FYI high quality counterfeit money in the area

Last night I go in to the liquor store to pick up my Thursday night 6 pack and the cashier is telling some customers about a counterfeit $100 bill they were passed. I spent several minutes checking the counterfeit out side by side with a legit bill. This thing was (in my layman's opinion) VERY high quality, but there were flaws. Honestly I probably would have been duped if it was passed off to me. She also said the Lucky's nearby had a couple of them passed there too. I would imagine the people passing this kind of quality counterfeit would be moving around the area offloading as much of it as possible before word gets out. The bill felt right, looked right, had a security strip and a watermark.

The flaws that I noticed:
- the most obvious was the color changing ink of the bottom right 100 wasn't really changing color (the cashier mentioned that to me after I looked at it and then she flipped it around a little, so I didn't have a good chance to verify this in my own hands, but it seemed like it)
- the watermark didn't really look like Ben...more like a mutant George
- you could also kinda see the watermark when looking at the bill from the back when it was just laying flat (not being held up to the light)...which of course you shouldn't be able to see anything without holding it up to a light
- there didn't appear to be any little red and blue threads in the paper
- I assume it also failed under a counterfeit pen...I didn't see her swipe a pen on it, but there were brown pen marks on it like it was tested after the fact...I have no experience with the pens, but I guess they aren't supposed to leave any mark on real bills?

So heads up if you deal with cash transactions... Hopefully the Secret Service will be all over this shit quick!

Traq said:

- I assume it also failed under a counterfeit pen...I didn't see her swipe a pen on it, but there were brown pen marks on it like it was tested after the fact...I have no experience with the pens, but I guess they aren't supposed to leave any mark on real bills?

So heads up if you deal with cash transactions... Hopefully the Secret Service will be all over this shit quick!

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Nope acts like invisable ink on legit bills basically

Around here people have been passing fake $100 travelers checks with quite a bit of success.

There are already fake $100 bills in circulation, they are printed by the US Treasury, and are worth $35 each

"Messed up george washington water mark"

Looks like a washed 1 dollar bill. Very common way, you wash a 1 or 5 dollar bill and then you print a 100 or 50 on it. Passes the pen mark, which most people that is all they do. Look for the water mark or use the pen.

I used to work in a bank, caught a lot of counterfeit currency. I used to feel bad for the merchants that would bring them in because we would have to forward them to SS.

A guy who goes to my school (>1000 people, btw) was recently busted for making funny fives and using them to buy drugs from the local dealers here in Vallejo. We had the SS and the FBI down here.

afm199 said:

There are already fake $100 bills in circulation, they are printed by the US Treasury, and are worth $35 each

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Repped!