Colorado man to appear in court over $700 in Girl Scout cookie fees

Do-si-dos, thin mints, tagalongs … if you’re not familiar with these names, you need to track down a Girl Scout immediately and purchase some of their famous cookies.

Just make sure when writing the cheque for these tasty treats you don’t end up like Tad Osborn of Fort Collins, Colorado, who now owes over $700 in cookie fees.

After purchasing $42 worth of the Girl Scout cookies, the youth organization claimed that his cheque had bounced and a few months later he received a letter from a debt collection agency explaining that his bill had now doubled.

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Osborn could not figure out how it was possible that the cheque bounced because he had “a healthy balance in an opening and functioning bank account.” He also claims he can prove it.

After being directed to the Girl Scout nerve centre in Denver, Osborn said they informed him that they had a problem with the cheque because his account was marked as “closed”.

He knew something was amuck because his account was definitely not closed. He blames the Girl Scout’s bank for an administrative error.

Spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts of Colorado, Rachelle Trujillo, refused to comment specifically on this case. She said the Girl Scout cookie operation is like any other big business. They sell an average of 3.5 million cookies per year.

“When a cheque is reported as bad debt by a troop’s bank, the troop attempts to contact the customer and the council then attempts to resolve the debt,” said Trujillo in a statement. She said that when multiple attempts to resolve the debt have failed, they resort to a professional collection agency, just like any other business would.

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Osborn claims that he was never even notified about the bounced cheque. “Because they never contacted me, I never had the chance to set this straight,” he said.

After AAA Collectors sued him for a $739.85, which included $450 in legal fees and the $100 to file a legal response to stop the agency from winning a judgment by default, these cookies tallied up to a grand total of $839.85. Wow.

Guess those cookies don’t look so tasty now, do they?

He is set to appear in court to dispute the charges on May 8.

The cookie ordeal has left a bad taste in Osborn’s mouth but has not deterred him from allowing his daughter to continue as a Girl Scout. He has since thought twice about ever writing them a cheque again, though. From now on, he’ll pay cash for his cookies, Scout’s honor.

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