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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."
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Truthfully, I would find it strange as well. I have not seen a $2 bill
- at -Taco-Bell.html
in a long long time. Same thing with all those $1 coins. However,
people tend to accept strange coin amounts a lot easier then paper
money amounts.
It happens more then you might think. For a funny story about trying
to use a $2 bill at Taco Bell, check this out:
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/2
However, I see it on the web attributed to at least 3 different
authors, so I doubt it really happened.
--greg Vulcan quiescent... Q: What machine shutdown with this message?
the cashier may have been stupid, but what cop would lock you up for using $2 bills? Shouldn't a government employee know of such dominations? I was under the impression cops need evidence before arresting you.
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
Man what a rebel. Two dollar bills, can you believe it!
I find this whole story hard to swallow, I worked at a grocery store all through high-school and I knew this guy who would pay in $2 bills all the time, I can't say it really bothered me other then there isn't a place in the till to put them.
I find it hard to believe that someone has NEVER seen a $2 bill. It's not like they are hard to come across. Surely there must have been another reason for him being arrested...
What kind of fool would allow that to happen? Is this just another excuse to dislike a major corporation because they obviously hired a moron?
For Baltimore County police, said spokesman Bill Toohey, "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."
Yeah, potentially counterfeit (as judged by a Best Buy employee!) $2 bills are top on my priority list after 9/11. It's so I can't even sleep at night. Thank god we've got people like "spokesman" Bill Toohey protecting us. I don't know what's scarier: That he'd say something like that, or that there's probably a couple hundred million Americans who would nod their heads in "understanding".
This story has everything: Evil Best Buy. Stupid and ignorant employees with a bizarre sense of power and no sense of customer service. Questionable law enforcement policies. Idiot using 9/11 as the ultimate cop-out.
The only problem with the story is that this time the Feds came in and the situation got better.
Mr. Mike Bolesta, please do not rest until everyone responsible for this debacle is severely reprimanded, fined, or has their employment terminated. They are your oppressors. Rise up against them.
For Baltimore County police, said spokesman Bill Toohey, "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."
WTF DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING???
I had better not find myself jaywalking next time I go to Otakon, or else I might get shot on sight. You know how those terrorists are always committing minor felonies and misdemeanors...
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Americans got too stupid to accept our own currency.
What's next?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Unfortunately for him, the cashier did not seem to understand that the $2 bill is indeed legal US tender
So the headline should say "BestBuy cashier broke the law".
Yes yes, that's great. But now for the question we're all wondering about: Did he go for the service plan?
.
_
Jeez, where does it say that Best Buy arrested him?
http://www.snopes.com/humor/business/tacobell.htm
At least Snopes got this right. The piece was originally written by a guy going by Captain Sarcastic (Kurt Koller) who had his own usenet group. I knew the guy back in the 80's and the story is precisely the kind of thing that happened to him (and it was his style of writing as well).
He got quite upset when several sources borrowed it and attributed it to "anonymous" sources.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
From the Guerilla News Network, perhaps the original interview:
"I'm sitting there in a chair. The store's full of people watching this. All of a sudden, [a Baltimore County cop is] standing me up and handcuffing me behind my back, telling me, 'We have to do this until we get it straightened out.' Bolesta was then taken to the county police lockup in Cockeysville, where he sat handcuffed to a pole and in leg irons [for three hours] while the Secret Service was called in."
Best Buy isn't the worst villain here. Beware Baltimore County...
<grrr>
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)
Strangely, as the man was being escorted out of the store, the clerk was heard to say, "Would you like a service contract with that..."
Some settling may occur during posting.
Good thing he didn't pay with Susan B. Anthony dollars.
The poor bastard may have been sent to Death Row!
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Try using $2 bills at a strip club.
They don't call the cops, they just beat the crap out of you. Then they trash your car.
Not that I know from, er, personal experience.
fsh
It's been 30 years since I've seen a $2 bill, but I don't work in retail.
People typically don't work in retail very long, and retail sales people often aren't 30 years old, so there must be many who have never seen a $2 bill.
It seems like the police and other institutions in America love to use their 'free' 24 hour arrest period as a kind of on the spot punishment for anyone they don't like. they can be either held on something specific like suspicion of fraud or just for that old catch-all 'disorderly conduct'. I would imagine stores like best buy also like to use this for annoying customers - just call up and claim something arrestable is going on and who are the cops going to believe, some guy, or a reputable store? Was it even fucking necessary to handcuff this guy? i thought cuffs were only for uncooperative people and maybe transporting? There can't be much in the way of compensation if you get locked up for absolutely nothing, and in some cases people get more than 24 hours without lawyers! So just remember, if you come accross a bad cop, they can have you for a day for so much as walking funny or, and lets face it this is the real reason, paying a bill with to many small notes - don't give me that "we didn't know $2 bills wer legal and the ink looked dodgy", they were just pissed off because he was playing with them - the $2 and running ink was just a ticket for them to call the cops.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I almost exclusively pay with $2 bills. I go to the back every few weeks and get about $400 worth, and just pay for most things with them, or a credit card if the value's quite high?
:)
Why? Mostly, for the expression I get from the counter staff:
"Two dollar bills? Cool! Oh... damn, where do I put them in the till?"
Sometimes they go into the clerk's pocket, after being replaced with more 'common' bills
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.
He was asked to come back to the store and pay the installation charge on the stereo he originally wanted, which was recommended in the first place, when this unit would not fit and a more expensive model was installed instead (he paid the difference). The store reneged on a verbal agreement that they would not charge him for installation because of the mixup.
I'm not surprised either. Turnover rate is high and many of them are students working part-time. Once I had a cashier insisting that I present a photo ID along with my photo credit card. I politely pointed out that the whole point of having a photo on my credit card is so that I won't have to show my driver licence, which in my case is the same exact picture. "Store policy," she said, at which point I understood that she's a new trainee and must have felt it's better to be safe than sorry. So I showed my ID and everybody's happy. I guess my point is: try not to confuse the poor cashier.
1. Get treated badly by Bestbuy 2. Pay with $2 bills as protest 3. Get arrested, handcuffed to a pole 4. Sue police & bestbuy for millions 5. Profit!
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
It's bad enough he was arrested and imprisoned for using legal tender...but locked up in Cockeysville? That, my fellow posters, is torture.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
The bastards have no problem giving me Canadian quarters as part of my change. I haven't shopped at Worst Buy since they started "tracking" troublesome customers. You know the kind that returns defective merchandise or mails off for their rebates.
a slut did tulsa
You know, that a Best Buy would have such an ignorant cashier (who now claims the bills were "smudged" and so "appeared to be counterfeit") does not surprise me in the least. It happens. Lots of people are stupid.
You should try paying in Susan B. Anthony dollars someplace. Even though coins are struck with "One dollar" right on the face, some people insist that they are quarters. Very annoying.
I'm not a lawyer and I'm not a cashier, but isn't it illegal to accept currency that you think is counterfeit? In other words, why would the cashier accept the $2 bills then mark them as "counterfeit"?
I would think that the cashier would either accept the money or reject it and call a supervisor/store security, no in-between. But then again, I'm not a cashier.
As a side note, I think I've only seen a $2 bill a couple of times. It has my favorite reverse side of any U.S. paper money I've seen, a depiction of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, if I remember correctly. I have a $2 bill stored somewhere around here...
Anakin Simpson: If you're not with me, then you're my enemy--ooh, donuts!
Now if I sent Best Buy 57 $2 credit card transactions, and they banned my IP, that would be one thing...but...um...none of this took place online.
Seeing stories like these makes me feel less inclined to step into a Best Buy unless I really need to. I'm finding better deals and less hassle through online stores anyway.
Best Buy really needs to get its act together and start a new focus on customer service. Otherwise, they're going to lose a significant amount of their business to online retailers, and others that are still bricks-n-mortar.
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.
To paraphrase a poster on Fark.com (can't give you an exact quote, they spilled beer on their database :) "I feel sorry for the Secret Service agent. You train for years to bust big counterfeiters, and then you get called for this."
It's a well known fact that Best Buy hires only the stupidest people it can find, but a cop ought to at least know what currencies are legal.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
Let all the /.ers unite and protest. Lets not buy from Best Buy. Let the bastards starve. Then all the employees there, including the cashier will have to pose nude for 'PlayBoy Best Buy edition'. I really dig that blonde chick at the store... finally I can get a glimpse ;)
fuvoo: watch something
A long long time ago in a state that isn't mine a town decided they did not like the military presence from the local post and made life difficult by hassling soldiers on pass. Come payday the post CO paid everyone in $2 bills, since it was an unusual denomination. By then end of the day the town found out how much money the post brought into their little town. And everyone lived happily ever after.
