5 ms·
Interesting story. Kinda hard to feel bad for the would be jet owner. He knew it was a joke but wanted to take advantage of the opportunity for arbitrage anywa
by generj 5y ago
Interesting story.
Kinda hard to feel bad for the would be jet owner.
He knew it was a joke but wanted to take advantage of the opportunity for arbitrage anyways.
The more astounding aspect is that he was able to get investors in on his scheme.
- javajosh 5y ago>he was able to get investors in on his scheme. Small downside (legal fees, 1/7x), big upside (~50x return) plus they knew Pepsi would return the check. That liquid was available for other purposes. On the upside column, it probably felt good to fund the cheeky bastard.
- amelius 5y agoThe sad thing is that his lawyers didn't inform him about "Advertisements are generally not considered offers in contract law", but still took his money.
- DangitBobby 5y agoI wonder if it could ever be considered fraud to accept payment for a case you know to be unwinnable, seeing as how the client would have to be operating under the assumption that the case is winnable.
- MiddleEndian 5y agoHe'd need to get some new lawyers to sue the original lawyers! Lawyers all the way down...
- elzbardico 5y ago> Lawyers all the way down Sir, this is the stuff nightmares are made of
- webmaven 5y ago> I wonder if it could ever be considered fraud to accept payment for a case you know to be unwinnable, seeing as how the client would have to be operating under the assumption that the case is winnable. If the lawyers gave him legal advice that was obviously bad or false, there could be a malpractice case. Most likely they did tell him (though probably not very forcefully), and he proceeded anyway against the advice of counsel. Happens all the time.
- bagacrap 5y agohe didn't even need the investors' money given that he knew the check would never be cashed.
- SteveGerencser 5y agoBut then he would have broken the law by passing a knowingly bad check.
- SkittyDog 5y agoPotentially, depending on the state... But in California and many other states, its not actually a crime to simply pass a check that you know will bounce. There's another essential element of the crime: Intent to defraud the recipient of the check. So if he felt confident in demonstrating that he had financial backers who'd cover the $700k if Pepsi delivered the airplane, then he might be able to beat the check fraud charge. But yeah, it seems like a pretty dangerous gamble to me.
- Dylan16807 5y agoI don't mind someone trying to arbitrage exactly one big expensive thing.