Here's another one of those crazy escrow stories courtesy of Charlene Hughes of our Sonora office (you'll appreciate reading it to the end!): My client told us that this would be an all cash deal. He told us the money was in his trust account and all he had to do was get it released to him. He works with my husband, Gary, so okay. He seems very trust worthy. Right? He writes an offer and puts his girl friend on the contract. We began by ordering inspections and we were off. The pest inspection was done within a week and all looked good. That was until we started having a hard time verifying funds. Our client then told us "Mommy" had to sign off on his money and she was out of the country. Hmmm? Then he went to San Jose to sign papers to get the money wired by his mom's broker. Okay. Looks good. Then we were notified by the title company his check had bounced!!! Now we began to wonder what was going on. The story gets even better. The client told us that someone had unauthorized debits into his account. In this day and age that's entirely possible. So we believed him. He again assured us the funds for the check would be wired, but he couldn't get a hold of his mother to sign off. Then he told us she wanted to see the property herself and would like us to hold off until she came back to the states. Okay, this could be worked with but, the case of the Bounced Check was still in question. We explained his necessity to take care of this matter and told him this was check fraud. He had told us he was having his mom work things out to send him the money first to the title company. So we waited for the funds. And guess what? They never showed up! He explained his mother was going to contact us by email to arrange a time for us to meet when she was in town. So she emailed me from Europe?? She said that she was wiring the funds for the returned check to my client's account and he would have to clear the check himself and that was delayed because of the distance, but it would be done that day. Sure... By now we are aware that we have been taken for a ride by a very good con artist! Of course the money never showed up. He finally confessed and left a messege that he never had the money, but he would take care of the inspection fee and that we needed to cancel the contract. Really, you think!!!???? The next day when he was to pay the inspection, his car just so happens to break down and he calls his now disillusioned girlfriend and asks her to go pay the bill! (I don't think she'll be getting any of her money back!) It appears this gentleman is a pathological liar!! I can't remember a time when I have ever been so duped and I am a pretty good judge of character. The seller felt the same way and so did the person who was at her house when we did the home inspection. Neither my husband or I or the client's girl friend, had any idea about this man. And we even took them out to dinner! Of course, on US!! Because he was an all cash buyer and who wouldn't want to treat an all cash buyer to a business dinner!! Great lesson learned! If I had to do over again, I would probably have someone's funds checked before writing an offer regardless of the seven days allowed to prove funds. And I hope the next buyer will understand our position on this.