No one of consequence
Like the guy in TFA, I ask for $2 bills all the time from the bank when I cash my paycheck. The bank is more than happy to give them to me, citing that they are a waste of space for other more common bills.
;)
The first round of fun comes when the teller gives me the money- usually tellers count money very fast, but when they get to the $2 bills, they slow down significanty (it's funny to me, at least). Next comes when you try to spend them at Wal-Mart. Here are my favorite examples:
1) The cashier asks me to pay with "regular" money, as she somehow didn't realize $2 bills are legal tender.
2) Another cashier asks me if they are fake. When I tell her no, they are in fact real, she questions me again, and turns on her blinky-light to signal the manager to come over. The manager tells her they can accept them, but asks me not to use them next time. The manager leaves, and the cashier is confused as to where they put the bills, as there is no slot for them. She puts them with the $20s, instead of under the drawer like she should (probably because they both had "2"s on them).
3) Yet another cashier questions their validity about a week later. He says there are no slots for 2s in the drawer, so he can't take them. I tell him there are no slots for 50s and 100s either, which for some reason upsets him. There goes the blinky light, and over comes the manager. She recognizes me from last week, and asks why I continue to "make trouble." I tell her that $2 bills are legal tender, blah blah blah, yet she insists that I only do it to cause problems (well, she kinda has a point there... but I like $2 bills because they are prime, like $5 dollar bills). Basically, she told me I was not welcome to shop there if I continued to try to use $2 bills there. I called the Wal-Mart customer service number, left a complaint, and suprisingly, was rewarded with a $20 gift card. I later received a letter stating that the manager has been contacted, and there is no reason whatsoever that I shouldn't be allowed to spend $2 bills there. So now, every time I go, I make sure I use at least one of them.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
You'd be surprised now some cashiers react to money like that. At the grocery store, I saw someone ahead of me try and pay part of their bill with a 50 cent piece, and the cashier handed it back saying "We don't take Canadian money". I gave the lady two quarters for it after trying to convince the cashier it was really a US coin.
If you replace Best Buy with a strip club, and the cashier with a stripper, it'll all make sense--including the pole.
First Best Buy was on Slashdot for allegedly abusive practices concerning rebates. Now this. Does Best Buy management have any more sink-the-company ideas?
The correct way to handle this was for Best Buy top management to apologize to everyone, and give the guy whatever he wants from the store free. Apparently they still haven't done that.
If it were me, if I were the Best Buy CEO, I would be on the phone now, saying to the guy, "Can I personally deliver our top-of-the-line home theatre to your house in 30 minutes? It's free. In return, I need you to sign this form accepting our sincere apologies." Then all the stories would be about what a great deal the guy got.
But no. Now that Osama bin Laden showed the way, everyone has to imitate violent extremist fundamentalist Arabs now, don't they? Treat everyone else with hostility.
Ha, the other day I was taking photographs of things in my neighbourhood on my lunch break. I was just snapping shots of random things and then decided to head back to work. On the way back, two officers approached me and asked for my ID and asked why was taking pictures of the police station. Turns out one of my shots happened to have the police station in the background. Anyway, I asked what the problem was and he said that they had to be extra vigilant in case of a *terrorist attack*. He then proceeded to write down notes on my facial features. He started questioning me about the other pictures I took, too. I stayed calm, but I was pissed off I was being treated like a criminal for doing nothing wrong.
You know the saddest thing of all? This is all took place in CANADA! I couldn't believe a police officer would be afraid of a terrorist attack on his police station in Canada.
I suggest that concerned Slashdotter's everywhere protest this by stocking up on $2 bills. On a chosen day (how about a new-release Tuesday?), each individual should attempt to purchase an agreed upon CD (perhaps Britney Spears) and pay for it with the $2 bills.
If the purchase actually succeeds, the purchaser should immediately go to the return desk and return the CD unopened for cash. Consider this a bonus protest against the RIAA.
90% of everything is crap. Also, crap is relative.
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.
As long as that cashier gets sufficiently cowed into submission and is willing to accept my $3 bills I say let bygones be bygones.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
I haven't been arrested for it, but I did once have a cashier refuse to take a two until her manager told her it was ok.
."
"I don't know what makes for a good wrongful arrest suit. .
Being wrongfully arrested will do it, especially on the unsubstantiated complaint of an individual. He's got a good case if he really wants to be a prick to Best Buy, and who wouldn't want that?
The police/DA/judge fucked up big time too, as there obviously wasn't suffcient evidence to generate a legitimate warrant on a conterfeiting charge, like, possession of a bill deemed to be counterfeit by an expert and alleged to have been passed by the guy, and since the guy apparently was not apprehended in the act (no, I haven't read the article), a warrant should have been necessary.
If he were apprehended in the act, the converstaion should have gone something like this:
"Officer, he's trying to give me two dollar bills!"
"Yeah. So? What are you, some kind of moron?"
Unless, of course, the officer was some kind of moron.
Of course, thanks to the city of New London, CT the public should be more aware that they are often tested for that before being allowed to join the force (over intelligence is deemed to create job dissatisfaction with the role of police officer, or at least that's how they like to explain it these days. In the old days they were more honest in admiting that they wished police to function as automatons).
KFG
I work at Best Buy. We do not track people ...
But I notice you don't deny giving Canadian quarters in change...
When I first arrived in the US I bought some stamps from a vending machine at the post office. It gave me change in the form of dollar coins. I couldn't spend them. People repeatedly told me that they'd never seen them before and couldn't accept them. When I found someone who would accept them they said "you shouldn't spend those, they're worth something". They came out of a vending machine. They're worth exactly what it says on them. I couldn't believe that I, a mere foreigner, seemed to know more about the local currency than the locals.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
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 $2 bills. The smeared ink and sequential serial numbers were enough for the officer to detain him until an explanation could be verified.
It may suck but the officer had reasonable grounds to detain him until he could confirm the story. I would imagine, in the majority of cases where suspect money comes up, the person caught tries feeding a story. At the end of the day, the question is whether you believe it's right to occasionally wrongfully detain one person or regularly let go many. Rightly or wrongly, the concept of reasonable grounds enshrines the former.
"We don't even have 50 cent pieces up here..."
Isn't a 'Looney' worth US$.50 ?...
= ; ^ ) >
A sidebar on coins and currency. When I was a kid, you saw a lot of denominations you no longer see, even though they're still officially in circulation. I believe this is mainly due to the domination of retail by big chains, which don't like to deal with more denominations than will fit easily in a standard cash register. (If you run one cash register, dealing with fifty-cent pieces is a small nuisance. If you run millions of them, dealing with fifty-cent pieces subtracts big bucks from your bottom line.) So they put the "odd" denominations in the bank, and never give them out as change. That's why dollar coins will never catch on, unless and until Congress makes room for them by withdrawing dollar bills.
Kinda reminds me of a math teacher I had back in Junior High.
What's the least number of coins needed to make 45 cents? My answer was 2, a quarter and a 20-cent piece. She thought I was just being my normal sarcastic self, until I brought the coin in the next day.
That was pretty fun. We didn't make 'em for long (1875-1878), but we made 'em.
a store has the right to accept only $20 bills in payment if it notifies the customer beforehand. On the other hand, if the store does not specify anything specific, once they enter into the transaction, you are allowed to pay off the 'debt' with any legal tender you have.
Just FYI
"try not to confuse the poor cashier" Especially when they give you too much change. ;-) I actually argued over that with one once and finally gave up.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
That's because they're shaped almost exactly like quarters. Which is because vending machine industry lobbied the gov't to make them "compatible" with existing vending hardware. Partly because of this, nobody used the damned things and the vending machine industry ended up having to put elaborate and expensive bill readers on many machines.
When I heard they were going to create a new dollar coin a couple of years ago, I thought: Great, now that they've learned their lesson, they won't put out a coin that is so easily mistaken for another denomination. I was wrong; now the vending machine industry wanted them to make the new coin exactly the same size and weight as the Susan B. to maintain "compatibility"! How stupid can they get? Now nobody uses the new one either.
IMO, if they would just come out with a nice thick and chunky coin like the British 1 pound coin, one that has a nice feel when you plop it down on a bar and *looks* like it's worth more than other coins, then there would be no problem getting the public to use it. I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to actually happen, though.
