So, it feels fake but the fibers are there so it's real. So I get out the magnifying glass to find that the fibers had actually been printed onto the page, you could see the scan lines from the laser.

Since we weren't *sure* it was fake, even though it was, we just put it in the deposit and the bank took it. (Which of course means nobody believes this story when I tell it, but the damned thing was fake.)

Another money fun-fact- the bills are printed with a process that's backwards of the regular offset process. I think it's called something like negative image printing. A normal offset print job will have a metal plate with raised features where the ink should go. It's coated with ink and then pressed onto the page. But with money, the unprinted area is raised and the area where the print will be is deep. The "holes" are filled with ink, and then the whole thing is squeegeed off so the raised area are clean. Then it's pressed into the paper at a very high pressure such that it flattens the white areas and smashes ink into the areas to be printed. Check out a newish bill and you'll feel that the inky area is sort of raised. But unlike say a raised ink business card, the bump is actually uncompressed paper and not just a lump of ink.

Fun fact two- did you know the sparkly ink on the newer bills is two color? Look at it straight on and it's one color, offset it's another. The newest 20s demonstrate this very well: head on it's a copper color, to the side its a gold/brass color. And pretty much anything you do to to the ink it will retain that quality.

#3- the security strip glows different colors depending on the denomination under UV light.

#4- The largest bill currently produced is the $100. No $500s, $1000s, etc.

#5- Strippers get confused when you tip with $2 bills.

In our area, mostly off-site ATMs are outsourced, but ones found in banks are most often handled by tellers. I can also tell you that we do machine count ATM money before it goes in, but we do not check for counterfeit, since we receive that money from the currency company. Most banks have money counters that detect counterfeit currency, but my branch does not currently because of the cost of these machines.

Most counterfeits I have encountered have been of very poor quality and very obvious. However, the pen is not a dependable tool. We have encountered some real bills that give questionable results with pens.

Real currency is printed on paper with a very high rag content. The paper is much more durable than regular paper. I'd guess the counterfeits don't last as long or that the attempt to make them seem used and less "fresh from the color inkjet printer" also rips the inferior paper inadvertently. (Remember tumbling fake bills in a dryer with coins or rocks or something from "To Live and Die in LA?")

These $20's are usually inkjet prints, frequently torn and taped back together, assumedly because counterfeiters think that'll make me not look as closely. Apparently it never occurs to them to check that the color is even close, that they're not too small or that the feel isn't off. The feel's a dead giveaway. I don't stare down every Andy that passes through there, but the ones that feel off get a second glance. 80% of the time, the odd ones are just whooped or torn or something. But the other 20% of the time, they're about as real as Micheal Jackson's nose.

'round about 10pm one night a guy comes up with some beer and frozen food...nothing big, hands me the WORST fake $20 I'd ever seen. It was like a crappy xerox copy, like it was a 5th generation xerox copy!

I handed it to the security guy without even batting an eye. The rest of the story? The bill passer was a retired state cop!!!!

The officers that came from the local PD were very nice to him as they escorted him to jail.

BofA (or any other bank) shouldn't be blamed for something like this happening, as long as they take care of the customer with minimal hassle.

AGNP

They only got caught cause they got greedy.

We have gotten a fake $10 from a pizza delivery place, but that was years ago. Yet, it too had the same type of security features as the $20. So now I make sure that the banks change out the older $20s for newer ones when I deal with a teller. With the ATMs, I just cross my fingers and pray they weren't filled with phonies.

And I never EVER use those "white box" atms either.

Magician James Randi got so annoyed by the misplaced trust in these pens that he says he used to take out stacks of $50 bills from the bank, spray starch them on both sides and return them to the bank. Banks don't use iodine pens.

I wonder how many cashier's tried to confiscate those $50 dollar bills when they used the pens on them?

If you want to check for counterfeits you are much better off looking for the translucent security strip, the watermark, the color changing ink and the feel of the paper and raised quality of the intaglio printing--and the microprinting if you really want to go overboard.

"It's not our fault!" - The new rallying cry of corporate America.

I used to work as a teller at PNC Bank and would stock the ATMs with cash. The bills put into the ATM mostly came from weekly money shipment. Those bills were from an official facility and always legit. In addition, though, we would add any extra bills the bank received in deposits during the week (the branch was charged based on how much money we shipped in and out, so we obviously tried to reuse all that we could). This is where a counterfeit could slip through. Our branch's ATMs often gave out upwards of 40K a day, and it is entirely impractical to test every bill.

And yes, when we caught counterfeit bills on the teller line we filled out a quick form for the Secret Service and mailed it away. I don't know the policy for retail stores on giving back the bill.

I'm actually quite impressed that BoA gave him 20 bucks. Usually it's like a hot potato and whoever gets stuck last with it is screwed.

Counterfeits can look very good (and those pen tests are easily screwed up by the presence of very trace amounts of potassium), but the foolproof way to catch a counterfeit is the feel of paper. When you handle thousands of bills a day, that rare one that does feel right stands out like a sore thumb. Humorously, the best counterfeiting job I saw in my time were not any of the dozen hundreds or fifties, but a bang-up job on a one dollar bill. That's right. One dollar!

those pens don't work all the time anymore. word on the street is that counterfeiters are now bleaching 1's & 5's to make larger bills that pass the paper test.

As for calling the cops, I think most businesses would advise you to give the money back and let the person go. Especially if it's just a twenty dollar bill. It's not worth the risk of someone getting violent. It's the same reason they don't confiscate bad credit cards anymore like they used to. Too many cashiers got punched in the face.

The cashier never should have let him have the $20 back. Had he been a counterfitter trying to pass it off, that's just a free ticket for him to go and try to use it somewhere else.

Also, the best detector of counterfeit currency is an experienced teller or cashier. Not people like that cashier at Best Buy who thought $2 dollar bills were not real.

At least that's how I understood it....

but awhile back there was a story about this guy who's an artist and he designs his own U.S. currency, and then prints a bill up, and then goes and tries to use it for purchases. His works command big money to collectors, like $2000+ for a $100 bill. If some guy tried to bargain with that sort of money I'd google him and ask for ID (and of course take it if I could sell it later, just replace it with $100 of my own money.

From Wikipedia: "When the pen is used to mark genuine bills, the mark is yellowish or clear...counterfeit notes are often printed on the commonly used wood pulp based paper. The iodine in the ink reacts to starch in the wood pulp, and the pen makes a dark mark indicating a counterfeit note."

How was it determined to be counterfeit?