in hopes that I wouldn't understand that I had rights in a situation or that I hadn't done something wrong.
Patrick, let's say I'm a bank vice president and I'm going to get in touch with you.
What's it going to take, bottom line, for you to give me my money back?
unidentified
We are going to go to lunch.
We're going to go without lawyers because it's a friendly lunch with two respectable people who are trying.
See, the last thing I think our country needs is more lawsuits.
The last thing I want to do is give people an example of another reason to sue.
I would like to publicly give people an example of a reason not to sue in a way to de-escalate problems.
And all it would take is to sitting down at lunch, and I want to speak first, and I want to say, you know, I know that ethically and morally, I didn't do anything, I mean, that I didn't do anything to earn the money.
And I like to have money that I earned.
And I would like to hear the vice president of the bank say, you know, we don't, you know, we legally lost the money.
Or we legally at least jeopardized our having money.
We missed the midnight deadline.
You're right.
You know, there is such a thing as a midnight deadline that we're supposed to follow.
And due to the attention, or inattention, rather, or ineptness of several people, he got the money.
Possession is nine-tenths of the law.
His requests are reasonable.
I say more power to him.
As far as employment goes, I think his actions prove he is intelligent, resourceful, creative, and so far, lucky.
He would be an asset to any company, from DJ in Phoenix.
That should make you feel better, Patrick.
And bear in mind that there are a lot of computer hackers who many call criminals, and in fact, they do take criminal actions, but then they are hired by companies to protect them from people just like them.
And I was just wondering, Patrick knows a lot about the laws and everything.
And I was wondering if he knew anything about bad check laws and about the non-negotiable thing, not really meaning anything before any of this came along.
And there was a day when you went to a gas station, Patrick, and they used to wipe your windows and say hi to you and check your oil and stuff.
And banks have kind of gone the same way.
There's not very much personal attention anymore.
And you would think when $95,000 is involved, you know, they wouldn't be so adverse to giving you a little personal attention.
unidentified
I really appreciate the caller's comment.
I also bring to attention that I understand that banks have, you know, they're guarding our money and they have security policies and they have to have security officers.
My customer service complaint in this situation is that if I didn't break the law, I do believe it's wrong to call me and tell me that they're going to put policemen at my door and that I committed an act of fraud.
Well, I think we have a bit of jealousy with everybody telling them that they're going to get sick and all this because they don't think it's morally right.
I think they should go ahead and get sick and throw up and whatever they want.
Do you think there's any of that in there, Patrick?
unidentified
I have no idea.
No, I think that the I appreciate his response because to me it feels like support.
And I can see that maybe some people would really like $95,000.
I mean, I would like $95,000.
Oh, sure.
But no, I think that the first caller who really laid into me definitely feels that way because he actually believes that I have nothing going on in my life and that I'm a loser and that this Is the biggest event in my life?
And the thing that I've actually kept track of for myself on a daily basis since this exploded in the media is that my life is bigger than this incident.
Morally, that money is not his, and even if he's trying to teach him a lesson, it's not his money to teach him that lesson.
I think that that's what's wrong with society now.
We're going downhill because legally is a lot lower than morally.
And so I think that what he needs to do is give it back.
He said he's not going to let them guide his actions by giving it back, by intimidating him, but yet he's willing to let their actions make him keep money that is not morally his.
I would expect reasonable, decent treatment under the circumstances, not threats of jail and police and all the rest of it.
This is the kind of thing that you would first, at least, first want to try to reach some kind of amicable agreement before you start calling in the federales.
Yeah.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Patrick Combs.
I guess the key is whether it's on a banana peel, I've heard him written on banana peels, if you write non-negotiable on it, that peel is still negotiable.
unidentified
Right.
Yeah.
Everyone has just missed the point entirely, especially the caller is about, you know, calling you immoral and all that kind of stuff.
And I'm just, it's ridiculous.
You know, you have done nothing wrong.
Nothing entirely.
I appreciate it.
The labels of immoral don't bother me because the one thing that I've done throughout this whole thing is say, I have got to retain my integrity through doing this.
And, you know, if I know I've retained my integrity, it may not match other people's integrity.
Yeah, I just wanted to say I applaud him for what he did.
