Went poking around on the net and didn't find anything about what happens if you innocently use a bill and it is detected as fake. I'm curious because I asked a retailer and they said they would keep the money and call the police.

Sounds reasonable I guess, but what about me? The only place from which I ever get bills bigger than a $20 is my bank. Would I have any grounds for going back to them and saying "Hey! You owe me $100." (I wonder if they check every big bill that comes through their facility?)

Anyway, back to the original topic, has anyone here ever had a fake detected by a retailer, and if yes, what did they do?

Also, anybody know what the legalities are? If you innocently pass a fake, are you liable? Are you just out the money?

Now I gotta go find something to get this green and black ink off my fingers.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

I have not had it happen to me, but my understanding is you are out of the money, (so you would still have to pay with real money), but are not otherwise criminally liable.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

That would be my understanding, and with my (Gr. 11) law course I'd probably say that if tried to prosecute you they'd lose horribly, simply spending a counterfeit bill is far from proof that you made it yourself.

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Counterfeiters are getting better. Probably the best counterfeit I have seen is a "cashier's check" that somebody sent me to "pay" for my Road King. He sent "extra" money and wanted me to WU the excess to his friend, who would arrange pickup, palletizing, and shipping. That was simply too ridiculous to be true, and although it is now a common scam, it was relatively new then. I used to work in the paper industry and had accounts in mills that specialized in currency papers and check papers, and this check was wonderful, with micro-printing, tamper-resistant ink, watermark, the typical "hold-at-an-angle" security feature on the back, etc. This was probably Nigerian, since the government there seems to condone scams - they bring in a lot of money.

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The ether of general relativity therefore differs from that of classical mechanics or the special theory of relativity respectively, in so far as it is not 'absolute', but is determined in its locally variable properties by ponderable matter.

Albert Einstein, "On the Ether", 1924

I got stuck with a counterfeit $10 bill a couple of years ago. Found out when I was purchasing some beer. You're out the money, choices what to do with the bill come down to tossing it in the garbage or turn it into a bank. I turned it in to my bank branch and they attached a form to it with my name, date, info on where/when I thought I got it from, as by law they have to turn any counterfeit bills over to the police. If it ever happens again, I'll probably just tear it up and toss it out.

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" The universe is running away
I heard it on the news just the other day
There's this new stuff called dark energy
We can't measure and we can't see..." - from Jimmy Buffett's What if the hokey pokey is all it really is about?

If they let me keep it, I would use try and use it somewhere else.

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I make my living selling beans which repel ogres, goblins, and sand worms. I eat a bowl a day and have never been attacked!

In my opinion, that gets close to being illegal. It is one thing to spend it if you are ignorant of the fact that it is counterfeit, it is another thing to spend it knowing that it is fake.

I know there are coin collectors who save errors (double dies, for example). Is it legal to collect counterfeits? Can you sell them to other collectors, as long as they are identified as counterfeits? If the answers are yes, and given what I know about collectors, it may be worth more selling it to a collector.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

Some goon at the grocery store telling me it's counterfeit means only one thing, that they won't take it. I would consider it counterfeit when an authority told me so, with evidence. Remember, one always needs empirical data, not opinion.

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I make my living selling beans which repel ogres, goblins, and sand worms. I eat a bowl a day and have never been attacked!

I got a counterfeit $5 bill once. It fooled me until it went through the washing machine and actually shrank and faded. Real money launders quite well (no pun intended).

I called the Secret Service counterfeit hotline. They had me read them the serial numbers, and a few other things from the bill and verified that it was indeed counterfeit.

But their interest was surprisingly low. I thought someone would come collect it and interview me as to the possible sources. But no. All I got was "You can mail it to us if you like...".

So why not get it checked out somewhere before you spend it? That way you stay on the right side of the law and your pocket book. Just going and spending it is very probably criminal.

Well, it was a $5 bill, so hardly a major counterfeit. On top of that I'm sure they get reports of counterfeit bills all the time, sending out a person to question each and every one would be a waste of time and money.

