If You Send A Claim Form For Payment Rather Than An: Fill & Download for Free

OK, for a short, to-the-point answer, just see Jennifer Ellis’s answer.I’m going to take a bit of a “deep dive” here…“Found” property falls into three basic categories in Anglo-American common law (specific statutes may vary these slightly or greatly, but they usually track the common law):Mislaid propertyThis is basically something that someone put down on purpose and then forgot to pick up. (E.g., leaving your wallet on the table at a restaurant.)A finder of mislaid property is generally legally obliged to turn it over to the owner of the premises, on the theory that the true owner will come back looking for it.If a certain amount of time elapses without the true owner claiming the property, then the premises owner becomes the legal owner (precedents vary as to whether he becomes the absolute owner, or whether he is merely entitled to treat the property as his own unless the true owner shows up).Under no circumstances (at common law) does the finder become the legal owner of mislaid property, unless the finder owns the premises.Lost propertyThis is property that someone did not intend to relinquish, even temporarily, and therefore is not likely to return for. (E.g., dropping your phone out of your pocket, or having a box fall off the back of a truck.)A finder of lost property usually obtains a claim of ownership as against all the world except the true owner (or previous lawful possessors).That is, every other person in the world except the true owner (or a legal agent of the true owner) treats the finder as the owner, but the true owner may still demand the property back if he happens to figure out where it is.In many jurisdictions, there is a statute of limitations on such claims, such that if the finder possesses the property for a long time without the true owner showing up, the true owner loses the right to make his claim.The finder may have an inferior claim to the owner of the premises if the finder was trespassing.Abandoned propertyThis is property that someone did intend to leave, and it is reasonably apparent that they had no intention of coming back for it. The common and obvious example is anything thrown in the trash, but another example would be if someone tossed an heirloom off a bridge or flung a gun into a lake.Abandoned property is deemed to have no “true owner”, so it belongs to whoever takes it first (who then becomes the true owner in every way).However, some jurisdictions, again, make exceptions for trespass—a landlord or other real property owner may have a superior claim to any found abandoned property on his land, as against a trespasser who actually does the finding.In your case, it is virtually certain that the phone was either mislaid or lost. This means you either had no possessory rights at all, or else you had a possessory right that was subordinate to the right of the original owner—in either case, you were legally obligated to surrender it to the true owner upon demand, and had no right to demand payment.“But,” I hear you say, “I wasn’t charging for the phone itself. I was charging for the labor involved in collecting the phone and delivering it, and when they wouldn’t pay, I kept the phone as collateral against the debt.”Well, congratulations—you’ve just provided another example of how, especially in law, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.All that sounds really clever—but two words collapse that house of cards:“Officious intermeddler”An “officious intermeddler” is a person who performs a service that no one asked them to perform, and that could not be reasonably inferred to be something that would be obviously wanted… and then demands payment for “services rendered”. In other words, it’s a sort of “contract by ambush”.Under the common law of contracts, an officious intermeddler is not entitled to any quasi-contractual remuneration.So, if I paint your fence while you’re at work, then even if the fence was in disgusting condition, and even if I do flawless work… I can’t send you an invoice for it, because I can’t “trap” you into an implied contract that way.A common example from a decade or two ago would be the “squeegee men” of New York City—they’d come up to cars stopped at intersections, swipe a (usually dirty) squeegee over the windshield, and then demand payment for “washing the windshield.”On the other hand, if your little kid is wandering alone on my street, looking lost and hurt, and I take him into my house, clean him up, give him food, and keep an eye on him while waiting for you to come pick him up… I’m entitled to reasonable compensation, because it was legally reasonable for me to assume that you’d be willing to pay rather than leaving your kid to wander the streets. (Although, personally, I’d find it a bit distasteful to demand compensation in that circumstance…)This is also why you can be liable for medical bills even if you were taken into the emergency room unconscious—because the hospital is entitled to assume that you’d be willing to pay for life-saving treatment.So, how does this apply to you?Well, you might be able to argue that picking up the phone and putting it in a safe place was something you could assume the owner would want—but that “service” costs you essentially nothing, so “reasonable compensation” for it would be nothing.The part that did cost you time and money was actually traveling to the owner, to bring them the phone. But you’re not entitled to assume they wanted that—they could very reasonably say, “If you were worried about gas money or driving time, you should have just called my home number and I’d have come out to get it.”So, you would be an officious intermeddler, and entitled to no money. You would still be compelled to turn over the property, because the owner still has a superior possessory right.So, what are you guilty of, then?Well, at minimum, larceny.OK, so, now you’re going online and Googling “elements of larceny”—you see that one of the elements is “intent to permanently deprive.”So, you think, “But, I wasn’t going to permanently deprive the owner—only until they paid up.”That’s not what it means.The “permanently” qualifier merely means that unauthorized borrowing is not strictly larceny.But you did intend to “permanently deprive” the owner.How? Well, the only way you can sell someone something is if you own it and they don’t—so, you were treating the phone as if it was yours, not theirs.That’s a complete denial of their property rights, and therefore a “permanent deprivation”—the fact that you’re willing to sell “your” phone to them for $50 doesn’t indicate any intent to restore their rightful possession.Original Question:“I found someone's phone and tried to give it back in exchange for $50 for the time. They declined so I said fine and left. Can I get in legal trouble?”

