There is a method that I was taught that has, until this point, worked flawlessly. Take a finger or thumbnail and drag it across an area of the printing that has lines. You should feel a texture, and if you do, the note was embossed, and not "printed". The pens don't work because, there is a specific brand of Hair Spray that you can use on a sheet of plain notebook paper, and the pen will write yellow and not black.
If you rub a potato over a good note, the pen will show counterfeit. The "ink" in those counterfeit pens is just iodine. In the presence of starches, iodine turns black.
I work for a financial services company. The manager of our currency services unit told me at one time that the pens are really useless. The other frustration is that our branches would take any pen marked bills out of circulation by sending them back to the Fed for destruction.
It's been a quiet 5 months. Caught another today. No security strip or watermark. Easy pick ups on this one. Enjoy.
Years ago my business took in a $100 and the bank kicked it back as fake. The SS came out and picked it up. He called it a fake and gave the workers a lesson on spotting fakes. A few weeks later the SS brought the bill back and said it was real.
My business got stuck with 2 100s several months ago. They were passed to us by a police officer. The pen test is useless. These bills were printed on real paper. They were bleached $5 bills. The strip said $5. The watermark was from a$5. The ink was poor. What caught my eye was a bit of ink was smeared at the seal. We bought a simple money counting machine for 100 bucks. It also detects counterfeits. It works flawlessly. Every cash business should get one.
In such a case will the feds redeem the initial value of the bills? Will you get your $10 back? I understand if the bills were complete fakes, fake ink, fake paper, etc. These bills were real $5 at one point. I mean you can send the feds damaged money and they still manage to redeem value as best they can. Can these bills be considered damaged $5? Just wondering.
According to a friend who owns several retail establishments in rural northern Florida, counterfeit bills of all denominations are common, including fives. Most businesses still use the marking pen, but some now have a machine they feed bills into that supposedly is super accurate. According to the owner, when a counterfeit bill is detected the HD surveillance camera's memory is given to the authorities.
Thanks for the comments. The paper seemed heavier and thinker and likely computer or copy paper. The feel and color was immediately the red flag. We ditched the pens and went to mini UV lights. At 365nm they show the glow of the security strip or lack there of. The font was blurry and didn't have a crisp look to it. I have had a bleach washed $5 with a $50 printed on it and we did not have it replaced as damaged.
An easy way for the counterfeiter to by-pass the pen test is to spray the counterfeit bill with hair spray a head of time. The ink from the pen will not turn color if it has been sprayed.