If they actually cut them down, could you invoke TREE LAW? Wrongfully cutting down trees can lead to massive fines in the US, since they are so hard to replace.

Especially since you could pull this scam with a whole lot of other businesses that wold not result in cutting down trees.

Raccoons and corvids? What, in the 30 minutes after they defeated the crabs, but before they evolved into crabs themselves?

Or Sheffield council and Amey cutting down healthy trees because they thought it would generate more profit in the street maintenance contract.

I doubt I've ever seen a farce as big as the east leg of HS2.

It's linking London and Leeds. No, it's linking London and a tram stop 10 miles outside Nottingham. No, it's linking London to the ruins of the last coal power station in Britain, and a bus stop to East Midlands Airport for some reason, even though London has like 4 fucking airports anyway and they all go to the same shithole cheap Euro dumps that EMA flies to. Ah you know what fuck it, you're not getting HS2 at all.

Shīt, that hurts me even reading this 😭

That same scam is also ran on every other payment method. These would all be prevented by not accepting checks that aren't for the exact amount and don't pay the difference in cash to the check writer.

One reason is to avoid card transaction fees. For smaller companies providing often expensive services, like tree felling, they'll pass on the card transaction fee to the client or recommend they just pay by check to avoid it.

Boomer contractors who can't figure out how to take a payment on a mobile device.

I still have to have a checkbook because my dog groomer and my tree trimmer/gutter cleaner companies both refuse to accept cards. They are small businesses and don't want to deal with the fees. My options are go get cash every time, or keep a checkbook on hand to write checks. While I understand their reasoning, it's infuriating that checks even still exist.

I haven't had a checkbook in a long time.

Because the US detests change of any form, even if it will make things better.

Tree law is a thing, there are big lawsuits in the states over trees.

Tree law was one of the few subreddits that I would actually read everytime I saw a post pop up in my feed. Something so satisfying about a good case of tree law.

Or a scam-law...

“They send you a check for $1,500, and they want you to send $500 back to them,” Adam Barbee with Arbor Sense said. “And then that way, they take $500, and you try to go cash the check, and the check is no good.”

If someone sends me a check for $500 more than they should have, I would just have them send me another and void the incorrect one. Checks that don't match invoices make for sloppy books.

That is like, actually one of the oldest scams in the book. I'm impressed.

That's a pretty interesting scam.

I have yet to run into a single company who's AP/AR departments aren't either overworked, inept, or both.

A lot of this hinges on how sloppy and mistake prone banks are, how all of the overworked/inept AP/AR departments have to work with the AP/AR departments of other outfits who are in the same boat, how ridiculous credit card companies are with their "expense account" offerings, and how too many vendors think "we'll just keep charging them and hope they don't notice" is a valid business model.

These scams work on companies because messing up the amount on a check and it not clearing is only MARGINAL stupidity compared to the day-to-day operations they deal with. If the scammers spell the company name right, they're one up on most accounts payable departments.

And the tree's owner can sue you for comically large amounts of money. Ye olde r/bestoflegaladvice actually had to ban tree law posts for much the same reason that r/nocontext had to ban content from r/crusaderkings.

Overpayment and asking for cash back is one of the most common scams, it’s hardly specific. You can replace tree felling with just about anything. They’re just the latest victims.

The scam is old AF, it’s just new targets. If you’ve tried to sell a car in the last 20 years, you’ve dealt with someone trying to pull it. Or rent a room or house, there’s a reason Airbnb is popular with owners, even for long term situations.