$100 counterfeit today at work

I worked in the public for over forty years and being a collector had its advantages. I have been lucky to not have this happen to me. I always followed two rules, the feel and the smell. If it is new money it has a distinguished smell they can not duplicate. I caught about five or six just by the smell and feel. The smell being my last line of defense. If the customer got upset and the boss tells me to take it and later finds out it is false, he pays not me.

 

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When I worked retail the first thing I did, automatically, was feel the bill. Real currency is made of linen and cotton, not paper. After a while you get used to that feel of real bills. Then I'd look at the bill for the different markers the BEP puts on their bills. I was at the local casino the other day and they are checking bills with a UV light pen now instead of the standard pen.

 

Should not be "A4" Boston is "A1"

 

I intercepted every counterfeit note passed at my business over a twenty year period before it got taken to the bank. Good thing, too. Try to deposit a counterfeit note at a bank, and you'll get grilled by a Secret Service (actually FBI, unless you're in DC) agent with a gun, badge and bad attitude.
I kept them all. There have been a total of ten, most in the last couple years when high resolution scanners, photoshop and ink jet printers can be tweaked to produce a superficially good likeness of a colorized twenty. Better training of staff eliminated the problem.
Considering something close to $7 million in cash passed through our register in those twenty years, counterfeit notes are among the least of our worries.

 

Any pics ??

 

Is that directed at me? A trip to the SDB must come first. I was going today anyway (weekends are good for playing with collections). I'll see what I can do.

 

@Small Size I'd reconsider the notion of posting something counterfeit of a currently circulating note. I shy away from even posting images of 19th century counterfeits.

 

Another one sent in to be reported.

 

It is my understanding that being in possession of counterfeit U.S. money of any kind is illegal, no matter how it was acquired. Please correct me if wrong. I wouldn't want anyone getting into trouble over innocent intentions while posting about them.

 

Possession with fraudulent intent is illegal, simple possession is not.

A link to the BEP website concerning this matter; https://www.moneyfactory.gov/resources/lawsandregulations.html

The note on the bottom is counterfeit

 

Though a good fake, the paper quality is a dead give away, especially on the edges.

 

When a new style bill is issued by the BEP you can request if you are a retailer, etc. samples of the new bill to show ur employees.

 

My counterfeit story....or more correctly stated....non-counterfeit story:

I went to the bank to deposit several hundred dollars from my business (I know, my first mistake,right?). The teller singled out one of the hundreds as fake. He said it felt fake. It also failed his machine test once, but it passed other times. He stamped it with a big red "counterfeit" stamp and gave it back. He said I was "stuck".

So I looked over the bill. Everything was perfect except the bill was a bit dirty and it felt like somebody had ironed it between two pieces of waxed paper. All the security features were perfect. Being a bit of a currency collector I knew them all. The teller knew some of them but he said he was aware that many of them could be faked and he didn't trust the bill.

I marched over to the manager and said that I did not accept the determination that my bill was counterfeit and that I was out $100. After waving around my "good customer" status, the manager finally agreed to send the bill off to the Secret Service for verification. It came back about a month later as authentic but mutilated because of the red stamp the teller had placed on the bill. The SS stamped the bill with a big black stamp that said, "authentic mutilated note. Do not transact". The bank had to credit my account.

I should have reported the teller for mutilating authentic currency. Lol.

 

Nice story,

Sounds like the red seal $2 bill a school cafeteria thought was fake years ago.

I find it strange that the bank would knowingly pass a counterfeit back to a customer. I am certain their policy is to alert authorities and surrender the bill to the secret service. It's not an agreement between them and the customer to send it but more of a policy directed by the treasurery department.

 

On another occasion about a year earlier, I actually did have a fake hundred passed off to me in my business (passed on by a cop no less), anyway, not knowing what to do I brought it to the bank. They agreed it was counterfeit but we're totally disinterested in taking it or giving me any advice.

I even called the Secret service and spoke to an agent that sounded responsible. But even he took no real interest in my bill, never encouraged me to send it in. He wasn't going to make an effort to retrieve it.

I wound up posting the bill on my bulletin board at work to teach the staff how to identify fakes.

Now we pass all currency through a bank style counter/authenticator. We even got a phony $1 bill once. Who would take the time to fake $1?

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/finding-mr-880-case-1-counterfeit-article-1.109016

 

I wonder if there are any Mr. 880 dollars are out there and kept as collectibles.

 

The marker is the misspelling of Washington. (Wahsington)

 

I wonder if they washed an old hundo to make it