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Somewhat in the same vein of collecting and selling counterfeits is an artist named J.S.G. Boggs. Here's what he does:

• He draws a bill that will very closely resemble a real bill, but he will change things. Instead of "In God We Trust," he'll change it to something like "In Gort We Trust." Boggs calls these items he draws "Boggs Bills."
• Next, he'll take one of his Boggs Bills to a store, and offer to exchange the bill for an item at the store. For example, he'll go to the Harley Davidson store, and offer to trade one of his bills for a motorcycle.
• In addition to giving the store the Boggs Bill, he also gives the store the name of an arts dealer who will pay for the Boggs Bill (and, in turn, sell it to collectors of Boggs' work), usually for a good deal more than the item that Boggs has "purchased" is worth.

When Boggs does this, he raises some interesting legal questions. Is he bartering art for goods and services (which is legal), or using counterfeit currency to buy stuff (which is not)? How much or how little do his Boggs Bills have to resemble real currency before they're truly considered counterfeit instead of art?

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Yes, they laughed at Einstein, but only because of his silly hairstyle; no one was actually laughing at his science.

My bold...
I recall from a TV show about the printing of money (might have been a Nova on PBS), that "paper" money isn't really very much like other paper, for example, it is not made from wood pulp, but from cotton pulp (and I think some other stuff), so it is actually closer to cloth than newspaper. So money doesn't grow on trees, it grows in cotton fields.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

US-notes used to have a bad reputation when it came to counterfeiting,
with an estimated 70 million fakes floating around.
But with the new designs introduced during the last 10 years, attention
seems to have shifted toward the Euro.
Physically introduced in 2002, the Euro is forged a lot.
But as yet no such thing as a super-euro has shown up.

IIRC, the old US-notes are still valid, and no doubt are still being forged.

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Join the Illuminati

Interesting. I recall that there was a time in the early history of the US that other entities (such as banks and states) also issued bills (see this link for some US money history - see the 1836 note for bank issued bills).

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

I once took a $50 at a store where I worked. In the US, the police are called but the case is ALWAYS handed over to the Secret Service. They followed up on the people that pased it, where they thought they got it, if they had any more and so on. Knowingly spending a bogus bill is federal crime, even if it's a photocopy of a $1 to scam a coke machine. I'm not sure about collecting them for display. If found out it could mean a vist from people in suits asking a lot of questions.

Im this case, the people used the bad 50 to rent a handgun at the range and buy ammunition. Since the bill was fake, it was considered theft by deception. Any theft of ammunition is a felony. I Never heard the outcome, but as I never had to go to court about it, I assume all was cleared up. At least, that was all the way I understood it at the time.

Double stamp coins are rare and valuable as they are mistakes by the mint. A counterfeit bill isn't a mistake, it's an outright fraud. Incidentally, no papper bill with "Federal Reserve' in the seal is ever worth more than face value regardless of condition. If the bill were drawn on a state bank, it could be worth a lot.

The paper used in US bills is cotton based and has small red and bue fibers imbedded in the paper.

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

I've seen the show that you're talking about several times. It makes my wife nervous that I'm so interested in how currency is printed, but I just find it technically interesting from the point of view of a print graphic designer. I think it's all fascinating stuff.

I didn't read the link yet (perhaps tomorrow morning over some coffee), but if I remember correctly, U.S. currency was a total mess with no consistency whatsoever, and that the Secret Service was started to prevent the counterfeiting of money. Also fascinating stuff.

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Yes, they laughed at Einstein, but only because of his silly hairstyle; no one was actually laughing at his science.

As I was telling some friends of mine just a few days ago before moving here, I have had a $100 bill for a long time now, but something is strange about this one, the print on the bill is totally misaligned front and back, the top is only 1/16th of an inch from the edge and the bottom is 5/16th of an inch from the bottom, something that is plainly obvious and should have NEVER passed the US treasury if it is indeed real, I am almost afraid to spend it...

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Take it to a coin shop. The proprietor should be able to give you an informed opinion about whether it's a fake or not.

Fred

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"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
-- John Dryden, "The Vindication of The Duke of Guise" 1684