MIMF

First, I want to make it clear that I am not trying to smear the name of Guitar Center. that being said....

Some friends of mine have a music shop and have recently been the victims of check fraud, which to me amounts to theft. A man came in and bought a brand new Eastman E40D with a bad check. The same day he went to the GC and sold it to them. My friends have contacted the police but so far it appears that nothing has been done about it. This took place in January the week of NAMM. Nothing has come of it and GC has the guitar back out on the sales floor now and it seems they are not the slightest bit interested in helping. The police say since it was a bad check they can't take it from them. This whole thing just stinks. Any advice I might be able to offer my friends?

Call the district attorney and ask him to take action.

They filed a police report and sent it to the prosecutor's office. If it were a theft case they could go in and take it. But since they're dealing with it as a check fraud case they can't. Apparently if you steal something by means of a bad check it's not actually theft, even though his intent was to fraudulently purchase the guitar and re-sell it. So it seems that GC didn't buy the guitar illegally and is under no legal requirement to return it and now intends to turn a profit from another business' misfortune. I've contacted the customer service department for GC and they are filing a formal complaint with the district manager. Even if it's somehow not illegal isn't still unethical IMO.

Unfortunately ethics and business rarely make it into the same sentence let alone paragraph.

I guess their only recourse is to go after the check writer.

The store owners opened up and started talking about this case yesterday using social media. The word spread quickly and has enough of a stir in town that the SPD went into GC and put a hold on the guitar and assigned a new detective to the case. All of a sudden the GC store manager seems willing to cooperate. But yes they definitely need to find the check writer.

Well good. Let us know how it wraps up.