Since there have so many commments claiming that you must accept currency, citing "Legal Tender for all debts..." here is a snippet from the treasury department FAQ
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.
here
It's not just Best Buy. It's the moron manager, the idiot cashiers, and the dumb-fucking cop. I hope this guy sues the shit out of not only the store, but the police department. People get sequential serial numbers on money all the time, especially when they get their money from banks.
Actually we do...they just happen to be as uncommon up here as they are in the States
They seem to be slightly less rare than your $1.00 and $2.00 bills, but i've seen them.
I know I get hassled when I use $1.00/$2.00 Canadian bills in Canada.
Clerk "Where did you get these"
Me "Expo 87"
Clerk "But they say 86 on them"
Me "I imagine they were printed before Expo 87"
Clerk "Why do you have so many"
Me "Well, we can't spend your currency in america, I went with my class and I collected the left over currency from all my classmates, today I bring it back".
[a short time passes as they consult their book to see if it even looks like legal tender]
Clerk "Where do you expect me to put this?"
Me "Under the drawer where you keep your larger bills".
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Not since you guys elected Bush twice. :p
-If God wanted people to be better than me, he would have made them that way.
'Try not to confuse the poor cashier' is a nice sentiment, and it's all well and good if you're a patient person. But some people are just stubborn, and if they know they're in the right then they won't alter their habits. People should not ever get chucked in a cell just because they're stubborn.
Santa's suicide mission go!
there was more than just the ink smearing. it was that plus the fact that the bills were in sequential order. the police weren't arresting him because they thought $2 bills didn't exist. they thought there was a likelyhood the bills were counterfeit given the fact that the ink smear AND the sequential #s.
of course the poor guy explained he was a tour guide and often got stacks of $2 bills from the bank. even gave them the # of the bank to verify. best buys have horrible customer service. we all know that: http://www.bestbuysux.org/. but it was the police response that was shocking.
i guess in a town like bolesta, cops are in favor of retail stores more than the individuals since they probably pay more of their salary.
here's an article from the local newspaper: A tale of customer service, justice and currency as funny as a $2 bill. might wanna goto bugmenot to get a login to bypass registration.
HD Trailers
I am not a lawyer.
# Legal_tender_in_the_United_States
c ourt=us&vol=110&invol=421
From the research that I have done, it seems like Best Buy was obligated to accept the payment because they had already provided the service and he was paying a debt.
Here is an excerpt from an interesting article I found on
http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Legal_tender
Legal tender in the United States
As laid down in the United States Coinage Act of 1965, 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.
However, US federal law does not restrict private businesses, persons or organisations in what methods of payment they choose to accept or refuse. Businesses are therefore free to insist on payment by credit card, for example, or to refuse larger denomination banknotes. Even further though, legal tender laws do not preclude businesses from choosing to reject U.S. dollars for payment altogether. In this regard legal tender laws do not pertain to voluntary transactions.
However, when the transactions are non voluntary such as in the payment of a debt, any legal tender must be accepted.
Another excerpt from the previous webpage
As legal tender can be refused until a person is in debt, vending machines and transport staff do not have to accept the largest denomination of banknote for a single bus fare or bar of chocolate, and even shopkeepers can reject large banknotes. However, restaurants that do not collect money until after a meal is served would have to accept any legal tender, though they would not be obliged to provide change - the restaurant is not in debt, it has been given a gift.
Related Court Cases:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?
-- James
After my recent trip to the US (I live in the UK), I was baffled to why on earth the lowest base denomination was a note (bill) instead of a coin, meaning that vending machines are forced to accept bills *and* coins, unlike in the UK where everything up to £2 (1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 pence, then £1 and £2) are all in coins.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
That Mike Bolesta guy is probably one of them ignorant foreigners from New Mexico! Imagine someone trying to pass off a phony two dollar bill! Good thing Americans are all more skeptical since 9/11!!!!!
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for the are subtle and quick to anger.
I use them all the time to make change for people who pay with $3 bills. Sheesh... some people!
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Many years ago, my parents took me on a tour of the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing. In the building, they had a gift shop where you could buy all sorts of things. One of the things they sold was a sheet of uncut $2 bills. Apparently, you can now buy them directly from the government over the Internet.
In case you're wondering, they are indeed legal currency. I'd personally like to see someone try to pay with an entire sheet.
It's not known if this happened, but at least we have a first-hand if undomumented account. From Snopes:
Did the infamous "$2 bill at Taco Bell" incident really happen as described in Captain Sarcastic's tale? He says it did. But whether it's real, a somewhat embellished account of an actual encounter, or purely the product of a fertile imagination, the story remains a favorite because it's all too plausible, something we can easily imagining happening -- indeed, many of us have already experienced something very much like it (from both sides of the retail counter). Who hasn't had to deal with the tandem of a less-than-brilliant sales associate and a dim-witted manager type whose reaction to actually having to think or acknowledge something beyond his limited experience is to retreat into an officious, unchallengable "I'm the boss, and whatever I say goes" mode?
The US Postal Service is the only place where I've ever received a dollar coin for change. I don't think anybody else uses them. And yes, the postal clerks have to explain to about every other customer that they really did get a dollar in change, not a quarter.
That's once
I use them all the time. I keep a pile of them for when I go on trips. I even have an uncut sheet of them framed and hanging up in my office.
The thing is that it gets you remembered when you leave them as a (good) tip at a resturant. My wife and I ate at a small diner twice in one year, and I left a two for the tip each time. (It was a 20% tip.) We went back a year later, and the lady remembered us.
This year, my wife flew to a convention, and she gave the airport bus driver a $2 as a tip. Someone else on the bus, who knew us and our use of $2s later told us that the bus driver went on for another 15 or 20 minutes about the lady that gave him a two.
Why did I start?
A friend who was in the navy said that at one time when he was stationed there, Newport News, VA hated the navel base. They wanted to get rid of it. It was way too much trouble when an Aircraft Carrier came into port and 3,000 sailors hit the bars. The base commander knew he had a PR problem, so one day he paid all the sailors with stacks of $2 bills. That very day just about every store in the city was dealing with stacks of $2s. The police, the city management, and every shop keeper quickly found out that it was from the navy payroll. Message delivered: All that money comes straight from the navy. Do you want us to leave?
PR problem solved.
I learned that is was a fun way to be remembered and deliver a message on where your money is from.
Everyone is talking about suing Best Buy. If this happened to me, I would sue the county for the outrageously reprehensible behavior of their police officer. Seriously. Best Buy didn't arrest the guy, the cop did, on suspicion of using a 2 dollar bill? Fucking moron should be shot.
Loonie and Toonie.
They both _deffinately_ feel like they're worth something.
Sure, they feel like they are worth something, but the truth is that they are only worth one or two Canadian dollars.
(I keed, I keed!)
Count me as one of the people who thought there was nothing wrong with the "Ike" silver dollar.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Indeed. I'm very tempted to go to the Cockeysville best buy tomorrow with a $2 bill, a couple Suzie B's and Sacejaweia dollars, 50cent pieces, and whatever other unusual currency I have around and buy something.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
My next question is...did you then try to pay the cashier for your order with the 50c piece?
Yeah... In Canada, the 1$ bills have been taken out of circulation probably over a decade ago, and the 2$ bills were replaced maybe in '98-'99...
Both were replaced by large coins, making everybody's pockets MUCH heavier...
Odds are the clerk at the store was too young to remember even seeing those bills.
The article says that he used to give kids $2 bills as lunch money. It's an uncommon item, and the kids thought it was neat. A source of some amusement.
Now his son doesn't want to take them, because of the trouble it caused. What's the lesson? Straying from the norm gets you in trouble. A little uniqueness used to be a source of amusement, now it's a source of fear. I feel sad about this.
It reminds me of the Harry Chapin song, "Flowers Are Red".
At most
If I was this guy I would send BEST Buy a fruit basket and a "thank you" card.
The winnings from the court case against them will provide him with an early retirement
Seems that people on here think they stopped producing $2 bills in the 1976 series. The policy on $2 bills is to produce them only when quantities are sufficiently low. They produced more in 1996 under the 1995 series. Also quantities are getting very low. Even after only 9 or so years. They believe they'll print mroe by 2006. They're very much alive. But as someone said, they mostly just take up space.
