@WearingBlue4BillyMays_GitEmSteveDave: My guess is no. Here's the closest case I could find: [en.wikipedia.org]

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Jeremy82465

June 29, 2009 5:43 PM

@WearingBlue4BillyMays_GitEmSteveDave: I believe thats correct, and that you can also send it somewhere (I cant remember to save my life) and have them refund the amount.

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DefineStatutory

June 29, 2009 6:35 PM

@Jeremy82465:
it isn't \"money\", so there's nothing to refund when you turn it in.

There's really only one way to get rid of counterfeit money. Send it to the church of scientology as a donation.

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socalrob of the 24 and a half century

June 29, 2009 8:04 PM

@DefineStatutory:
I nominate this for the Best Idea EVER!

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June 29, 2009 8:46 PM

@socalrob: Xenu can make fake bills real!

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kduhtoe

June 29, 2009 6:06 PM

@Jeremy82465: Refund the amount? So I can make counterfeit bills, send them to some undefined place and receive real money in return? Why having counterfeiters been doing this all along?

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June 29, 2009 6:25 PM

@kduhtoe: The person who receives them, and this is only after the SS take them into evidence.

@winshape: Since that case was a robbery, I think there's a difference than if you get an evidence receipt and report from the SS.

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thisheregirafFe

June 29, 2009 5:38 PM

wait, so if this 'friend' was unaware of the fake $100 bill, then spent it, how did it ever come to his attention? or was he just unaware spending fake money was illegal... ??

5 replies

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MostlyHarmless

June 29, 2009 5:51 PM

@thisheregirafFe: No, it meant that the old lady did not know the bill was a fake. The friend did, but used it anyways, to get it off his hands. Though at that time, he was not aware that its a federal offense.

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coren

June 29, 2009 8:36 PM

@MostlyHarmless: How could he not know spending a counterfeit bill was illegal?

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MostlyHarmless

June 29, 2009 8:39 PM

@coren: Ask the author. He'd know better.

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coren

June 29, 2009 8:58 PM

@MostlyHarmless: I'm just saying that makes as little, if not less, sense than the other explanation

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MostlyHarmless

June 29, 2009 9:03 PM

@coren: Well thats what Phil said. And it was quite clear what he meant. Now whether it makes sense or not my business.

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coren

June 29, 2009 9:08 PM

@MostlyHarmless: If it were quite clear then the readers wouldn't be asking

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MostlyHarmless

June 29, 2009 9:10 PM

@coren: Maybe the readers skipped reading comprehension. You'd be surprised (though one should not be) by how many people miss the point of the article, or jump over the facts stated in the article.

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jazzjunkie

June 29, 2009 6:13 PM

@MostlyHarmless: He would still know it was unethical to palm it off.

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MostlyHarmless

June 29, 2009 6:41 PM

@jazzjunkie: Yeah, but unethical isnt always illegal. Like switch and bait, and making crappy loans. Neither is immoral = illegal. And it was a 100 bucks, depending on your situation, it might fall in the \"ethics be damned, im not giving up on this much money\" area. Also note that it is much less unethical to pass on a fake note to someone than it is to print one, or to up-sell stuff that you know that the other person cannot afford.

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dave23

June 30, 2009 12:04 AM

@MostlyHarmless: Ethics are absolute, something cannot be \"much less unethical\". It either is or it isn't.

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MostlyHarmless

June 30, 2009 12:34 AM

@dave23: Anyone who makes a blanket statement of that sort is a complete dimjob.

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dave23

June 30, 2009 10:24 AM

@MostlyHarmless: jeez...sensitive much?

Even in this case, whether you printed the bill, or just knowingly passed it along you are having the same negative impact on the economy. The fact that the person printing it is doing it on a much larger scale does not make it more unethical. As a stretch we could call it \"more illegal\" but only because the penalty is more severe.

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MostlyHarmless

June 30, 2009 1:09 PM

@dave23: Not sensitive, just pointing out the fact that anyone who sees everything in black and white is probably colorblind.

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say what?!

June 29, 2009 9:20 PM

@MostlyHarmless: Actually, when private citizens making crappy loans, especially when the interest rate is ridiculously high, is illegal. Usury FTL! Sometimes, also, when businesses engage in bait and switches are illegal. But, I agree with you mostly.

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HiPwr

June 29, 2009 6:12 PM

@MostlyHarmless: Did he think he was risking a traffic citation? It's a goofy story.

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chiieddy

June 29, 2009 5:40 PM

@thisheregirafFe: @icruise: My question precisely.

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icruise

June 29, 2009 5:38 PM

So if the author's friend above didn't know the bill was fake and got away with spending it, how did he find out that it was counterfeit?

