Counterfeits...

[Plaidman]

Anyone familiar with these systems, and what they detect?

Mike

"Supposedly", and this is strictly hearsay as I never bothered to test it myself, but bills are thread, and when you rip them, (or punch a hole) you can still see threads, tiny ones. Paper, and 'most' material they use to make counterfiets would just have a hole.

[Becks]

I remember a customer we had once who called the cops on us because apparently we gave her a fake fifty. It turns out it was just an old fifty, she was looking for security features that weren't there.

She tried, I suppose.

Biscuit.

[Broomjockey]

Our policy is that if we find a counterfeit bill and the customer what gave it to us is gone we are to pass it on to another customer as soon as possible. Chances are it'll change hands another four or five times before someone else notices.

I understand the position, but technically very very bad. I hope no one calls you out on the practice

Canadian money is so much easier to detect when it comes to counterfits. Blacklight FTW.

Funny thing I read on a poster, telling how to spot counterfeits, is that outside devices are not admissible methods for proving counterfeitting, which would include blacklights. It makes it easier, yes, but I guess it is just supposed to prompt closer scrutiny? Also, fun fact about Canadian money. Try looking at it on an IR camera some time, compared to a normal piece of paper with writing on it. You'd be pretty surprised

[JustaCashier]

Thanks for the info, Plaidman!

That actually sounds plausible.

Mike

[Hon'ya-chan]

I really have no desire to argue with you. But it's not "totally" opposite. It's almost identical. You are "raising" the face value of the note, hence "raised note." Gluing on new corners is just the quick and easy (and stupid) way of doing it. Bleaching and reprinting accomplishes the same thing. Also called a "leached note," it's still a raised note, because the value of the original note has been raised.

Completely different tactics, but it's still counterfeiting. Even the resident Coin guy agreed with me. If the Secret Service says it's stupidly pasting stuff to another note, thats raising a note. What your trying to argue is bleaching, and has nothing even remotely similar to what the Secret Service has listed on their site.

I have noticed the pinholes in some bills when holding them up to the light, and seem to recall one incident at a place I was visiting (possibly a govt agency?) that used this method.

Coin guy says other than stapling it to something, back in the day, Express Companies in the Wild West used to "stitch" a thread thru a stack of notes to prevent theft.

Ironically enough, such damage actually decreases a notes collectability, sometimes by hundreds of dollars.

[SpyOne]

For what it's worth, we recieved a memo from corporate to the effect that folks have been bleaching 1 and 5 dollar bills to print their counterfeits on, and so we are not to rely on the pens anymore.
Their policy is this: if the safe rejects the bill, tell the customer we cannot accept that bill.
(See, we have safes with a bill acceptor, and the acceptor will not be fooled by the fact that the paper is really money paper. It will, however, also reject a bill that had magic marker marks on it, or more than a little writing in any kind of ink. But then, writing "happy birthday, Janet" on a bill is actually a federal crime (defacing government property), so folks shouldn't try to spend those anyway I guess.)

Last I checked, counterfeiting was the domain of the Secret Service (as they are part of the Treasury), but in my area at least they prefer we call the local police and let them contact the Secret Service.

[DrugstoreJulie]

I have not knowingly seen a fake bill in a while now.
But back when I was working in a bar we had them all the time...with dim light and your hands usually slightly wet, it is basically impossible to tell.
Really BAD fakes too, sometimes I would find bills with the ink smeared all over when counting out the tills by the end of the night

[Hobgoblin]

Completely different tactics, but it's still counterfeiting. Even the resident Coin guy agreed with me. If the Secret Service says it's stupidly pasting stuff to another note, thats raising a note. What your trying to argue is bleaching, and has nothing even remotely similar to what the Secret Service has listed on their site.

To weigh in here, this is from the same page you linked to on what constitutes a raised note:

Genuine paper currency is sometimes altered in an attempt to increase its face value. One common method is to glue numerals from higher denomination notes to the corners of lower denomination notes.

The implication here is that a raised note is not limited to the act of stupidly pasting a higher denomination to a lower bill. All "raised note" means is that it has the value of the bill raised, regardless of the method used (the first sentence from the USSS implies this very strongly).

Interestingly enough, searching the Secret Service site for the phrase "bleached notes" doesn't find anything.

Edit: This is my 123 post. Ha. I love it when the numbers are in order like that. It really makes me happy.

Also, I don't think I've ever been passed a counterfeit bill. I check 50 and up, but never had a problem.

[ColonelInTheKitchen]

Please remember to turn all your bills around and look at the back also. My sister got a fake 20 that had nothing on the back side. Most of the time people just look at the face of the bill so when she counted down her drawer she had a twenty that was perfect on one side but blank on the other. I don't remember if she was written up on that but it would have been silly if they did, it's not like she KNEW. We never use the pen on anything below 50s ourselves, but I'll make a point to check them out from now on and hold the bill to the light too. I remember about that 20 bill we gave it to the police and they couldn't do anything... I must find a phone number for the Feds!

[evilhomer]

I caught a fake $100 one time. (Fake to my non-expert analysis). The paper was wrong, the colour was wrong, the feel was wrong, and the security hologram was mostly scratched off. I told the customer that I couldn't accept it but he began whining so I went to my manager. Without a care, he said to take it.

I'm sure it was fake, but it went into the deposit without a problem so maybe I was wrong.