A penny, nickel, dime, quarter, and half-dollar are all coins, and are all fractions of a dollar (.01, .05, .10, .25, and .50, respectively). The smalles denomination is a cent, which is, in fact, a coin (just like the next 5 steps). A dollar is just a hectocent, but "dollar" is so much easier to remember - and "dollar" doesn't sound like a sci-fi alien race that somehow feeds off of other organisms. "I'd hate to meet up with a pack of hectocents in a dark alley..."
This comment got me thinking. It seems that US currency has gone through many different changes over the years, and yet it's all still legal tender, resulting in a confusing mish-mash of coins and bills and whatnot. Is there any reason why all this currency is kept as legal tender? Here in the UK, when a new coin is introduced the old one is gradually phased out, with lots of public notices about the change. Then after a while the old coin ceases to be legal tender, although it can still be exchanged at banks. This seems to me to be a far more sensible solution, as it avoids the confusion that can occur when there are many different coins of the same denomination.
Santa's suicide mission go!
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.
Well, you know, in a post-9/11 world...
Let's get real. Every time the cops or some authorities do something that clearly oversteps a boundary, they scream "9/11! 9/11!" - but stuff like this shows how fucking stupid those screaming this really are. Yeah, we have to be careful of all those people who go to Best Buy to get car stereos installed and try to pay with fake money. Next thing you know, these people will be bombing buildings, so we have to be careful!
I'm probably considered unpatriotic for not being scared shitless and willing to give up every civil liberty because something very bad happened a few years ago. I'm probably not considered patriotic because I don't have 20 "support our troops" magnets on the back of my car... I just know that putting one on there will convert all those troop-haters out there who are sitting in traffic, so tomorrow, I'll be sure to go spend my $2 at Walmart and buy a Chinese-made magnet to go on the back of my vehicle. I'll also spout support for a president who has destroyed my country's economy and ruined relationships with allies. If I encounter anyone who doesn't support my views, I'll scream until they do.
It's what George Washington or Thomas Jefferson would do, so it's the least I can do for the love of my country.
The ticket machines for some train lines also use them. NJTransit the new jersey rail company has ticket machines that accept both Susan Bs and the new dollars, and also dispenses them as change.
Other than that I haven't see them in circulation.
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
No, in this case not buying at Best Buy is not the perfect protest. The perfect protest is for us to continue to buy at Best Buy, but pay ONLY with $2 bills and $1 *coins*.
Although I would like to see the sexy redhead at the local store in Playboy...
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
The greatest thing of them all is that I work at the Best Buy where this happened. I was histerically laughing on the floor when I have read the article about it. It's absolutely funny. Unfortunately for Mike it's not to funny. We had the OPS hold him in our Sales Development Room where he was then questioned till the Secret Service arrived. The cashier near lost her job, I'm suprised she didn't. Coming from Baltimore, with Pimlico near by. Most race tracks around here use 50 cent pieces and 2$ bills. I'm suprised she didn't know. Oh well it was sure funny to read.
I was locked up over something like this. The cashier thought I stole my mothers credit card. Which was a legitimate thought since it was reported stolen by my mother. So she decided to keep the credit card AND my drivers license. So I told her to just call the police and settle this now since I couldn't rightfully drive away anyway.
To make a long story short the officers told me (as I was riding to the station) that in any case always make sure YOU are the one who called the police. They are almost always on the side of the person that placed the call. And yes I got to wear the sporty hand cuffs.
Easy to tell the things apart from others, and they naturally sort themselves out in your pocket. Makes me not miss the old "Isaac Newton" quid that was phased out in the 'eighties. It's also the best reason I can think of for Great Britain to stay out of the Euro.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Another time at the same supermarket, my friend got carded. The cashier didn't recognize the out-of-state driver's license and got the manager, who examined it for a while before deciding: "MARY-land? No way." He'd never heard of the state of Maryland.
That said, we should take care to remember that not everyone in low-level retail jobs is that stupid. Don't make people's sucky jobs worse by assuming they're morons.
If the cashier had been correct and there never existed a legal 2 dollar bill, then the man with fake $2 bills would not be committing a crime by using them. You can't counterfeit a bill that doesn't exist. That's how people can pass a 3 dollar "bill" without breaking the law; the cashier would just unknowingly make a barter trade for the purchase.
"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
The best buy people got excited because of the excessive number of perfectly legal, yet somewhat unusual bills. So they get the pen out and start marking all of them and manage to smear one and it comes out looking like it might be counterfiet. The cop overreacted a bit and decided, figuring he's not really qualified to determine if the bills are in fact counterfiet or not, considering the pen DID mark it as possible, they'd hold the guy until the secret service gave it their ok, which they did, and even offered up an explaination about the confusion.
The police probably didn't do anything wrong, although what they did was probably unnecessary. Best Buy on the other hand is going to keep a few lawyers employed for the near future.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I have no problem believing that Best Buy has employees who are ignorant of the existence of $2 bills, but the arresting officer must be the dumbest dumbass on two feet.
Not only didn't he know that currency ink can indeed smear/rub off, but has also apparently never withdrawn money from a bank or bought anything at a store with cash. My local ATM is always giving me brand-new, sequentially-numbered $20 bills, and there have been plenty of times that the local convenience store has given me change in the form of brand-new, sequentially-numbered $1 bills. Furthermore, what counterfeiter in his right mind would fake a seldom-used denomination, AND use it to pay a debt to a merchant who had his contact information? The last thing counterfeiters want is to draw attention to themselves or leave a trail-- they want to spend their bills anonymously and with as little fanfare as possible, and vanish into the crowd.
Just a little bit of reasoning on the part of the cop would have turned this incident into a non-event.
I hope this guy sues the living shit out of Best Buy and the police department, and wins.
~Philly
I knew of a guy - a Libertarian - who'd do a similar thing.
He'd buy bunches of new two-dollar notes to get fresh ones with consecutive serial numbers. Then he'd take a piece of cardboard the same size as a bill, put a stack of bills on it, and stick one edge together with "padding compound" - the kind of glue used to stick together notepads (and stacks of food stamps).
He'd go out to a restaurant or what have you and, after the meal, would whip out the pad of fresh bills and ask "Do you take Federal Reserve Notes?".
Of course the typical response would be "Is that money?". To this he'd reply "No, but the government says you HAVE to take it."
(What he was alluding to was that, since the switch from Silver Certificates to Federal Reserve Notes, US currency is now unbacked. It is no longer "money" - actual precious metal or a certificate redemable for some - but now "fiat currency" - a promise by the government to use force to make people accept it for payment of debts as if it actually WAS money.)
(As I understand the federal law, if you have a debt and offer Fed notes for payment, if they refuse to take them as payment, your debt is paid AND you get to keep the notes - and you can enforce this in federal court, even if a state court then tries to make you pay again, pay with something else, or sieze your property to pay the debt. {There is a limit, however, on how big a debt you can pay with coins - so don't bring in a barrel of pennies.} But IANAL so don't take that as gospel.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Yes, but given that most things have to accept coins *and* bills, wouldn't it make more sense to replace low-denomination bills with coins?
Visit somewhere in Europe and see how it makes sense.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Why don't cashiers just stick them under the tray, like coupons, $50s, or other unusual things they have to keep track of?
I am saying this as someone who has done a lot of stupid, provocative things in my life: I once pretended a cardboard poster tube was a bazooka in front of an armored car driver. He did get a really funny scared expression on his face, then reached for his gun before seeing my trick. I laughed, but he stayed calm and pointed out how my survival had depended on his not being a fool. I took that to heart and thanked god for my limited success that day. I'm not saying I don't still provoke people for the sheer pleasure of it (especially when they piss me off), I am just saying that I don't pretend I am innocent if it backfires on me.
Now it's fun to laugh at the morons out there who don't know the finer points of US currency, or tell the school bully "his epidermis is showing", just be ready to acknowledge your complicity in the ass-whooping you might eventually get.
"I love his boyish charm, but I hate his childishness" - Leela
Yes it does. Most countries aren't so silly as to make all of their bill denominations the same size and color. But that's another rant.
They could create a coin that was worth as much as a dollar. It could be called a dollar coin. That would be neat.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Consider that, fishing around in your pocket, a $1 bill bears a striking resemblance to a $50 bill, $20 bill, $10 bill, $5 bill, and $2 bill. Does this make the $1 bill difficult to use or identify?
Yes, it does. Most other countries use different sizes or relief printing so they are distinguishable by feel. You may not have a problem; consider people with poor eyesight, however, or situations in low-light.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I guess my point is: try not to confuse the poor cashier.
