Minor whine but annoying nonetheless

[Pixilated]

I'm a grocery store cashier. I was working Friday 13th. It was pretty busy, sort of borderline slammed, since I think a lot of people were trying to get set up for Valentine's Day and the next week.

Customer #1 pays with cash. For a $600 order. All $20 bills. Thanks, lady, that's just what I needed with five people lined up behind you. I did count it, carefully, since we've had reports of (probably inexperienced) cashiers just grabbing the handful of bills and stuffing them into the register, only to find they are alarmingly short at the end of their shift. Thankfully the customer was digging for change, so my careful count didn't hold her up. Not that I would have cared if it had.

Customer #2 buys $8 worth of stuff. Pays with a $100 bill. Yes, I checked that one fairly carefully too, since other reports have indicated fake $100 and $50 bills popping up, both in our store and others. Again, I didn't have time to do a thorough inspection so I checked the obvious: the little bumps at the top of the bill (I'm assuming they are Braille), check the colour (fake ones seem to be more orange and feel more like paper than polymer), and scraping at the 'window', which has a detailed metallic portrait and building on it -- apparently on the fake ones, this can be scraped off.

I asked a supervisor why we don't just get those pens that apparently can detect a fake bill. "Oh we've got one." ONE. Well, that's helpful. She said she'd raise the issue at the next meeting of something-or-other.

[Dreamstalker]

We have the pens at each register, but cashiers always use them to mark the store bags for local-delivery orders. So the pens are useless now. I have a fancy detector pen with a blacklight, but that stays with me.

Even our "AccuBanker" electronic gizmo sometimes fails. I'm pretty sure that I'm the only person in the building who knows how to really check a bill "oldschool". We have a certain clientele that always pays for sub-$10 purchases with c-notes (usually wiping out a cashier's drawer)...for some reason they always get a bit nervous.when I check the bills.

[Pixilated]

We have the pens at each register, but cashiers always use them to mark the store bags for local-delivery orders. So the pens are useless now. I have a fancy detector pen with a blacklight, but that stays with me.

*snip*

Can you tell me where you got that? I'd love to get one for myself, assuming it would work on our polymer bills. and like yours, mine would stay with me. Corporate can foot the bill if other cashiers want one.
Even the regular 'detector' pens would work fine, since no cashiers at "my" store have to mark bags ... and couldn't anyway: we have rough cloth reusable bags that would absolutely not take any markings.

One thing I forgot to add regarding Customer #1: Because she had given me such a huge amount of cash, the register locked up and wouldn't accept it from me. I had to call for a supervisor. The only one available was on the phone, thus leading to a longer wait for the customer (assuming she wanted her receipt) and those behind her.

[RealUnimportant]

The usual online suspects can provide a nice little UV light; I actually own a full-sized UV bill tester I got via eBay, but I got it for curing certain paints that need a wavelength close enough that it saved me a few quid over buying the official "this sets our shit" lamps.

Pretty much any good-quality consumer-level UV torch should work, if you want to get it in person rather than support Jeffy B's next yacht then I'd start with surplus or hunting stores. Beware anything that says it outputs UVC, that's not the right thing and can be hazardous to health. Lots of money uses UV-reactive inks nowadays, as well as various IDs and credit cards, so it's a worthwhile investment - which means avoid the cheap ones from AliExpress etc., because occasionally they're just regular blue LEDs with a bit of colouring on the lenses to shift the visible bit towards violet, without any actual UV output!