My answer is going to be very shocking to many, and maybe I will end up being sued for defamation or something. This is simply my theory, based on my own observations. More extensive research is needed. I would like to see an investigative reporter explore this widespread scam.First, some background info. Back in the olden-days of insurance adjusting, we would do our own market research on a total loss vehicle. We had the appraiser’s report showing mileage, condition, and tire tread measurements, and his opinion on value. Then we would check for comparable vehicles for sale (in newspaper), and get the book value, and call dealers for quotes. From this we came up with a value.It always ended up being a tug of war as we negotiated the final settlement value. And a huge time waster. It was a bit frustrating, but I became very skilled in negotiating these deals.Then a new company came along called CCC Evaluations, and I think there is an ADP Evaluation company as well. We used CCC. The nice thing about CCC is that they send you about 30 or 40 pages of “documentation” proving the value of the totaled vehicle. The evidence seemed to be overwhelming. And this volume of data really extinguished the arguments of any claimants or insureds. Now settling total loss claims on vehicles was easy. Here’s what we are willing to pay, and that was accepted 99% of the time without further discussion or argument. (Because we sent them a copy of the voluminous report.)This actually worked quite well from the claims adjuster viewpoint. But then a friend of mine was having trouble on a total loss settlement, and asked for my help. This was from 8 years ago, and she had a 2002 Buick. And she had this CCC report. For the first time, I actually analyzed the report.While they list 45 “comparable vehicles,” they only use 3 to actually compare it to. And I figured out they use a computer algorithm to always skew the results. So rather than picking the “most comparable” vehicles in your location, the computer program will always grab one vehicle that is “less comparable” to skew the results. But most people do not notice because there is too much data to analyze.Now if they were obviously cheating to save a lot of money, it would be more noticeable, and they would be caught. So to stay “under the radar,” they only cheat you by a little bit. Like maybe $500. Or maybe a little more?But this accumulates over time. If the insurance company pays $500 less on each total loss claim, how much money are they raking in through this scam?In 2007 there were approximately 16,700,000 new vehicles sold in the USA. Let’s assume maybe 15% of these vehicle purchases were due to a vehicle being “totaled” in an accident. That comes to 2,505,000 total loss claims in one year. And if most insurance carriers are utilizing CCC for their evaluations, and if they cheated everyone by $500, this comes to $1,252,500,000 in surplus revenue that they got from using CCC to run this scam.In analyzing the CCC report for a friend, I reached this conclusion.Now no one in the insurance industry is going to say anything about this scam. There is too much money involved.Here’s a copy of my letter to USAA in which I complained about the inaccuracies of their CCC Evaluation. (Not my claim; I was ghost writing this letter for a friend.) Remember, the adjuster is not the one actually doing the evaluation. Again, it is the CCC computer algorithm doing the work.Dear Claims Adjuster:Thank you for your recent email. I have to admit I was disappointed in your response. When we last spoke about this, you had agreed to run the CCC evaluation limited to our local market of the Twin Cities area. Rather than doing as promised, you now say that the value of my vehicle would drop if we only used the local market. This is not true.I have completed a review of the CCC evaluation that you provided. This evaluation includes three vehicles selected as "comparable vehicles," and then it lists another 45 vehicles. (One of the vehicles listed has no price, so I do not understand the point of that.)Perhaps you could explain the methodology in which you decided which vehicles to use as the "comparables." Out of 48 vehicles, one of the vehicles selected as "comparable" was the lowest priced vehicle in the whole list ($3,763), and that vehicle had been located in Rochester, Minnesota, and it is no longer available. No indication has been provided as to when that vehicle was sold.Since there are sufficient vehicles of this year, make, and model available locally, it is not necessary to expand your search to markets outside the Twin Cities area, unless it is your intention to manipulate the results by finding the lowest priced vehicle in other markets.If we limit the vehicles listed in the CCC evaluation to only vehicles within a 20 miles radius of my home, there are nine vehicles that are comparable to my vehicle. The price listed for all of these nine vehicles total $63,441.00, and calculating the average price of these nine vehicles comes to $7,049.00. The CCC evaluation