I think I'm going the exact opposite way. I don't buy much at Best Buy anyway but next time I do, I'm stopping by my bank and getting a bunch of $2 bills to do it with.
The US government is well known around the world for NOT changing their currency. Anything minted since the last 1800s is still legal. This is a good thing when your currency is a standard around the world, everyone recognizes it (well everyone where the black market is significant, I suspect western Europe doesn't care cause they have a useful currency). Of course the downside is those old bills are easy to counterfit. Still by not eliminating the old currency they do help the acceptance of the dollar around the world, which is a feature.
There are not many different coins of the same denomination. The 50 cent piece hasn't been made in years, it has been phased out just like your currency, the only difference is we never quit accepting it, we just quit using it. Everything else has only seen minor changes since the late 1800s. (sometimes one face changes. the metal in some of them changed, but overall everything looks similar to what they made 100 years ago
I don't have a reference, but studies have shown that people tend to learn currency as a kid, and then don't bother learning again. What this means is that if you grew up before the Susan B. (or after it), you never learned to tell the difference. If you were learning your currency when the Susan B. was introduced (which I did, but there were only about 2-3 years where this would be true) you learned the difference between the Susan B and Quarter, and you can automatically tell without problem!
That is one reason countries that introduce new currency tend to replace all the old ones at the same time (IE the Euro replaced a lot of different national currencies), it forces everyone to learn the new system, instead of being lazy and failing to shoe horn one new currency in with what they know.
Those almost completely worthless pens are supposed to make a black mark if it's printed on paper, as opposed to the fabric actual bills are printed on. They're just iodine! It reacts with paper and turns black. They aren't some magical counterfit detecting thing.
Having smeared ink on money is rare, but it happens. If you get it, you should take it to the bank and they'll replace it. It's not very common sign of counterfitting...counterfitters don't use ink that runs either.
Oh, and I love the concept that sequential bill numbers are somehow suspicious. Yeah, the counterfitters have the ability to change numbers (Which many do not), and decided they'd make it easy on themselves by counting in one direction, instead of just picking random numbers. Riiiight.
Sequential bill numbers are the opposite of suspicious WRT counterfitting, the only way you get those is at a bank, and banks do not get counterfit money from the mint. (He might have robbed a bank, but that's an entire different matter.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
your implying that /.ers already buy from best buy... you silly silly person
if i wanted to pay retail +10% +Tax or more, id go to comp usa and get a properly price screwed.
Mike
I heart the RIAA & MPAA, im sure its mutual...
Excuse me, but how exactly does one equate suspected small-scale counterfeiting with hijacking airliners, flying them into buildings and killing thousands of people?
If this signifies anything, it's how, in the post-9/11 world, American society has gotten so moronic, brow-beaten and petrified that cops seriously expect us to buy such a flimsy excuse for their Gestapo tactics.
By the way, I went to grade school in Cockeysville, MD. My parents live only a few miles away. I'll make sure they avoid that particular store.
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
Fool, since decimalisation occured, the 1/2 pence coin was withdrawn, the 5 pence and 10 pence coins have been changed (they're smaller now than they were in, say, the 1980s), the 20 pence, one pound and two pound coints have been introduced. Five pound coins also exist, but are very rare: they're predominantly minted to celebrate special anniversaries and events and are mostly of interest to coin collectors.
The grandparent post wasn't referring to the change in coinage that took place when decimalisation took place, he was referring to the change in coinage (and notes - none of the existing note designs is more than about a decade old, and the three most common are all less than six years old) that has taken place since that time.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Well actually, even 30 yearold coins arn't legal anymore, the 50p, 10p, 5p, 2p and 1p coins have changed and the 1/2p has been phased out, all of the notes have changed over the years, the latest incarnations including holograms, which helps a bit as people don't spend so long checking there legal, used to be quite embarising with people holding things up to the light to check the metal strip and watermark.
:)
I think the only coins which have remained the same from the decimialisation until now are the 20p and the pound coin, no doubt the'll have there sights on changing the 20
Problem is the dolar is now so wide spread, it'd be an almost impossible task to replace all of them, mabie someone will but it'd take at least 20 years to get near 100% usage of the new notes.
Am I the only one who expected to see that followed by "walk into a bar"?
That's not my bird... O.O
Maybe it's just me but I don't get it. Where's the fun in paying with $2 bills? It seems the only reason to do that is you can force others into a conflict where you will be proven right in the end. I understand confronting people and then being proven right. But egging others into a conflict? That just seems wheeny.
Not only do I not get the humour but I get the outrage even less. Why do people get mad when they spend two dollar bills and the seller doesn't recognize it as legal tender. By very nature of the fact that the spender is going out of his way to get two dollar bills he has to recognize that they are rarely used and many don't know they exist. Don't you give up your right to be outraged by people questioning your actions when you've chosen actions just so that they would raise questions?
If you enjoy creating conflict with these kinds of stunts then fine. I mean I still don't get it but your fun doesn't seem to harm anyone. But if you're going to get angry when people respond to the bait that you are laying out for them then why do it? And I certainly don't think there's any reason to have empathy for you if you do get exactly the responce you were hoping for.
Actually, it costs far more than than one cent to mint a penny, and the government doesn't exactly 'sell' their currency to banks, rather, the currency is introduced gradually into circulation via them. Large chartered banks have been given the ability to 'leverage' or 'create' debt, by the Bank of Canada and so the need to 'purchase' money from the government does not exist.
I suggest you
a) Visit the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa
b) Take a high school economics course
Oh, and BTW: The Bank of Canada is a crown corporation, and Ford is a public traded, limited liability corporation, and most decidedly not 'private' by any sense of the word or its use in economics.
So, FunFactor, I, and other veterans of the Canadian Monetary Industry(tm, LLC, LLBO) thank you for your interest in Canadian economics but urge you to participate chiefly as an observer in the future.
Urban Detail
He didn't get chucked in a cell for being stubborn, he got chucked in a cell because the clerk is an idiot, as were the officers responding to the call.
Any marginally competent lawyer should be able to get him at least six figures from both the store, and the municipality where this occurred.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
At least they didn't beat a confession out of him...
Even better than that - a friend of mine, who lives in Washington, was visiting California a few years back and went into a bar and was carded. At the time WA still used printed & laminated cards while CA had switched over to newer cards where the info was actually printed onto a plastic card. The bartender insisted that his ID was fake and proceded to cut it up.
Fortunately for my friend, a vacationing Washington State Trooper was in the bar and convinced the bartender to pay for the replacement card -and- cover my friend's party's tab for the evening.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Coins cost twice as much to mint (4 cents vs 8 cents for a dollar coin), sure, but that's only a minor part of the equation. Coins last in circulation for about thirty years, while a bill needs to be replaced after just twenty two months. The GAO estimates that it costs $522 million a year to keep printing dollar bills rather than mandating a switch to coins.
That said, I hate dollar coins. I have enough change, I don't need more. Bills are easier to manage from a consumer standpoint.
The first tip I left when I visited london was 7 pounds.
I threw in a few loose coins like I typically do here. oops, I apperently tipped $10.00 on a $13.00 breakfast.
I bet I made somebody happy though.
The entire time I was in England I was confused as to why I would have loose change worth more then I usually cary in cash in the US.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I knew a guy who had the habit of tossing dimes into the open cash draw at places like Mc Donald's. Apparently at the time McD's had a policy where they were much more worried if you had extra cash since it means you ripped off a customer where if you came up short you may be stealing from the company. The result is if your over by $.10 you end up counting and recounting and the manager gets to recount and someone has to fill out forms incase the irate costumer shows up looking for their $.10. He claimed that if you could get a dime in three draws it would waste an hour of a managers time.
> Now nobody uses the new one either.
Guess you haven't been to Ecuador. Here, where the US dollar is the official currency, you get golden dollar coins as change at least as often as the $1 bills, probably more.
Personally, I'm super-ticked that the US Mint quit making the things. They beat the crap out of $1 bills, and cost the government so much less to make and maintain. Why the heck didn't the gov't just ignore the whiners and pull the $1 bill?