I think that if they were dumb enough to let it slip by and legally he can prove that he deserves the money or it doesn't violate the laws, I think he deserves to be able to keep it just on the fact of their stupidity.
If his case should happen to go to court and he should win and the money should be his, and he does give it to charity, would he claim it on his taxes at the end of the year?
The wrong path, in my view, is that government is expanding its power and individuals are losing their freedom to make decisions for themselves.
The more crisis we have in terms of the economy, or potential terrorist attacks, or a swine flu, and all these wondrous things that are coming at us from all sources, the government comes along and says, okay, we'll solve your problem for you.
Just allow us to expand our power and we'll take control of your lives.
And, you know, we'll solve the problems by making you a slave.
And then you won't have to worry about decisions anymore because we'll make all of them for you.
So anybody that's awake, I would say, should share my concern that, yes, the government is leading us down the wrong path.
And it's primarily because we're allowing it.
unidentified
Now we take you back to the night of August 21st, 1995, on Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Patrick, I'm going to let you go here at the top of the hour because you sound tired.
I know you're in Kansas City.
It's got to be coming up on 4 o'clock and you've got to get up in about two hours.
But I do want to ask this.
If it comes down to it, Patrick, and you're facing jail, possibility of actually going to jail, or giving the money back, and the bank has not budged, and they still have a foul attitude as far as you're concerned, would you then give it back or go to the pokey?
unidentified
I'd probably give it back because my work is really important to me.
I mean, tomorrow I'm doing a leadership retreat for 140 students.
I'm not going to go to jail for this and stop doing my work.
I love my work.
So I would doubt that I would choose to go to jail.
You're just one of those people who have done one of those things that it will be at least in your life a footnote.
Look, I'm giving you a chance to plug your book.
You've spent two hours with me, and that's above and beyond the call of duty out in your time zone.
It was the NBC story that caught my attention last night, so I could not resist.
So plug your book.
unidentified
My book is called Major in Success.
It's about being successful in your career and in your life.
And the highest compliment that I keep receiving since it's been published is people write to me every week about my book, and what they say is, I read the whole thing cover to cover without putting it down.
It's the first book I've ever done that on.
And, you know, when I published that book, I fully expected that it might fall into the category that all books do, which is 90% of books aren't read.
People read the whole thing, and it only takes a couple hours, but at the end, they say that it changed their life, that it's the first book that really made sense to them on how to become successful and find a job that they love and tap back into that passion for something that they've always wanted to do but didn't think was possible.
I have had the finest time on your show, and I want to compliment you from the bottom of my heart that I wanted serious treatment of this subject exactly the way you made it happen.
I wanted people to get to exercise their right to morals and values about this.
Those who have accused you of not having them, I think, have been unfair to you.
It is the way people are, though.
And you have acknowledged you have no moral right nor claim on the money.
However, there are some principles, and it just seems to me that what you're asking is not unreasonable, that they deal with you on a human basis, that they restore your account.
That's it.
You don't want part of the money.
You don't want a pound of flesh.
You just want reasonable treatment.
And I'll bet you that you'll get it.
I'll bet you perhaps as a result of this show, I mean, I'm sure there's a bunch of bank people listening to this right now and Listening to you.
And my guess is that's what they'll do when you get back.
Well, I told you, this is the kind of talk radio where anything can happen.
Usually does.
This is Coast to Coast AM Live Talk Radio Throughout the Nighttime, the largest live overnight program in America.
From Blaine in Honolulu, how about this for an ethical question?
Check this out, folks.
I work for a TV station.
The station was recently sold.
The old owners did not stop the automatic deposits.
So even after they no longer owned us, and technically I no longer worked for them, they accidentally put money in my bank account via automatic deposit.
They cannot legally remove it without my permission.
I thought the encounter show last night was fabulous, all about Noah's Ark.
They think they found Noah's Ark in eastern Turkey on Mount Ararat, May 15, 1948, the very day the nation of Israel was created.
You believe in coincidences, there was an earthquake, and one of our satellites saw what may be Noah's Ark.
To give you some idea of how real this may be, the possibility, numerically, that this is something out of nature as opposed to the real thing are 100,000 to 1.
It is a military surveillance photo that found it.
I saw it.
An archaeologist, in fact the very guy who the Indiana Jones movies were modeled after, is beginning a dig on Mount Ararat this summer.
