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I'm generally cash only and fortunately have never gotten a counterfeit bill--most of the stores around here use the highlighter to check bills.
But I'm a lifelong coin collector and I'm saddened by the huge volume of counterfeit American collector coins being made in China and shipped here to rip off collectors.
Most of the counterfeit currency you will encounter are larger bills like 50s and 100s, manufactured offshore and shipped to the USA. They are so good nobody can tell the difference unless they check the serial numbers with the Treasury Department. US 100s are common currency throughout the world. If you get large bills in a foreign country, there's a good chance it is bogus. Paper money has a finite life, so the amount that is in circulation remains fairly constant.
I highly doubt you 'kept getting' counterfeit coins.
While the counterfeiting of coins has been known to happen, it is extremely rare because it's considerably more difficult to counterfeit coinage than to counterfeit currency, because there is very little margin in it, and because it is much more difficult to pass in cost-effective quantities.
As for counterfeit currency, I'm sure everyone has gotten some at some point - most simply don't realize it.
You can highly doubt it all you want. If you want to PM, I'll email you the address of the store. If they're still in business is another thing, because I haven't been there in years. I realize it's high unusual. Which is why I think they were on it, but the police could not care less.
I think we have some paranoia here. For example, the above, I highly doubt that. Think about it - why would someone counterfeit a $5 bill? Unless it's a really poor copy, it would cost more to counterfeit a small denomination then it would to use a real bill. Copy technology is getting better, but it's still hard to duplicate the type of material, the built in threads, the watermarks, etc. You can have the local teenager scan a $5 bill, but printing it is another matter - the printer cannot pick up the details and, more importantly, is the use of material. Money doesn't use paper, it's part cloth. Amatuer jobs like this you can detect without even looking at it, run your hands over it, the texture will be wrong. Someone mentioned counterfeit coins? hahaha....what?
Professional counterfeiters will duplicate large denomination bills then use them for low purchase items as stores in order to receive real cash in change. So they don't end up in circulation as people usually don't get a $100 bill back in change, and they usually get detected at banks. As mentioned, most stores have a simply pen and UV device where they can use it on, let's say, $20 denominations and larger.
If you received a counterfeit bill, contact your local secret service office (yup, the same guys who protect the president), who are responsible for enforcing these laws as part of there treasury department duties. It's a serious federal crime and has serious economic impact if prevalent, foreign governments can use this as a form of economic attack. Local police probably don't care, they are too busy giving out speeding tickets.
It does happen. I'm sure it's even unreported, because who looks at change?
Most of the counterfeit currency you will encounter are larger bills like 50s and 100s, manufactured offshore and shipped to the USA. They are so good nobody can tell the difference unless they check the serial numbers with the Treasury Department. US 100s are common currency throughout the world. If you get large bills in a foreign country, there's a good chance it is bogus. Paper money has a finite life, so the amount that is in circulation remains fairly constant.
Not only that, the Treasury purposely destroys money. I don't know about the small bills, but when I took an economics class in college (in the 90s) the professor told us they shredder 100s for multiple reasons. You can even buy a bag of shredded money.
Once... I sold my old truck for $1200... all in $100 bills.
Went to the bank Monday morning and the teller pulled one of the bills... I asked why and she said her manager was going to look at it... manager said it was counterfeit... gave me a receipt and said if I have any question to call the secret service.
I called the secret service and was told it is counterfeit... said I might be able to deduct it on my taxes???
Never could locate the person that bought the truck...
We had a news story here a bit ago about counterfeit $5 bills--I thought they'd go for higher bills also. One store checker said they are required to check the $20's but not the $5's, so maybe that's why..
In my case, I was at a camera and antique swap (mostly cash transactions). I went in with a bunch of 20s did some purchases/trades and ended up with a mixture of denominations. People do check larger denominations but generally overlook the smaller ones. At some point, I was making a purchase and the vendor himself picked up on the counterfeit $5 that I had handed him. I was pissed because there was no way to know who of the dozens of vendors gave it to me.
In my case, I was at a camera and antique swap (mostly cash transactions). I went in with a bunch of 20s did some purchases/trades and ended up with a mixture of denominations. People do check larger denominations but generally overlook the smaller ones. At some point, I was making a purchase and the vendor himself picked up on the counterfeit $5 that I had handed him. I was pissed because there was no way to know who of the dozens of vendors gave it to me.
It doesn't matter if you can prove who gave it to you, if they say they didn't know it was fake nothing happens. You don't get reimbursed and they don't get any legal actions unless it's prove they made it (more like are currently making counterfeit money). I'm not one to complain about the government, but it really seems like counterfeiting isn't a priority for them. Make ME wonder who exactly is profiting from it.
We had a news story here a bit ago about counterfeit $5 bills--I thought they'd go for higher bills also. One store checker said they are required to check the $20's but not the $5's, so maybe that's why.
As for counterfeiting small amounts, I have some counterfeit Lincoln pennies. Not even old rare ones. I don't have a clue why someone would want to do that, or what profit there would be.
That's why local counterfeiters.. Your kids with a good color printer or whatever, tend to counterfeit the lower denomination bills. Those are people who aren't really making a career out of it.
Pennies? You're not talking about the 1943-1944 steel cents are you? I can't explain in the least how or why someone would counterfeit a penny other than a rare year.. Lots of people will copper plate a 1943 steel cent, because there are only about 40 known examples of a copper penny from that year, so they're quite valuable. I'm just assuming if someone didn't know about the steel cents, you might think they're counterfeit.
I was installing a new POS system at a Burger King, coincidentally with a bill checker attachment on it.. Under the counter at the drive thru getting it hooked up.. Woman working the window started asking the manager if a bill was real.. I asked for it, immediately told them no, without even looking. There are pictures that you can see online where you think "Oh, I couldn't tell the differences there".. When you feel money.. You can feel if it's wrong.
That particular bill was 10-20% too small, was printed in all black ink, felt like printer paper, had no strip in it.. It was just a bad not-even-color copy. And this was back in the 90's, before the bills were redesigned. There's alot of ways to tell if a bill is fake or not that most people don't know about. take this image..
Not only should it look crisp, like that one does.. No bleeding/blurred ink, etc.. However, the "L" in the seal indicating that it was printed in San Francisco will also be the first letter of the serial number. And you see all those 12's all over the bill? Know what that means? That "L" is the 12th letter of the alphabet. There's others that I don't remember now.
One of the funniest things I saw.. This pizza place had a $10 bill taped to the front of the register with a note "This is fake money".. It was a 1950 series (If I recall) $10 bill.. How did they know it was fake? Their little marker said it was fake. Those markers only work on bills from 1959 and newer. The bill was probably worth more than $10 face value (Not alot, but..) until they taped it to the register and wrote all over it.. At which time it basically became worthless.
I think you need a better class of stores...I have never had a counterfeit bill and don't know anyone who has.
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