I remember getting blitzed in Novia Scotia one night (too many Keith's and too many questions about the Ranger's sucktitude back when the NHL existed), and throwing back all of my coins as a tip to the bartender. Waking up alone the next morning, realizing I tipped the bartender about $80 bucks. Canadian bastards :)
The Big Yuan - tracking mainland China
I got you all beat here. I went on a tour of the US mint in sanfransico about 2 or 3 years ago. While there I decided to goto the bank after remembering there are $2 bills, and picked a few to use just for asshole value. While in the mint snack shope/cafe, I went to get my lunch and I hand the woman a few $2 bills who in return says to me. "We dont accept novilty money." With that quote I poited to the cealing behind me where large bills were haning in display and there was a $2 right there. How can you work at the MINT and not know?
give me a little more time - i'm pretty sure i can pin this on microsoft's stock-holdings in best buy...
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Here in Australia, our Two Dollar Coins have a similar surface to 5 cent coins, and are about double the thickness. They have smooth edges while 5 cent coins have serrated edges.
I constantly loose 2 dollar coins out of my wallet due to their smooth edges, I get left with a pile of 5 cent coins which don't slide around the inside of my wallet as much.
We also have One Dollar Coins which are about the same size as a 10 cent coin. We don't have 1 or 2 dollar notes, only 5, 10 20, 50 and 100 (which are all colour coded). We also have 200 dollar coins which are as rare as your 2 dollar notes.
Because most of America is populated by illogical fools who fear change and don't see the value in practicality when it upsets long held convention. When they were considering color for our bills recently, they only wound up adding a slight hint of color. The reason why? Well, according to what I've read, the decision was made because the U.S. treasury was told by what amounts to a marketing group, that Americans think of money as green. I was livid when I heard this because I'd just come back from Australia and I think they have gorgeous bills (nice colors and a clear plastic section for anti-counterfeiting measures). A lot of idiots here will say that it doesn't matter what color money is as long as it has value, which may be true, but jesus people! Get a fucking sense of style!
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Wait a second, we're missing an important point here:
You go to a bar where you can buy a beer for a buck? Where is this little slice of heaven?
No, because strippers don't like coins.
Nice Marmot
He'd never heard of the state of Maryland.
People that stupid should be euthanized. Seriously.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I once got a $50 bill back in change when I should have gotten a $20. Not wanting to screw over some poor cashier I tried to Do The Right Thing (tm) and return the money.
"You've made a small mistake," I said - I swear, that's verbatim what I said, and the verbatim reply I got was
"NO. I don't make mistakes."
Being, in some situations, a slow learner, I repeated my assertion; "No, really, there's been a little mistake made." (Note the regression into passive speech - I was really, really trying to avoid assigning blame here.)
Nope. About six degrees Kelvin comes the reply, "I told you, I don't make mistakes."
"Fine," I replied, walking away, "at the end of the day, when you're adding up, remember that the mistake you didn't make was a $30 mistake."
OMG...
;)
What a waste of time and energy... though I don't understand why someone would set out to do things like that (tossing dimes), unless that staff had really screwed with him somehow.
I had to work a lot of retail jobs through all my degrees, and they are not a party to start with, without having to contend with behavior like that... =P
On a more humorous note, one gig I had was waitressing in a small Middle Eastern restaurant in New Haven, and Mohammed would ding your paycheck for the amount of any error made on a customer's bill- regardless of whether it was in his favor or not. Only had that happen once or twice before my mental math skills became quite sharp, even at 2 AM!
The 50 cent piece hasn't been made in years, it has been phased out
Funny, I have a few from 2005, one from 2004... No 2003s (not that they don't exist, I just don't happen to have any)... a few 2002, and dozens from years before that.
The US also issued a large batch of $2 bills in 2003 (not sure if they did so since then).
Personally, I enjoy paying for things in bizarre currency... a $2, a Sacajawea, and a Kennedy half, for a $3.50 tip. Things like that. It usually makes cashiers laugh, and I have yet to get arrested for it. Then again, I know better than to shop at Best Buy for anything... I think we can draw some pretty solid negative conclusions about the fellow involved from that fact alone.
I have learned not to try to use SBA dollars anywhere but banks, however... Cashiers simply assume them as quarters without a second glance (which, AFAIK, caused their demise in the first place... What a dumb size, shape (milled edges), and color to make a dollar coin!)
The United States Mint has a list of current legal tender. There may be some photos of them somewhere on the site, but I'll let someone else post the URL.
There is also another link with information on the two dollar bill.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Copyright 1993 Captain Sarcastic (kkoller@nox.cs.du.edu)
On my way home from the second job I've taken for the extra holiday cash I need, I stopped at Taco Bell for a quick bite to eat. In my billfold is a $50 bill and a $2 bill. That is all of the cash I have on my person. I figure that with a $2 bill, I can get something to eat and not have to worry about people getting pissed at me.
At this point I open my billfold and hand him the $2 bill. He looks at it kind of funny and says,
He goes to talk to his manager, who is still within earshot. The following conversation occurs between the two of them.
He comes back to me and says,
He goes back to his manager who is watching me like I'm going to shoplift, and
The manager approaches me and says,
At this point he backs away from me and calls mall security on the phone around the corner. I have two people staring at me from the dining area, and I begin laughing out loud, just for effect.
A few minutes later, this 45-year-oldish guy comes in and says at the other end of counter, in a whisper:
Security guard walks over to me and says
Here's that store's address and phone number if you'd like to tell them what you think of their "customer service". Towson MD (Store 149) 1717 York Road Timonium, MD 21093 Phone: 410-561-2260 Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00am-9:00pm Sun 11:00am-7:00pm
That's it, I'm going to my bank and demanding that the ATM's dispense $2 bills and $1 coins. I want to load up on these and go out and educate the masses.
http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servle t/CategoryDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogI d=10001&identifier=3000
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
When I was in high school, I worked at a local Target as a cashier. Though it was not required, I held all $50's and $100's up to a light, to make sure that they had the polyester strip. (The store didn't issue any special pens, so we had to do things manually.) Since I worked at an extremely busy store, I had already had a good feel for money, though.
In the two years that I worked there, I accused exactly one person of counterfeiting. To me, the counterfeiting of the two fifties was obvious. I called my manager over to the lane, and was like, "I'm 99.9% sure that these are fake." She told me to take them anyway. About fifteen minutes later, after the line had died down, I took the bills over to the TPS (the security guy who stands at the front door). Sure enough, they were fake, and I got to go on record making my manager look like an idiot.
I was standing outside Buckingham Palace waiting to see the Changing of the Guard, when a mounted cop rode over and herded us away from the gate to make way for a royal coach carrying a man in a Nehru hat. A lady next to me, obviously a fellow Yank, asked him "Who's the guy in the funny hat?" This dialogue ensued:
"That's the Ambassador from Mali, ma'am."
"What country is that?"
"Well, it's...Mali, ma'am."
"Well, where the hell is that?"
Whereupon the cop remembered urgent business elsewhere. I leaned over and said "It's on the Canadian border between Vermont and Manitoba. We depend on them for ball bearings."
She went away obviously satisfied.
rj
If they police told him they knew he was innocent, and arrested him anyway, they admitted that it was a false arrest... which is actionable... and maybe even a violation of his constitutional rights.
There, we generally treated overages and underages the same -- if you're over $5, you got punished just like you would if you were under $5. (Though for an isolated incident, $5 was no big deal.)
Amounts under $1 were considered OK and not worth any sort of write-up or anything. But even $100 wouldn't mean a lot of extra manager work -- just that we'd double check our counting of the till and that would be that. (The checker, on the other hand, would get in trouble for that much. Not fired, but trouble. They'd have to count their own till (the thing that holds the money) for a while and if their money control didn't improve, they'd get fired eventually.
I tend to believe that we were more picky about who we hired than the local McDonalds -- certainly, we'd interview people and not hire them, and they'd appear at McDonalds. And we generally hired kids as baggers rather than cashiers, so we got a chance to know them before promoting them. So I'm guessing that McDonalds probably did NOT freak out about a till being $0.10 off, even if it happened every day -- otherwise, they'd be freaking out all the time.
Last I heard, 8% of the US population had worked at McDonalds at some point in their life :)
As for $2 bills, they showed up in the cash office on a regular basis, and I'd snag them (replacing them with 2 $1 bills, of course!) I used them for tips and the like, since they were a bit unusual. Hopefully no waitress thought I was giving her fake money :)
Back when paper money was first used in Britain, passing conterfeit money was a felony.
The punishment for a felony---any felony, was death.
Some people were not happy with taking paper money, rather than good, solid gold sovereigns. So, refusal to take the new paper money was made an offence---was made a felony!
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
there is a scam that starts with the phrase, "You've made a small mistake, you gave me too much money" .