Now, this thing that they think is Noah's Ark is larger than the Queen Mary.
Try and imagine that.
Larger than the Queen Mary, what would it be doing up on Mount Ararat if it is not Noah's Ark?
On the other hand, if it is Noah's Ark, oh my, that's going to change a lot of things, isn't it?
There are a number of stories right now in the headlines, including the Roswell or wherever autopsy films, and we had real breaking news on that on Dreamland Sunday to Noah's Ark.
You know, we're at a very interesting precipice right now, this human race of ours.
And it's a very narrow little fence we're sitting on.
And I really frankly wonder what would occur socially if they prove this is Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat.
Try and imagine it.
Try and think about it.
Try and dream about it.
What if this is it and they think it is?
What does that mean?
Paramount, actually, when you think about it.
It happened once before.
The earth flooded so that mankind basically, with the exception of those who were saved in Noah's Ark, perished.
Everybody else gone.
The animals two by two, remember?
Could this be it?
If it is, what does it mean?
Quite a bit.
If these aliens that are depicted in this film are real, what does that mean?
I should say quite a bit.
Going to be broadcast on Fox August 28th, worldwide, in fact.
It showed no snow on the mountain, and there evidently must have been a previous expedition.
And Vendel was along as the biblical advisor.
And on that expedition, they deliberately went up there when there was a snow cover over the ark so that the ground radar could be slid along the smooth snow without vibrations and to get better imaging of what's below.
Now they found out that each of the chambers within the ark were of the same total area capacity.
Regardless of the shape of the ark, each of the chambers were of the same capacity.
They found out that they had the, of course, it showed one of the stones, it showed the stones that they used over the sides of the ark to stabilize it in the heavy seas.
And yes, and they did, and they called them anchors.
unidentified
Yes, and the ark also had an opening in the floor engineered so that as the thing would go up and down, it would breathe at the same rate as a human being.
And it would get rid of the refuse of the animal, and at the same time, it would replace the air in the ark.
So it constantly got fresh air, and I forget how many cycles per minute this thing would go up and down, and automatically from the work of the ocean and the water, it would automatically breathe as a human being and replace the air and get rid of the refuge.
And there's considerably more that they found out from this ground imaging radar that they Drug over the snowbank that was over the ark.
Now, the most interesting thing of the ark is that it was made of reeds, and the reeds were basically destroyed by other humans that got in the area and by rock.
But inside the ark, it was plastered with a concrete substance, and that concrete was still intact after all of these centuries.
And it had minute particles of metal in the concrete.
And they have no idea how or what the concrete was constituted of.
They cannot duplicate it to this day.
They sent it to several laboratories, and they have no idea how Noah developed this concrete to plaster the inside of the ark.
And that's why the image of the ark is still visible today, because of this concrete liner that was on the inside of the ark.
Whether it's the Ark of the Covenant, truly an important find, or Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat, proving so many things at one time, it is going to force the world, it is going to force the world to look at the Bible afresh, wouldn't you say?
To discover the Ark of the Covenant, to discover Noah's Ark.
Either one of these two would cause the entire world, all religions, to review suddenly what's contained in the Bible.
It would change many, many things.
There would, of course, be people who would not believe anything.
But for the vast majority, if it is proven to them scientifically, oh, believe me, it's going to bring on a lot of changes.
Well, you know, that's what Patrick suggested, and it seems to me if they can't get the money from Patrick, the bank is probably legally, if the case is that the non-negotiable is in fact negotiable, oh, I'll tell you, this is going to bring on many changes.
unidentified
Yes, it will.
That's probably a big legal battle between banks and bank against customer.
Yes.
So he just went down in the first place and deposited to see if he could get away with it.
All he did was take it and put it in a deposit envelope, throw it into the ATM, punch up the numbers, and waited a few days, and the money showed up in his account.
unidentified
Well, I don't think he'll end up getting to keep it, but if he does, I guess.
And he says, hey, Art, Patrick has probably saved banks a lot with this one incident.
He's saving them money.
I can't believe an arrogant bank officer can't admit their mistake and have lunch with Patrick.
I can only hope that somebody associated with his bank heard your show, and the word gets back to the bank.
One listen to this, and they would know the guy is very intelligent.
He beat them, and now he appears smarter than them.