also includes an adjusted value on these nine vehicles, and this total comes to $50,856.00, and calculating the average adjusted price comes to $5,650.00. The problem with this list is that we have no way of knowing if these vehicles are still available for sale, or if they were simply "recently available." Recently available doesn't help me replace my vehicle.To find vehicles that are actually for sale in this market now, I have checked the Auto Trader web site. I have attached a PDF file of my findings. (I have only included the first page of each of these listings to keep the PDF file small. If you prefer, I can send you the entire listing including all pages for each vehicle.)I located 13 vehicles available in this local market. These are all 2002 Buick LaSabre's. The options are all very similar. From this list, I selected five vehicles that have mileage readings that are closest to the mileage reading on my vehicle. (To view the supporting documentation, please refer to the attached PDF, and I am listing these selections according to their order on the list.)Veh. 1 - 123,815 miles, $7,995.Veh. 8 - 112,118 miles, $6,900.Veh. 9 - 109,801 miles, $5,995.Veh. 10 - 117,502 miles, $5,900.Veh. 13 - 110,464 miles, $5,999.Averaging these five comparable vehicles comes to $6,557.80.You have offered to settle my total loss claim for $5,029.00 before we add on sales tax, license, and vehicle registration. I do not accept this amount. I do not believe this offer reflects the true market value of my vehicle.I am asking that you voluntarily reconsider this matter.Significant time has passed since the accident, and I am extremely disappointed this matter has not yet been resolved. Making me a fair offer to settle my claim would very much be appreciated.Thank you.Do you see what a scam this could be? And I believe they are just cheating by a little bit. Most people would not notice it, or take the time to analyze the numbers. And that means the insurance company is getting away with cheating on total loss settlements.I believe they do this to everyone. But it is a huge secret. And no one is supposed to know about it. Shhhh . . . . don’t tell anyone.

Ordered cell Phone - Received a stone.Every week there is one or the other post on social media saying that the seller has shipped stones, apples, mangoes to the customer when they actually ordered something expensive like a cell phone from flipkart, snapdeal or amazon.What doesn’t make sense to me isLogistics is pretty fast these days. Almost all electronics are being delivered in less than 7 days.Payment cycle on all marketplaces is 14 days or above which means, order placed today will be paid after 14th day.When you place an order, it is not like the seller will immediately en-cash the money into his account rather the seller has to wait up to 14 days to receive his amount.By sending a stone in place of a phone, the seller has very less chances of escaping the marketplace scrutiny because no customer who receive a stone for a cell phone will keep calm.So what is the logic behind shipping a stone by any seller? I still am unable to comprehend this phenomenon.I provide services to amazon sellers. Here are my recent experiences I have with how customer fraud happens and this is never shared anywhere on social media by the seller.customer places order for an expensive silk saree. Customer returns 200 rs cotton saree of same color. Courier boy picks it. Seller has to raise a claim with the marketplace and recover partial amount. My seller looses about 5 sarees every month combined on all marketplaces. Very painful for a small time weaver from Rural India but no one cares for his loss.Seller ships expensive branded sunglasses. Receives earrings as a replacement. Spoke to customer to check if they really returned the sunglasses. Customer says he did return it. So where did they vanish? Seller gets some reimbursement from marketplace and case closed.Technically the seller has to worry aboutMoney being held by the marketplace. If you make a mistake and your account is suspended, all your payment dues are held for 90 days by the marketplace. Sellers whose business is totally dependent on the marketplace will have to break his head trying to clear his credits and with no sales.Customer threatening with negative review. Irrespective of whose mistake it is, negative review is a weapon in customer’s hand. Customers leave negative review if they want to take revenge on a seller. Return policy expired - seller didn’t accept return. Customer writes that seller is very rude.Buyer almost gets refund within 24 hours after return is picked up. Buyer returns incomplete package (when product has accessories) or used, old, damaged package to the courier boy. He picks it up and its later on seller’s headache to recover reimbursement and deal with the loss.I am not saying sellers are innocent, but when I know that seller is the last person to have any control on the money, I do not see how they can even send a stone for a cell phone. Still a puzzle thats unsolved!