I was a waiter once. The scam starts out as stated, then the scam escalates by the scammer giving back some money and then saying "I've made a small mistake," . After a few of these 'mistakes' a cashier may be caught off guard, especially if the scammer is very friendly. The victim loses count and then the victim has lost some money.
I can see why someone may have said what they said, especially if you asserted yourself as being friendly.
It could be called a dollar coin. That would be neat.
ObBushBash: Or they could put Dubya on it and call it a "loonie".
I worked for a couple of years as a bank teller.
The question is not, as you claim, whether it's reasonable to hold someone given reasonable suspicion. The question is how much doubt must be present -- this man attempted to use legal tender to satisfy a debt, and given my cash-handling experience I don't see any reason to have doubted him.
Exactly. You were a bank teller. Your job was to handle money, handle money and, uh, handle money.
If your training and experience did not involve significantly more understanding of money than a police officer is required to have, in order to have reasonable doubt, then you really shouldn't have worked as a bank teller.
I'm a programmer. There will be cases that are completely obvious to me that are not hacking. That in no way invalidates an officer saying, "OK, there's enough here for me to be suspicious enough to hold someone until I can get an expert to tell me one way or the other."
The officer didn't know. Nor, frankly, was it his job to know. If we required every police officer to have the training and experience of a bank teller in order for them to be able to deal with counterfeiting, what other training should we also require? We should definitely have them gain qualification as mechanics in order to be able to tell the difference between a scuffed VIN number and one that was actually tampered with. As with the hacking issue, a four year bachelor's in Computer Science should probably be sufficient. And, given things like identical twins and other false positives in those areas that an expert could also dismiss, a medical degree is an absolute must too. So, these fifty year old guys with their six or eight degrees... How much do tax payers pay them again?
You were a bank teller. It was your job to know these details about cash. He was a police officer. It was his job to know enough to have a pretty good idea when and when not to be suspicious enough to hold someone until he can get an expert to give him more information.
Ask the officer to quote miranda rights or penal codes, he'll likely be an expert. Ask him to quote, with the same degree of knowledge as a bank teller, the signs for counterfeit money and of course he'll fall down. His job is to have a fair idea of when to be suspicious and then to get an expert. If we wanted every cop in America to have the amount of education necessary to know as much as professionals in every field tey investigate, we'd be paying 100% tax and then some in order to keep these fine professionals.
Given your experience, it was unreasonable. Given his experience, it was something he considered reasonable.
Just try to tuck a Euro into a dancer's garter belt.
Low denomination bills have their uses. ;^)
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Fortunately for my friend, a vacationing Washington State Trooper was in the bar and convinced the bartender to pay for the replacement card -and- cover my friend's party's tab for the evening.
Wow, and whoever said there's never a cop around when you need one?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I was locked up over something like this. The cashier thought I stole my mothers credit card. Which was a legitimate thought since it was reported stolen by my mother.
Well now that would make it stolen, wouldn't it?
And the other half of us thought, "That's it, I'm never going to Best Buy again!"
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Homer and Comic Book Guy walk into Moe's
Homer: "When you've got a bum ticker like we do, you need all the friends you can get. And Moe's is the friendliest place in the Rum District."
Homer opens the door. Moe is pointing a shotgun across the bar at the guy with the hunting cap.
Moe: "Get out and take your Sacajawea dollars witch ya. I'll give you till three" (he cocks the shotgun as the guy starts to run). "One." (he pulls the trigger).
Sorry, but I was also a waiter once, and a bartender more than once, and a cashier way more than once, and I have no sympathy. .. probably far more than they saved by shutting off conversations with conmen who then went on to find other avenues for exploitation.
The fact that a scam can start with those words is a reason to be wary. It is not a reason to shut a person down before they have a chance to explain what the mistake was.
Many a scam starts out with "Hello" too. Assuming that every conversation which starts with "Hello" is a scam is not only stupid, it's bad business.
Assuming that your customers are con artists causes you to end conversations which would otherwise have benefitted you - as was the case with my conversation with the Woolworth's cashier.
I didn't make the assumption that the cashier I encountered was a typical employee, but if she treated others the way she treated me I'd imagine that Woolworth's lost a hell of a lot of business.
You might as well ask why people still use money instead of debit cards pulling directly from their banks.
Debit card withdrawals are traceable for one, that can be evil. They require some sort of communications device which is not always practical on a vending machine for two. The third is do you really want to trust every little mom and pop shop with your bank account info and PIN code? Sure you enter it into a keypad, but it's not a hard job to figure out what buttons were pushed...
Credit cards are better if you have the discipline to pay them off monthy. Cash is still king though, I don't want anyone knowing what, when or where I buy stuff. It can only hurt or at best irritate me.
Eep! A slashdotter from my town! Get the pitchforks!
But seriously, why are you going to GRCC instead of GVSU? The only valid excuse would be culinary arts...
(yes I can take the karma hit)
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
Reminds me of a great riddle I heard once...
:-)
Which TWO of these coins has NEVER been minted in the U.S.?
Penny
Two cent
Three cent
Nickle
Dime
Quarter
Half dollar
Dollar
Most people will immediately say two cent and three cent, which you, Kula, would probably recognize as false.
The correct answers are Penny and Nickle. No coins by those names have ever been minted in the United States. They are one-cent and five-cent pieces.
Another related joke:
I hold in my hands TWO currently minted U.S. coins whose total value equals 55 cents. One of them is NOT a nickle (or 5 cent piece, for that matter). What are the two coins?
People usually get stumped here, because the only combination is a 50 cent and a 5 cent. Which is the correct answer.
One of them is not a nickle. That one is a half dollar. The OTHER one is a nickle. (Hey, I never said NEITHER was a nickle, just one of them...)
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Coins are not cast. I'm not certain if they're forged or stamped (that'd be hot or cold metal under a die applied at high pressure, respectively), but they're not cast (as in melted metal poured into a mold).
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Won't work $50.00 is the legal maxium that they have to accept in pennies...of course 5000 pennies can ruin their day too
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
I just checked the map to see if those two provinces were actually side-by-side.
Jesus, I should be posting as AC.
Please don't mod me up!
And no smartass comments about how my sig is ironic.
Synergy is your friend
The bartender says: "Sorry, one dollar minimum charge."
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Theft of service is a crime in most states. If you use a service and don't pay for it you can be arrested by the police and charged with a crime. In Arizona it's a felony, even if the amount is only one cent.
In this case he used the installation service and was being asked to pay for it.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Well, all they need to do is the same thing as the Canadian mint did...
Stop printing $1 bills. Eventually people will have to make the switch because there won't be any bills left after a few years.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
But you (ie: USA) have a slight issue:
You'd have to rejig your sales tax system to scrap penny coins.
If something is advertised at $4.00, you end up paying $4.00 + tax, and it's to allow for this tax which is often in the individual cent range, you have to keep the penny coin.
In New Zealand, by contrast, virtually all retailers quote tax-inclusive prices, and they're often rounded to 5 cents (our smallest coin is the 5 cent piece).
Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
But ideally, the law would put the manager and cashier in stocks with a sign saying "Morons Of The Week" over them, and people (starting with Mr. Michael Bolesta and family) would be able to throw overripe tomatoes at them for an hour, and the results would be printed up in color in the local Sunday paper.
Do you think that would be sufficiently humiliating to rein in rampant stupidity? I do.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
You might want to use more then one sock. It doesn't takem much weight to tear out a sock when swinging and then the mugger has all your money and you are now defensless with a piss off criminal.
I remeber stuffing rocks inot socks and taking beating things with it when i was younger (that and a mini baseball bat). After one or two swings with about a half pound of rocks, the end was gone and the rocks came out. Place 2 socks together and you could pound all day.
I believe this type of scammer is called a "quick change artist." My mum has a great story about how she got taken for a couple of quid while working retail in London, only to take 10 pounds off the next guy that tried it by talking faster than him.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
They are still available because they never make it to the Federal Reserve banks. The FR banks scan incoming currency for wear or age and remove offending bills from circulation, replacing the bills with newly printed bills to equal the quantity of removed currency.
Banks, knowing the novelty value, ensure that the $2 bills are not sent to the FR and instead horde the bills for distribution to customers
This is also true of the $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills. The $100,000 bill was never circulated to the public. If you had a $5,000 bill, you could still spend it today as legal tender.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
She's a cashier; it's her job to know what currency is and is not valid.
