Profiling?

[PepperElf]

What is really angering about situations like that is I am pretty sure he wasn't actually offended or upset you marked the bill, but merely pretending to be to see if he could muster up any discounts or free services.

That's a very good point...

of course that's also how I feel about most of the PFB letters where people try to get freebie grabs because they were "soooo angry".

[BrenDAnn]

We also have to use the counterfeit pen at the c-store I work at. Thing is though, that pen is only good to a certain extent. If people are bleaching out smaller bills and reprinting them as larger ones, as I've heard happen, that pen will do jack squat for you. It will tel you it's real money paper, but it's up to you to hold the bill up to the light and look at it. Personally, I'd rather just hold it up and look to start with, and avoid this pen ridiculousness. Oh, and we had a rash of fake $1's in my area, believe it or not!! OP, I congratulate you for standing up to that guy. If someone doesn't stand up to people like that, they'll never learn!

[XCashier]

We have the pens, but I don't even bother with them. I know how to check the ridges and other things to look for. I have not gotten a counterfeit yet at this job...mind you, if someone's trying to pass a counterfeit note, it's not likely to be at a fabric store...

[EricKei]

mind you, if someone's trying to pass a counterfeit note, it's not likely to be at a fabric store...

Oh I dunno about that. Those Hell's Grannies can be pretty sneaky.

[Gaki]

We just do the safe. The only time a fake twenty was accepted by me was when one of my other cashiers took it from a customer and then asked me if I could spare any fives and pow. Fake. Now that I've felt one I can kinda tell what they feel like so if I feel any suspicious twenties I mark them before I accept them.

Fifties and Hundreds we drop in the safe before we accept them. If they don't drop, we don't take them. Done deal. I won't take a bill that won't drop and if someone gives me crap about it, they get crap right back at them.

I've had too many assholes and I'm an asshole right back.

[Little Retail Rabbit]

Wow, that is a bloody HARSH policy!!! I'm not surprised E left! Some counterfeit notes are very deceptive and convincing...hopefully if you train your staff to look for key characteristics in a fake you can avoid but sometimes they just slip through! Giving them disciplinary action or forcing them to replace the money is just bang out of order. We are normally good at spotting fakes here but some have gotten through before and our management has never tried to blame to the staff or punish them either. They instead try to focus on training us to spot the fakes more readily and give us tools to help us do that (counterfeit pens for example). I would have refused to pay that out of my pocket had it been me!

I don't normally get customers getting shitty with me for checking their notes, but if I punched a person everytime they did the "classic" and HUGELY hilarious "Yep, that ones real, just printed it off this morning!" or "the inks still a bit wet!" everytime I held a note up to the light, I would no doubt be tranquilised by someone who thought I had the rage virus. I hate those jokes. They aren't funny and they damn well aren't original either. uggh, I'm so bored of them!

[PatchO'Black]

Ah, yes, those old gags. As I've said before, I think every cashier or other person who regularly deals face to face with customers should have some notebooks, each with one of the over-used "jokes" on the cover, and containing page after page filled with hash-marks. Whenever someone uses one of the jokes, the employee should make a show of dragging out the appropriate notebook, flicking through the pages, then adding one more hash-mark to its pages before putting it away and continuing with the business at hand.

[Kogarashi]

Fifties and Hundreds we drop in the safe before we accept them. If they don't drop, we don't take them.

Does your safe work kind of like a vending machine's cash slot then? ::curious::

[Gaki]

Does your safe work kind of like a vending machine's cash slot then? ::curious::

Exactly how that works. It scans it with it's little laser thing and if the stuff don't match up right, it don't go in. If it spits it back up then it means one of three things: Your bill is fake, your bill is TOO NEW, or your bill is TOO OLD.

Usually too old applies to 100s and 5s. Too new is usually 100s and 1s. I don't take ANY 100 that doesn't go in the safe because that's where it has to go in the end so if I can't put it there right away, waiting ain't gonna help. I don't care if it's real or not.

Of course it could just not go in because someone drew all over it with marker (if you cover sensitive areas with black boxes they don't drop. I don't take those either unless they're 20s. I can get rid of those.

[Kogarashi]

Neat system. Sounds mighty useful.

[EricKei]

Neat system. Sounds mighty useful.

Ditto. That's AWESOME ^_^

[XCashier]

Neat system. Sounds mighty useful.

I think every cash register should have that system. Feed the bills into the reader, whether $1 or $100. If it's good, it'll take the bill and send it to the correct partition in the till; if not, it'll reject the bill. If it takes the bill, it'll automatically spit out the correct change. (Coins, of course, would have a similar setup.)

True, the self-scans already have this setup, but I think cashier-run tills should have it as well. It'll cut way down on getting burned by counterfeiters and quick-change artists, as well as the folks who claim they gave you a $50 when they really gave you a $10.

[Company_Slave]

We have the same safe system. Our biggest issue is stained bills (I.E. if you was a 20 in the pocket of your new jeans, dyes seep into the bill and the bill reader thinks it's fake when it's not). We can't drop all 20s or we wouldn't have them when we need to break a 50 or 100 or buy change.

Also, Gaki, out of curiosity are you a "Slowway" slave as well. Things of yours I have read SCREAM Slowway to me.

[onkko]

Atleast bigger markets in here have machines like this.

[EricKei]

It would be soooo nice to have those become standard -- I am not naive enough to think that counterfeiting would be eliminated, but if it could be discouraged because "every place has the scanners now", maybe it'll be cut down significantly. Tho I'm sure the tiny percentage of CF'ers who really know what they're doing will simply get *better* at what they do ~_~