2 replies

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hypochondriac

June 29, 2009 7:25 PM

@icruise:

The friend knew it was fake. He just decided to try and spend it anyway. At least that's my understanding

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coren

June 29, 2009 8:36 PM

@hypochondriac: If we assume you're right (and you may be!), then the story reads he didn't know it wsa illegal to spend it. Which makes no sense

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techstar25

June 29, 2009 5:42 PM

When I sold a $1200 drum set on Craigslist, I brought a counterfeit detecting marker with me. The guy handed me the $1200 cash, and I marked each bill right in front of him. It was worth the $3 (Office Depot) for the marker to save the headaches later.

4 replies

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Dennis Kim

June 30, 2009 7:24 AM

@techstar25: Those counterfeit detector markers are largely a scam. The ink in them contains iodine, which turns purple in the presence of starch (as opposed to the yellow stain of iodine). Plain paper contains starch, unlike the rag paper that real money is printed on, but it is quite simple to just feel the difference, not to mention notice the red and blue silk fibers, among other things.

Those pens are a waste of $5, and give a false sense of security to those who use them.

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RecordStoreToughGuy_starcommandseries.com

June 29, 2009 7:08 PM

@techstar25: Did you check the water marks? Sometimes the more sophisticated rings will bleach a one or five and then print a ten or twenty on top of it. Fools the pen, but not the eye.

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June 29, 2009 5:51 PM

@techstar25: And is almost total crap, I hate to tell you. The paper our flyers were printed on at the food store I worked at would not react to a counterfeit pen. And they can be fooled by a can of spray starch.

If you really want to check them, spend a few minutes studying the security embedded in the bills. Check for the micro-printing, the color shift ink, the water mark, the security strip, the feel, give the bill a \"snap\", check for the blue and red fibers, use a blacklight if you have one, etc. I've worked many years as a cashier, and I picked more counterfeits just by touching/handling them than I ever did w/a pen. I even had someone on a previous shift take a bill that passed a pen test, but was an obvious fake that you could even see the inkjet printing marks.

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coren

June 29, 2009 8:38 PM

@WearingBlue4BillyMays_GitEmSteveDave:

I thought those were meant to react TO the bills, not react to regular paper

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June 29, 2009 8:50 PM

@coren: They \"react\" to starch on the surface being sprayed. So if you sprayed a whole bunch of bills w/spray starch, they would all appear counterfeit, which some people do in order to slip one or two past someone in a group of real bills. If a bill they know is real is showing up counterfeit, they assume the pen \"went bad\".

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coren

June 29, 2009 8:58 PM

@WearingBlue4BillyMays_GitEmSteveDave: Oh. Huh. I used to, and this was at least 5 years ago so who knows if it's still done, work at a place that had a pen that you made a mark on bills with, and if they reacted then you knew the bill was good, not bad.

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thefezman

June 29, 2009 5:52 PM

UV flashlights are cheap insurance when dealing with phat stacks of cash.

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thrlsekr

June 29, 2009 5:52 PM

What happen to all the counterfeit precautions the government has spent millions of tax payer money on to stop it. Will be going to Office Depot to buy one of those pens myself!

1 replies

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Coles_Law

June 29, 2009 9:49 PM

@thrlsekr: They're there, but people will put a lot of effort into generating $100 bills.

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Rectilinear Propagation

June 29, 2009 5:54 PM

Eight-hundred dollars might not seem like a lot
Maybe if you're making $800 an hour.

At least he got to catch the guy that scammed him.

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vladthepaler

June 29, 2009 6:09 PM

How did your friend find out he'd spent a phony bill, given that you say he got away with it?

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Damocles57

June 29, 2009 6:16 PM

How did Phil's friend know he had a fake $100 bill? And, if knowing, why did he spend it anyway? AND, how could he have been unaware he got away with a federal offense?

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damiangerous

June 29, 2009 6:22 PM

Wait...\"your friend\" discovered the bill was counterfeit and spent it anyway? I think they're aware they got aware with a Federal offense. If they were unaware, they would never have known the bill was counterfeit.

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ElPresidente408

June 29, 2009 7:09 PM

When I worked at a bank, we used to have to seize counterfeit bills on the spot. We would also have them fill out a form and the bill was sent to the Secret Service. People would get quite angry sometimes demanding the bill back. One time someone actually tried to grab it back

2 replies

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PsiCop

June 30, 2009 1:39 PM

@ElPresidente408: That's pretty much how it worked way back when I was a bank teller. Not that it happened that often. Usually we'd get a \"funny bill\" from a merchant making a deposit and more often than not, when it was pointed out, he'd say that he thought he knew the person gave it to him.

There was one time when a teenager came in and deposited some cash, not a large amount, and there was a \"funny bill\" in there. I felt really bad that he was out $20, but that's how it works. His mother came in later and complained to the branch manager that I had \"taken\" his $20. I think they ended up reporting it to the police, and the issue must have died down 'cause the family remained loyal customers and I never heard about it again.

But the fact is that counterfeiting bills costs someone something, and it's never the government that pays the price. It's usually some innocent that the bill gets trafficked to in the course of its life.

