I can already see it. Best Buy is going to have to make a new training video for all the little kiddies to watch so they know what currency is real or fake. What a humiliating experience for all parties involved. I wonder who will be doing the happy dance all the way to the bank after this is over?
Believe it or not - there have been millions in $1 counterfeits confiscated by the USSS. Even the Sacky $1 coin has been counterfeited rather extensively.
Now I understand those strange reactions way back when in 1984. While travelling down the east coast we used 2$ bills to pay. Our local bank didn't 1$ bills at that time.
I hope he sues the store and the city police...I'm not too "gun ho" on suing but if this happened to me I would sure do it. I think that the lady was right at the store for saying she didn't have to take them...I don't think there is a law that says she has too but calling in the cops and puting him in jail was way out of line. Speedy
The store must take them unless posted in a very obvious way. That is why you see the convenience stores with the sign saying no bills larger than $20. If she thought they were fake that is one thing but not wanting to take genuine currency is another.
Not so whoopig - stores & merchants ARE NOT required to accept legal US currency if they choose not to. And they don't have to post anything.
It's also a sign of absolutely not thinking! I've heard stupid statements before, but never any dumber that this!
I'm sitting here just shaking my head. I can't imagine the humiliation and embarrassment they put him through. What if he had his kids with him, would they have called social services to take them so he can go to court and fight to get his kids back? I understand the hyper sensitivity of a post 911 era. but for $2.00 bills and all because some young inexperienced clerk didn't know $2.00 bills were legal tender. (I say young clerk because someone a little older 30's-40's would know about them) i'm angry that someones inexperience would cause that kind of uproar. Now, as far as the customer goes..when he saw the clerk giving him a hard time. he should have ended the conversation right then, went over to the service area and had the store manager paged, show him the bills (chances are he/she was older). It may have ended there. My guess is that he was so upset with the situation that he did not think it through. since the store went to the extreme it did i do believe the accountability is theirs and hope he gets a good attorney.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court recently ruled that law enforcement cannot be held liable for false arrest. I do not know if the department cannot be sued, but it definitely means that the officers themselves cannot be. Which means the officer has nothing to fear, no accoutability. One more step toward a police state. The really bad part is, if they utilized the Patriot Act, and while he was being detained, they could have gone through is home, searched his computer, and prosecuted him for ANYTHING they found, regardless if they had probable cause for that specific item\area. There is a strong possibility that is what they were doing by detaining him so long; activating the "sneek and peek" portion of the patriot act that allows a search of home and property without the homeowner being told about it. The guy is squeaky clean, or they would have found something to get him on. Notice how they fall back on the ol' "post 9-11" crap that they feel justifies anything they do. It is too bad that most of the citizenry of this nation would support such behavior as being "reasonable" in the name of security. Benjamin Franklin said it best when he said: I'll get off my stump now, it is just that more and more often our liberties are being ignored in the name of counter terrorism.
