Any counterfeit bill stories?

[Anakah]

I've heard its just Visa that doesn't make the five hundred dollar denominations. I have taken several Amex ones and never had any problems. But I could be wrong.

[bainsidhe]

Haven't run much into counterfeit bills, but our store has with fake traverls checks.

[TonyDonuts]

One day, the ATM in my store gave a guy a fake $20.00 bill.

A BAD fake $20.00 bill.

BRIGHT light green ink.

Off center printing.

No security strip.

And, it had been cut out by hand, the edges weren't straight.

We called the cops, they called the bank that owned the ATM, they had a tech out in half an hour, and she discovered a stack of them five inches thick in the cassette in the machine.

They traced it to the armored car crew that serviced the machine. Different guys from a different company filled the machine the next day.

[AriRashkae]

I've come across 3 fake $20s in my time at the blue and green gas station. The check cashing place down the street was handing them out left and right. The first I caught by touch, checked it, and the guy was more than happy to wait for the cops. He was pissed about getting handed the fake in the first place! #3 was the same.

Guy #2, on the other hand, knew damn well he was passing a fake. The bill looked yellow when he handed it over, and when he saw me examining it, tried to take it back. When I refused (politely, I'm not stupid to start a fight), he dropped a $10, grabbed his smokes, and bolted for the car.

Except, he had parked right by the BIG plate glass window, so I got color, rough shape and make, and most of his plate before he hauled out. Sadly, my description of him wasn't that good, since he had a cap on and I'm lousy with faces to start.

The cops didn't catch him that night, as the neighborhood around me was a warren of little side streets, but I did get down called down to the station some time later for a photo line up. Unfortunately I wasn't much help. That's when I found out about the check stop by the bridge.

[bob the goat]

I used to work at a large grocery store (Meijer, for those of you in this corner of the country). I was a bagger, but was forced into cashiering for a short while.

About my second month as a cashier this guy comes in my lane. His total comes to something like $40. He hands me a wad of $5 bills. This is not that uncommon. I figure he is married to a waitress. I start flipping thru the bills counting them. They don’t feel right. I look a little closer. They look fake. I quickly say Crap, and start counting again, as if I made a counting mistake. I get done and am confident that they are fake.

Me: Aww crap, that last lady took my last quarter. I have to call and get someone to run me some change.

Him: I'm in a hurry, you can keep the change.

Me: I can’t accept tips, I'll get fired. I'll do you a favor, instead of paging the runner I'll call the cash office and have them bring it directly to me, it will just take a minute.

I call the security office "Hi, this is Bob on Lane X, I need a Cage with change out here right now. I have a guy that is in a hurry...can you have someone out here right now?.....great thanks.

Not 30 seconds later I spot the two plain clothes security moving toward the lane from within the store, one got in line behind him, one went around by the greeter, I spotted another standing outside the door nearby, and one walking slowly toward me with a change bag in their hand. As the one with the change bag got there he handed me the bag. I said this guy is trying to pass a counterfeit bill.

The guy shoved past the guy that walked up and started to bolt for the door. Unfortunatly for him, the guy behind him in line and the guy by the greeter stand got to him at the same time and took him down they were trying out for the Superbowl. They hit the ground in a flurry of flailing limbs. He started to scramble away when the other two guys were on top of him.

I was in the security office giving my statement to them when the cop showed up. He read the guy his rights.

Cop: do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?

Guy: Yeah...but it won't do you any good. I copied those bills, but you can't sue me, I'm unemployed.

Apparently, in his little world you could only be prosecuted if you had a job.

[Dreamstalker]

My grandfather used to work in the Secret Service; the tales he would have. The ineptness of some counterfeiters back then is truly staggering (as in, fakes that looked so fake you had to wonder how they expected to pass them off).

Somewhere, I have a fake half-dollar with a fairly nice example of the metal counterfeiting tests of the day, also a pawful of real silver half-dollars that were altered so Kennedy's profile is raised (as-is they're worthless, we want to reclaim the silver but as it is technically still currency we may not be allowed to).

[walking with scissors]

Weird-fake: At the big box store I once worked at, a clerk accepted a $20 bill that was actually a $1 bill with the 20s from a $20 glued on the corners. WTF? Granted, this was back in the 80s before photoshop and whatnot, but still. Who wouldn't notice that?

