Another fake note tale

[Mishi]

I don't know about discreetly, but I do know that the local computer store has a rule about managers 'counting' the notes if you hand them a stack of 50's. Takes a while, but it's better than risking a counterfeit and the wording of the request is very polite, it was something like - "Hang on a moment, I just need to get my manager to check that *I* counted your money correctly, I'll be back really soon with your receipt and change."

[AriRashkae]

That's really the best and easiest way to check a bill, but we were told not to do that anymore because it offends people and makes them feel like we're accusing them I mean really? If I paid for something with a large bill and the cashier wanted to check it, I wouldn't care.

Most of the people who saw me check a bill were curious, but to those who got huffy I would calmly point out that I have been handed 3 fake $20s in my career, and two of the customers didn't know they had been given fakes.

Of course, for me, the fastest, easiest, and most discreet way to check a bill was to drag my fingernail over the president's shirt as I was counting it. If it didn't feel raised, then I'd check a little more closely if things looked/felt hinky.

[EmiOfBrie]

Since the old twenty pound notes stopped being legal tender back in June, you'd think that it would have filtered down by now to the rocks that most SCs live under, but no.

The problem in the USA is that no bills have stopped being legal tender. Ever. A $100 silver cert from 1911 spends just the same as a current $100 bill.

This is why anti-counterfeiting measures in the USA continue to fail. So long as older bills are still considered legal tender, someone can just counterfeit a pre-1996 bill and age it, totally defeating the point of anti-counterfeiting measures embedded into current bills.

[ShinyGreenApple]

For the most part people would just be curious as to how I could tell it's a real bill or not, and I'd show them. But the few who moan about being offended, yeah, they make things difficult for everyone

Of course, for me, the fastest, easiest, and most discreet way to check a bill was to drag my fingernail over the president's shirt as I was counting it. If it didn't feel raised, then I'd check a little more closely if things looked/felt hinky.

I've started scratching the jackets, too, lol. Also if you tilt the corner a little bit, the number 100 or 50 will change color as the light hits it if it's a real one.

[Lace Neil Singer]

There's a raised bit on English notes, plus a dotted line that comes solid and of course, the watermark. I prefer to discretely use the pen; they took them away from checkouts cuz of customers nicking them, probably for neferous purposes, but we've still got ours. Holding a note up to the light only prompts the customer to chirp, "Made it this morning! Har Har!" -.-

[thansal]

I had been told that the newest £20 notes were 'impossibe to fake'. Sure, that's why we already have a list of serial numbers on each till to keep a special eye out for.
I did feel for the customer who handed me a fake £20, though. I think she really didn't know. When the supervisor, and then the manager, told her that it was a fake, she thought she could just take it to her bank and get a real one, like you would with an old one that had gone out of circulation.

Well, impossible to fake is a relative term.

Older American bills (being American, I'm only really familiar with our stuff) you could get fairly damn close to legit. Newer ones? Not so much. IIRC, the main measures (paper type, watermarks, little strip things) are faked by washing out lower denomination bills, so everything is there, they are just wrong. These pass casual/uninformed inspection. Of course, if the strip is in the wrong place, or reads $5 instead of $20, or the printing isn't up to scratch (miniature pictures, raised printing, etc), or they don't have the proper ink types (that colour changing bit), they can still be spotted.

For some light weight entertainment on the entire thing of fake bills:
http://www.woz.org/letters/general/78.html

Steve Wozniak caries around $2 bills, the Americans will know how uncommon those are, and he makes it worse by having them in either uncut sheets (Still legal, buy em from the treasury), or perforated and made into a book so he can tear out $4 and hand it as a tip.

[Andara Bledin]

This is why anti-counterfeiting measures in the USA continue to fail. So long as older bills are still considered legal tender, someone can just counterfeit a pre-1996 bill and age it, totally defeating the point of anti-counterfeiting measures embedded into current bills.

Except that any business can, and most likely will, refuse to accept any bill that isn't still in fairly common circulation. Only the government is required to accept all legal tender.

Of course, the $2 bill issue still rears its head quite often. It continues to baffle me how many people have never even heard of a $2 bill.

^-.-^

[AtDIelement]

Not too long ago we captured a bleached $5 bill that was turned into a $100.

You can always tell because the part that is supposed to change color doesn't, so that's always the first red flag... The second being the watermark of Abraham Lincoln on the bill.

We've seen a rise on them, I don't know if it's the impending holiday season that people are starting to test their luck or what.

Either way, it's a pain in my butt.

[Pimento]

My two fake bill stories:

Once i cashed my check at my bank, decided on the spot to give back $100 cause i wouldnt need it.....then was shocked when my bank balance was $80 due to a counterfeit bill....SERIOUSLY? one that hadnt even left the tellers eyes. So it was in the bank to begin with.

Second: Just found out an old high school party buddy was put in jail for running a counterfeit bill operation from his house in my (small) home town lol.

[Gaki]

At the gas station our bill readers won't take a bill if it's a one turned into a twenty or a twenty into a 100. If a bill doesn't go into the safe, we don't take it. It's either a hundred that's too new and thus "too crispy" or the bill reader just doesn't like it. If the reader doesn't like it, we don't take it, real or not.

We can't steal people's fake money though...ALTHOUGH, there was this couple handing out hundreds with the wrong face on them (Jackson) and I'd totally take one of those if I could. It's still worth twenty bucks no matter what it says on it. xD I just find it fascinating that someone would do that.

One of the tricks we have to find the fake stuff from the real stuff that's really quick and easy is we try to "snap" it. If you put it in your hand the right way and put your thumb down, real money (if it hasn't been through the washer fifty times) should "pop." It's hard to explain really, mostly just a trick we do when we're bored and someone handed us a bill and is digging for change. If we do this and it just kinda sinks down like fabric, we take a real good look at it and mark it with the pen or look for the watermarks.

And if you stand it up on it's end between your thumb and forefinger it should stand up easily, if it droops to the point where it's touching your hand you'd want to take another look at it. Obviously ones that have been around since the 70s are gonna do that but most American money is subject to the same rules.