Today I was buying a couple of things at Whole Foods. I don’t usually buy anything at WF, but, today there were some long lines at the Safeway next door. Well, I paid with a $5 note I got as change last week (2003A) and a blue colour new $5. The 2003A was surprisingly looked over... and over... by the cashier and held up to the light... and marked up with a pen, and verified by a manager, before finally being accepted. On my previous visit last month, I happened to use a 1995 $10 which went through this same arduous process. Was this an isolated occurrence, or have any of you fellow CT members had perfectly normal money almost rejected by a store clerk? Altogether, the fool of a cashier wasted quite some time with his procedure, holding up a couple of people behind me. Do people seriously forget what money looked like around 7-8 years ago?
Depending on where you live, notes can be really looked at closely Especially if there might be an issue that the clerk hasent seen before But here in Vegas most stores do not take $100 bills, as there is allot Of funny money being brought in from all over the United States, so here,s a tip, when you come to Las Vegas bring $20,s...LOL
I personally recommend $1s, but I guess that depends on why you're going to Vegas (only kidding, I was born and raised in Vegas, went to Valley High School).
Has happened to me too, here in the euro area though. A while ago we got "second generation" notes, starting with €5 in 2013 (the last two denominations, €100 and €200, come out in ten days). The first generation is still perfectly legal though. And yet there was this young supermarket cashier who did not like my old fiver the other day. Well, it was almost midnight, I was tired, so I just gave him coins. Christian
Yes it happens, the clerk sees so much money but newer looking older bills stand out like a sore thumb. A lot of younger clerks have no idea what a bill looked like 5 years ago. Hand them an old small portrait of Franklin and see what happens. I've been in stores and had the police show up because of an older bill. Sad but sometimes funny.
If I were a cashier, and I stood to get in trouble for accepting a bogus note, I'd err on the side of caution too. Remember, the reason we have multi-color notes with extra security features now is that the old ones were getting too easy to fake.
I digress on this as the old notes had many perfectly good security features on them but sadly much of the common folk out there are devoid of any critical thought when it comes to money. For example, currency had iron mixed into the ink starting in the early 1980's. This helped machines and currency-processing equipment to validate notes. The ink and paper mix of cotton and linen used is essentially unique and unattainable by the general public, the micro-printing and embedded strips introduced in the early 1990's was a fine idea, as were the development and use of blue and red fibers into the paper. This is the first time I've heard of a post-1995 $5 note causing suspicion. Sadly, we have the government to blame for this. The $5 note should never have been messed with beyond adding the security features that were introduced starting with Series 1993. All their redesign did was enable forgers to bleach 1999-2006 $5 notes into fake $100 bills with relative ease. The problem was so pronounced that it became a priority to change the $5 note into its present-day form which is why it has the giant purple "5" on the back, the major modification of the watermark from a portrait, the rearrangement of the embedded security strip, and its pronounced emphasis on the strip wherein it states it is for the $5 denomination. A lot of headaches, time, money and deceptive counterfeiting would have been saved and prevented if well enough was simply left alone of which, the $5 note is said to have nearly not been redesigned from the small-face portrait to begin with but treasury officials or whomever at the time pushed forward with the change, anyway.
Many years and many more moons ago I was an assistant manager with a large retail drug store. One day 2 men came in with proper id and they spoke with me and we found which clerk had accepted the fake $100.00 bill a week earlier. This was well before any changes in design and all portraits were small. As I recall the bill had the usual fake markings but I could not expect any of the employees that handled money to know the fine differences and what to look for. She was an excellent clerk and well liked by all. She gave a fairly decent description of the girl that passed the bill and the car she got into. About 3 days later both suspects were apprehended. I can not believe any employee would be in danger of losing their job for accepting a fake bill. Employers do not train their employees in this area and they do not invest in the proper equipment to sniff out a forged bill. It's part of doing business.
The intaglio printing is what separates the real from the photo copies. Too bad that companies don't train their employees beyond using the starch markers. Most counterfeit notes taken have a relationship between the spender and the clerk. That's why they needed to be asking questions.
No questions were asked, but, I was surprised that this charade occurred. Why would anyone fake a $5 note? Not worth the time (with over $10 min. wage) or the risk.
actually it is worth your time, because very few people would call a $5 In to question even if it looked a little off.