[pssorens]

I grew up with a guy that tried to pass a bunch of fake bills. In northeastern Montana in a small town that everyone knows everyone in a 50 mile radius. suffice it to say he got caught

[42_42_42]

Never ran into any fakes, but once when I was working the cashier at the "Home of the Whopper", the cashier next to me was refusing to accept a $2 bill in payment because "there's no such thing as a $2 bill". He didn't believe me or the other customers in the store. I went and got a manager who finally convinced the kid that $2 bills were not fake. And the customer got his meal for free for being inconvenienced by my co-irker.

[gaspode]

We had Someone try to pass a fake £20 note over the bar once.
When the customer was told it was fake he demanded it back(not suppossed to give them back but we were sick of his moaning).So we got a black marker pen and wrote FAKE across it .The look on his face was priceless.

[Leopardmadcat]

lordlundar - that pic is of a legit coin... couldn't find a pic of a fake. There were 1600 produced and 800 were seized by the feds when they busted the guy. He apparently worked at the mint and got hold of a pre-production plate. He went bye-bye for a long while... The fake has a detached ducks bill and the queen's crown is way too big. That and sloppy workmanship overall.

Fake bills coins and travelers cheques... Oh and lets not forget stolen credit/debit cards and paypal accounts! What next?

[CoffeeMonkey]

This happened two summers ago...

Guy and girl come in. They're in their mid twenties, dressed quite nicely, and polite. They order two drinks, and their total is about eight bucks. He pays with a hundred.

It FEELS wrong. Too smooth. It's clearly made of paper. Also way too pristine for an old style hundred. This thing was CRISP. I check it, like I do every 50 and 100 I get, and sure enough, it's fake.

I tell the guy I can't take it because it's not real. He is stunned. Calmly stunned. I point out how I can tell. He says that it's an older hundred, it doesn't have the same security features. No, it won't have the portrait, but it's new enough that it should have the strip, and it does not.

Now he is dismayed. He holds out a whole bunch of the bills, saying that his brother had just given them to him to pay him back for something. All fake.

He pays with a twenty (real), and they sit and enjoy their drinks for awhile before leaving. Meanwhile we're in the back discussing what to do. I think the supervisor called the manager, and she didn't want the cops called. We got a description, and when they left, the plate number of their BMV, in case we had to talk to cops later. (If they hit multiple stores in the area, for instance)

It's possible that they really were innocent, but I got a distinct vibe that they knew what they were doing. They were just too cool and calm about the whole thing. I think they stayed instead of taking off right away to try to make us think that they weren't suspicious.

[Rapscallion]

We had Someone try to pass a fake £20 note over the bar once.
When the customer was told it was fake he demanded it back(not suppossed to give them back but we were sick of his moaning).So we got a black marker pen and wrote FAKE across it .The look on his face was priceless.

The Boss did something similar with someone protesting too much. The counterfeit detector pen was what he used to write 'FAKE' on it. On both sides.

Rapscallion

[crazylegs]

When I was working at the <music shop> one of the till chaps took the worst fake £20 note I have ever (and will ever) seen.

It was printed on normal paper.

No watermark.

The foil strip was drawn on with a silver pen.

There was a white border.

It was the wrong colour.

The back was back to front (i.e. left/right reversed).

I wasn't amused.

[lordlundar]

Okay, not a bill but an ID that the manager discovered because let's be honest, who wouldn't spot this:



What's wrong? well, the background is actually supposed to be a wild rose, with the mountain range being from the old one. On the back of the new ones is also a optic sensor code up at the top Looks like static from a tv and a standard barcode on the bottom right.

So this image on the front (by the way, in a real one the seal is holographic, the fake wasn't) printed out on plain paper. The back was two barcodes and a 4 digit number below the lower barcode (16 on the real), also printed on plain paper.

Now for the real kicker: This idiot glued them onto a piece of flash card, cut them and LAMINATED THEM! Our photo ID cards haven't been laminated paper for YEARS! they appear like credit cards.

The manager brought it to me partially for a second opinion from a non-commission staff member (standard policy and apart from him, I was the senior most non-commission staff in the store) and partially so I would get a laugh out of it. He was right, I was keeled over laughing for a good five minutes.