Hello Mr. Postman... uh....Postal Inspector, sir

So this afternoon DH calls me at work and says "Erika, there's a call for you from Mr. So-and-so who is a postal inspector from PA and he wants to talk with you about the VW."

"Oh boy," I think, "I guess I'd better call him back."

I called, left a message, and a couple of minutes later he calls me back at work. Thankfully, it isn't really a big deal, for me anyway. The NBC isn't going to be repo'd by the government or anything, he just wanted to ask me a few questions about the deal:

- Was I related to the guy I bought it from? Ha! Very funny, but no. Turns out the guy I bought it from (box o' rocks) told them he was going to transfer the lease to his sister. Whoops.

- Did I get a good deal? This was a tough question; the PI was concerned that the "victim" would question why the car didn't generate any profit to cover his/her losses. I answered honestly; I would have paid several thousand dollars more at a dealership, maybe a little bit more in a proper private party sale, but I thought that the price I paid was about what a dealer would offer if the car was traded in, which is why I bought it.

- Follow-up question: "Would you have paid $1k more for the car?" Probably not.

- "Did I offer him any cash/money when getting the car or did he ask for any money when I went to pick up the car?" No... money went straight to VW; I didn't give him a dime.

After those questions were answered (as well as some others: did I know him before O bought the car, how did I find out that there was a situation with the car, yada yada yada) the nice Mr. PI and I chatted a bit about box o'rocks and what was going on. Turns out that the big charges are wire and mail fraud (the money-laundering thing equals small potatoes in comparison to mail/wire fraud) for which he'll likely be convicted in about 6 months (apparently he confessed some of his wrongdoing to stave off being caught, so I am not sure whether they are investigating to make sure that he confessed all of it or what). His wife apparently doesn't know half of what was going on; the PI told me that none of that part is technically criminal, but if she knew she would likely have divorced him in a heartbeat (after I shared that she was mighty P.O.'d when we were there). Also, interestingly enough, the guy is more or less a pathological liar, combined with being a complete idiot. Very interesting.

All in all it was a very congenial conversation that didn't make me nervous at all. I told Mr. PI that I was happy to supply any emails or anything about the car. I also asked if the Federal marshalls were going to be calling, and he said "Nah, I'll share this info with them and likely they won't care"

Honestly, I wasn't nervous at any point. I'm kind of glad that he called, actually, because otherwise I might have always wondered about that dangling loose thread of "The Feds!" and now, I have nothing more to worry about. Cool.