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June 29, 2009 8:53 PM

@ElPresidente408: I knew a coin dealer who would pay face value +some extra for your trouble for counterfeit bills that looked REALLY good. He was collecting them purely as \"art\", and not to run a counterfeiting ring.

Of course, when I was a cashier, NO ONE wanted to be holding the \"hot potato\".

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shepd

June 29, 2009 7:44 PM

It's not a surprise. I've had the bank themselves give me counterfeit bills. It happens.

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coren

June 29, 2009 8:39 PM

The seller didn't come back, the seller is the one who got scammed (your link says otherwise).

How did this friend story happen - did they not know the bill was counterfeit when they spent it, or what?

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wvFrugan

June 29, 2009 8:56 PM

My Dad gave me some counterfiet $20's. My brother had sold an extra Steeler's ticket outside the game & the guy paid him with them. My Dad remembered the guy having a big stack of new bills. I figure the thief used the fakes to buy tickets then resold them to get real cash. The bills were good, only the feel of the paper was slightly wrong (and when I looked it had no security strip).

1 replies

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econobiker

June 29, 2009 10:19 PM

@wvFrugan: Flea market...

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Anonymous

June 29, 2009 9:54 PM

Counterfeit markers are useless and easily defeated. The advice in the article is pretty outdated.

For the layman, the Security Thread is the best defense. For $5 bills and higher, the Security Thread glows a certain color under a 365nm UV light. As bank counters don't check this feature, even high end counterfeiters elect to ommit this feature from their counterfeit bills. Cheap 400nm UV Penlights can be bought for $5, they won't detect $100's (red) but they will work perfectly for $50's (yellow). $100's require 365nm UV light to see the red in the Security Thread. 365 UV penlights can be bought on the internet for $60 shipped.

Short of a UV penlight, the color shifting ink is the next best defense. Even high end counterfeiters tend to only make ink that \"Sparkles\" but doesn't actually color shift. If you get a counterfeit with color shifting ink that actually shifts color, then chances are you will spend it without ever knowing you received a counterfeit bill.

Hope this helps someone out.

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trujunglist

June 29, 2009 10:17 PM

One time when I was working at a gas station during college, some guy that took the shift before me took many bills that were so obviously fake it hurt my brain. He still got to keep the job! I was constantly getting yelled at for not cleaning something that I had actually cleaned (they were just dicks there, it really sucked a lot), and this dude takes a huge amount of cash that is clearly counterfeit and nothing happens. Another time I got in trouble when a co-worker of mine that was working the same graveyard shift was stole like $120 straight out of the register while I was cleaning or restocking or doing some other bullshit task. They came around yelling like crazy at me and him, until they finally checked the security tapes. They never apologized for accusing me, and I believe they actually tried to blame me anyway because I \"wasn't paying attention to what he was doing.\" Incompetent.
A week or so later, I was checking the book that we used to count the $$ in the register before and after our shifts, and he had put down +$240. PLUS 240?? WTF, this guy was somehow making a ton of extra cash for the store? Yeeeah, I believe that, since 9/10 times you come up short by like $.25 or so (accidentally making incorrect change, but it could work in the stores benefit too obviously). I was determined to figure it out because I knew I'd somehow get blamed. So I searched the entire store and found the $240 stashed away under a printer. I put the $$ in the safe (it took like 3 separate drops just to get it all in there), wrote a note to the boss telling him the story and also to fuck off, because I quit.
That same store eventually got bulldozed and rebuilt. Then a few weeks later, bulldozed again. Then rebuilt. Then bulldozed again a couple months later. These people are seriously the stupidest people ever.

1 replies

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Megalomania

June 30, 2009 1:07 AM

@trujunglist: woah... did you fall off the train from crazy-rant town?

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MooseOfReason

June 30, 2009 7:09 AM

Shouldn't Ben Bernanke be arrested, then?

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MauriceCallidice

June 30, 2009 2:41 PM

@undefined: Yeah, no one should ever make absolute statements for any reason. :-)

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Anonymous

June 30, 2009 5:53 PM

If I ever get some fake money, does the government really think I'm handing it over to their fat hands in return for nothing? I think not. I'm going to spend that as fast as I can, for I'm not about to pay for someone else's (the person who initially made it, and our great gov't for their awesome \"security measures\") issues. So take it and spend it somewhere, because if you don't, you take a loss of $20 or however much it is. It will eventually find it's way to the bank and be incinerated, so the end result is the same.

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ragesoadrules

June 30, 2009 5:56 PM

If I ever get some fake money, does the government really think I'm handing it over to their fat hands in return for nothing? I think not. I'm going to spend that as fast as I can, for I'm not about to pay for someone else's (the person who initially made it, and our great gov't for their awesome \"security measures\") issues. So take it and spend it somewhere, because if you don't, you take a loss of $20 or however much it is. It will eventually find it's way to the bank and be incinerated, so the end result is the same.