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Best Buy Has Man Arrested for Using $2 Bills
An anonymous reader writes "Mike Bolesta of Baltimore thought he would protest Best Buy's not-so-great customer service and pay his bill with 57 $2 bills. For his trouble he got to spend some time in the county lock-up." From the article: "..Bolesta was contacted by the store, and was threated with police action if he did not pay the [installation] fee he was told before did not exist. As a sign of protest, Bolesta decided to pay using only $2 bills, which he has an abundance of because he asks his bank for them specifically. Unfortunately for him, the cashier did not seem to understand that the $2 bill is indeed legal US tender, since the bill itself is not often used. After rudely refusing to take the money, the cashier accepted the bills, only to mark them as though they were conterfeit."
Best Buy security guards (aka "rent-a-cops") do not have the authority to make an actual arrest, but in some states can have limited authority to temporarily detain someone while waiting for the real police to arrive. (btw, IAAL)
Uh...no. The $2 bill, like any other bill, is "legal tender for all debts, public and private." The government says YOU MUST ACCEPT IT. Unlike the various currencies of old, it's not an IOU note for gold or some such inherently valuable thing. It's called "fiat" money--worth $2 because the government says so. Good thing you're an AC, so we can't make fun of you for sleeping through high-school economics.
Wozniak got in trouble for paying with $2 bills, too. Although, his story is a little funnier: http://www.woz.org/letters/general/78.html
but during a radio program I was listening to, it was reported that the $2 bills were sequentially numbered and that the anti-counterfeit ink smeared on one of the bills. If this is true, then it may not be so far fetched that the police would have been contacted. Does this justify an immediate arrest in handcuffs? No, but if true, it does lend some light to why Best Buy would have acted the way they did, and it would give them one hell of a defense against a defimation suit.
Not entirely true. You must accept it for DEBTS. You do not have to accept it for products and services yet to be rendered. In this case, they are not obligated to accept it.
This was a case where the customer had something installed, and after the fact Best Buy decided to charge him for installation. It was a debt.
It was not as simple as not recognising $2 bills.
The cashier noticed smearing of the ink - which apparently was actually there. The $2 bills may have been the first thing that got her notice but the smeared ink on them is what she claims made her suspicious enough to call her manager.
When the officer came, he noticed that the bills all had sequential serial numbers - apparently a common sign in counterfeit currency.
At that point, given the smeared ink and the sequential serial numbers, the officer felt he had grounds to detain the man until the secret service could be called.
Now it turns out that, according to the secret service officer, the ink on legitimate bills does smear from time to time. I'd not heard of that, I'm guessing most people hadn't.
The fact that he gets them as a custom withdrawl from his bank - which probably has absolutely no other use for $2 bills - explains the sequential serial numbers. They likely get them relatively directly from the treasury in large batches and only issue from those large batches to him.
None of this proves he was a criminal - it was all completely explainable.
But it wasn't a simple case of not recognising $2 bills. The smeared ink and sequential serial numbers were enough for the officer to detain him until an explanation could be verified.
It may suck but the officer had reasonable grounds to detain him until he could confirm the story. I would imagine, in the majority of cases where suspect money comes up, the person caught tries feeding a story. At the end of the day, the question is whether you believe it's right to occasionally wrongfully detain one person or regularly let go many. Rightly or wrongly, the concept of reasonable grounds enshrines the former.
Let's clear this up:
FAQs: Currency
Legal Tender Status
Question I thought that United States currency was legal tender for all debts. Some businesses or governmental agencies say that they will only accept checks, money orders or credit cards as payment, and others will only accept currency notes in denominations of $20 or smaller. Isn't this illegal?
Answer The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 102. This is now found in section 392 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The law says that: "All coins and currencies of the United States, regardless of when coined or issued, shall be legal-tender for all debts, public and private, public charges, taxes, duties and dues."
This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.
From the faq.
Kill, Tux, kill!
What scares me (and surprises me a little, though less than it probably should) is that this guy made it all the way to the county lock-up on the suspicions of one cashier
They interviewed this fellow on local radio last week. He said something to the effect of this:
The police sympathized with him and pretty much knew he was innocent, but they still could not make that judgement call themselves and had to wait for the Secret Service to arrive and verify that they were in fact not counterfiet.
Pardon me for interjecting, but I did RTFA a day or two ago when this appeared elsewhere...
The basic sequence of events were as follows:
1: Disgruntled customer arrives at store intending to pay invoice with $2 bills.
2: Employee isn't familiar with the $2 bill and refuses to accept as payment.
3: Fast-forward - Police arrive to sort the matter out. Ink on the bills smears a bit. Suspicions of counterfit money result.
4: Customer is handcuffed and brought to police station for further questioning/investigation.
5: U.S. Secret Service agents (yes, the're the final authority on U.S. currency) arrive and release customer after bills are inspected and found to be completely legit.
In this particular case, the local police probably knew about $2 as legitimate U.S. currency, but were suspicious when the ink on the bills smeared a bit. After the Secret Service inspected the bills, they informed the local police (paraphrasing), "They do that, sometimes."
Under the circumstances, the whole situation could have been avoided by a little education on the part of the Best Buy cashier. I still think this needs to be done, and rather painfully. However, the local police seemed to follow proper protocol. Ink on U.S. currency doesn't usually smear or smudge because it's usually handled often enough for the excess to wear off quickly. The $2 is not generally handled as much and this seems to be a perfect example of why it isn't.
My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating. -- Ashleigh Brilliant