Also, when are you going to let me know about the cigarette on the book cover?
Right now, John, and this relates to something else going on in the news.
As you know, Franklin Roosevelt has been depicted for years and years and years the way he was with a big cigarette holder in his mouth in profile.
Now, I've got a choice of doing a, it's going to be a wonderful book cover, hardback book, by the way, my book.
And there has been the choice of putting the cigarette, which, and I do smoke them, in with this incredibly, wonderfully done art, or excluding the cigarette.
And I hereby say, include it.
I refuse to go the way Roosevelt apparently is getting ready to go, and that is to have his image change.
I smoke, and while I'm not proud of it, I am certainly not going to play anybody's politically correct, stupid game.
John, put the cigarette in.
I smoke them.
It's real.
I'm no Franklin Roosevelt.
I didn't mean to compare myself, but in the sense that I'm not going to bow to the political correct crowd that can all go jump in the largest lake they can find, long walk off, a short pier, all that kind of thing.
Now, I may have given him this idea and somebody criticized me for that, but I'll tell you something.
I'm sick of getting those checks that really aren't checks myself.
And if this stops that practice, then I'm all for it.
unidentified
I agree completely.
This is basically poetic justice for the little old lady in South Carolina that I read about a few years back that misunderstood the check and thought she already had won and went charged up on her credit card.
And I was in total agreement the minute I heard it.
I was going, that's great, because several years ago, they messed up, First Interstate messed up my account and deducted $200 from it that I hadn't spent.
So I stayed up all night, got all my records in order and everything, took it down to their bank.
if you have all the records to prove your case, then somebody, some human being at the bank should be willing to sit down with you and go through it just as a as a service to a customer.
unidentified
Right.
And especially what I really appreciate is, I mean, I, you know, $200 to them is not that big of a deal.
But to me, it was a whole week's wages, you know, and no, I hear you.
You know, I was trying to get a hold when Pat was on the air because I work at a bank here in Phoenix, and I can kind of understand a little bit about where he's coming from.
And you had made a comment about how they process the items.
In other words, does a human do that or does a machine do it?
unidentified
Well, the machines do it.
You see, what happens when a person takes a check into the bank, they take it into the tellers, tellers put all their figures into it and give the money out.
That's basically all they do.
And then it goes over to a bunch of other people who sit there and all they do is encode the dollar amounts on the checks.
And then from there, it goes into the machines which processes the checks.
And it all does it electronically.
And if all those little numbers at the bottom of the check are on there, then the item is good and it'll pocket and nothing will ever be seen until it's got some way, sometime later down the road.
I hope somebody will take some of what's on his web page and send it to me, attach it to a message on AOL, and I'll get it up on our bulletin board, too.
unidentified
Well, you know, I'll see what I can do about that.
Is it possible to understand how a teller, I mean, $95,000, that's a big check.
That is.
And how could a teller look at a check for $95,000 and not check to see that there was an endorsement?
unidentified
Well, I think that's a mistake the teller making.
If I was like the manager of that branch, I wouldn't have that teller there.
But that's not a position I'm in, unfortunately.
But most of the time, I have seen so many checks come through that have said non-negotiable, but people try to cash them, and sellers pass them right through.
I mean, the people that are making these moves, they give speeches on it, they teach it in school.
You know, this business of redistribution of the wealth, destruction of national sovereignty, these things have been written about and talked openly about for quite a while.
And that's what they're trying to create for the United States.
unidentified
Now we take you back to the night of August 21st, 1995, on Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
In other words, if that constitutes a valid check, then it may be that the bank, if they can't get it from Patrick, is going to have to take legal steps to try and get the issuer to pay it.
Look, I'm no attorney.
I have no idea.
But there is that possibility.
And if that should be the case, I would imagine a lot of people going through their trash right now, real quick.
And I worry that there's going to be a lot of checks and a lot of ATM machines and a lot of tellers are going to, there's going to be a red alert going out to every teller in the U.S. later today.
Look out, here it comes.
unidentified
But you know, as you stated, Art, and I think many of us out here, I hate that kind of junk mail.
And there are people such as this little lady that we heard about in North Carolina, this elderly lady, that are fooled by this, that are taken in by it.
And maybe this is what it will take to stop that nonsense.
So maybe a lot of good will come out of what Patrick did.