What's ironic is that the money crime committed here was by the Best Buy employee. Title 18 Section 333 of the United States code makes it a crime to deface currency in any way so as to make the currency unfit to be re-issued. If this employee did in fact mark "counterfeit" on the bills, then those bills are ostensibly no longer able to be issued as currency.
That employee could be looking at up to 6 months in prison!
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
print "Yet another p{erl,ython} hacker\n",
Only our chicks are much hotter.
I live in Romania, and until July we'll still be using the old Romanian leu - that is, ~30,000 lei to the dollar, ~40,000 to the euro, etc. All of this inflation has made coins utterly useless (the only to moderately circulated denominations are 500 and 5000, both fairly useless in a country whose prices are slowly catching up to the EU's prices), and I must say that I prefer is to the American and European systems of coins galore. So much easier to handle. You can carry as much money on you as you want (although, actually, the bills are larger and more thick, for sure, as well as being hideously covered with some plastic-esque substance) and it's never too much for your waller (not to mention that no wallets in the US have coin holders, making it a pain in the ass to keep track of coins).
In Britain we don't have the felony/misdemeanour distinction that you have in the USA. And you'd have to go back before the founding of the USA to find an era when execution was anything like that universal a punishment. Sounds apocryphal to me...
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
In Japan, the cashieer has a magnet and a metal plate on the side of the register. Your money goes on the metal plate then is held by a magnet untill the transaction is complete.
US stores could prevent a lot of stupid problems by doing this.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
The whole "protecting the president" assignment came decades later, and while it's the task they're currently best known for, a large part of their work still goes towards the original goal. The Secret Service has field offices in all major US cities and many locales overseas, and when you consider that the president can only be in one place at a time (and is not constantly being threatened in all the other places where USSS has a presence), it becomes evident that most of the manpower is spent doing other things.
Among those other things, they assist with certain fraud investigations, especially mail fraud. When I worked in a retail postal facility, we'd get calls from USSS almost as often as USPIS. More recently, they've been called upon by various agencies to help investigate computer-related crimes, financial ones in particular. For example, they have an office specifically dedicated to investigating "419" scams (those emails you get from Prince Mambuto's widow in Nigeria who wants to transfer ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS to your bank account) - next time you get one, forward it to 419.fcd(at)usss.treas.gov with a quick note that you didn't lose any money.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
I worked in a small-town movie rental store where we had the owner, one manager, and the slave labor. The slave labor that counted out money was based solely on seniority.
The policy was $5 over or under and we had to call the manager at home (at 11pm) to come re-count. Neither employee could leave until this was done, and the manager was not known for being speedy.
Most of the time, for significant overages or underages, the counter would just pocket the money or pay out of pocket to avoid calling the manager. There were lots and lots of $4.90-$4.99 miscounts, which led to the manager making a sting. He intentionally put far too much money in the till at the beginning of the day just to catch the counter in the act. From then on, there were spot-stings, so even if we counted out at $5.01 over or under, we called him.
Answers
In a nutshell:
The $2 is rare, so many people save them. This increases the rarity. The initial reason they are rare appears to have to do with the bills being unpopular, although there is no known reason for why this is.
My guess is that it's an odd denomination. The $1 makes sense because it's atomic (at least, as far as dollars go--of course you can divide them into cents). $5 is good because it accounts for several $1 bills, in essense saving space in your wallet. The rest of the bills follow this pattern, each one saving more space when compared to ones (though obviously less space when compared to the next lowest denomination). But what does a $2 bill save you? It's half the space in your wallet, true, but it just doesn't compare to the $5, $10, $20.. jumping up in the denominations just seems to make more sense (though the $20->$50 jump is certainly strange).
Interestingly, for a long time, race tracks had minimum bets of $2. This made $2 bills popular in those areas because they made for easy bets. This might also account for the $1 bill's popularity in modern times, where, despite 10-10-220's assertions to the contrary, you can get something for "a buck". Many US fast food restaurants have "dollar" menus (although they tend to be more like $1.08 menus--and $1.08 would be awful for a bill denomination).
In reality, what does it matter? I like $2s because of their rarity and scarcity, and because I tend to get odd looks when I spend them. I've never been turned down, but I have seen people ask for confirmation by other employees/managers.
The UK did have the felony / misdemeanour disdinction until the Criminal Law Act 1967 which changed alot of things...
"I really dig that blonde chick at the store"
God forbid you ask her out...
Um, no. "Dollar" comes from "thaler", short for "joachimsthaler", a valley in medieval Germany where cold was mined and high-quality coins were minted.
When the US finally finishes the English to Metric conversion that they started in December of 1975 we'll be using hectocents. I already use kilobucks where appropriate
I find it apprpriate to quote the Woz, from http://www.woz.org/letters/general/78.html
About 3 years ago I took my daughter, Sara, to Las Vegas for a gymnastics regional that she was in. During the lengthy warmups my wife and I walked down to the Hard Rock Casino and played slot machines. While generously feeding these machines I tipped the waitress a couple of $2 bills. Waitresses in casinos and other places often exclaim at how much they like getting these and how their kids love them. I have tons of $2 bill stories that will make a whole chapter in my book someday. My $2 bills are real and legit but unusual.
A short while later a casino security manager sat down next to me. He was very quiet and showed no emotion about anything. He was 30-ish and acted like a dedicated security man who knew everything about every type of cash situation ever. This man asked me where I'd gotten the bills and I started a little BS about buying them from a guy that hawked basketball tickets. I sometimes say this to peak the interest in people that wonder if these bills are real or not. I said that I thought the bills were good and acted like I didn't know what was going on, just enough to seem evasive. This man told me that they had tested the bills with their testing pen and that the bills were good.
Then he calmly said that they don't make them like this. I sat for a long time silent and he repeated his statement. I said "you mean, on sheets?" These two $2 bills were attached to each other and perforated. You can purchase $1, $2, and now $5 bills from the Bureau of Printing and Engraving on sheets. The sheets come in sizes of 4, 16, and 32 bills each. I buy such sheets of $2 bills. I carry large sheets, folded in my pocket, and sometimes pull out scissors and cut a few off to pay for something in a store. It's just for comedy, as the $2 bills cost nearly $3 each when purchased on sheets. They cost even more at coin stores.
I take the sheets of 4 bills and have a printer, located through friends, gum them into pads, like stationery pads. The printer then perforates them between the bills, so that I can tear a bill or two away. The bills that I'd tipped the waitress came from such a pad.
Well, the casino security guy kept rubbing the perforation between the two bills but he still showed no emotion at all. He was strictly professional. When he said that they don't make bills like this I asked "They don't?" as though I thought it was quite normal to have sheets. My answer was also so emotionless as to confuse him about me, and to make me seem even more evasive. This, again, I do for a comedic effect. The gentleman then said "they don't make them with perforations." I again asked "they don't"", acting a little like maybe I got ripped off by the person that sold them to me. The security guy kept rubbing the perforation slowly.
Every currency bill has to have a different serial number. We all know that. But for the bills on a sheet, the serial number ends with the last digits the same, and the starting digits the same. It's harder to detect that an inner digit is changing when you look at the serial numbers on a sheet of bills.
So I next said to the casino security guy "you'd think that the serial numbers would be sequential." I normally say "the serial numbers are all the same" but I knew that he'd catch this falsehood more quickly than most people that I use it on. I also sensed a serious tone, based on his attitude, and didn't want to lie outright. Well, this emotionless guy looked slowly down at the two bills and his jaw jerked open. Even his head stayed still and no other signs of emotion showed, but his jaw jerked. I'm sure that he thought for an instant that he had captured Al Capone, counterfeiting $2 bills.
He remained motionless and expressionless for a few seconds and obviously must have discovered that the serial numbers changed in the middle. He calmly raised his head and acted as though nothing had happened, a
After having used Dutch "guilders" for a life-time and euro's for some time now, you can pretty well conclude that pounds (and the former Irish pounds) are _way_ too big. I think that the average Dubliner has lost about 1kg per person after they went with the euro's. Probably more due to inflation.
There is a reason for that: forgery. The ECB went for the security-through-obscurity route when forgery-proofing their bills. There are over 20 characteristics that distinguish a real Euro note from a fake one, unfortunately the banks only saw fit to disclose half of them, leading to the situtation that currently only banks can distinguish fake from real.
Of course, shopkeepers can't do so, but since the bank won't accept forged notes that businesses accepted in good faith, they end up being liable for the damage. Therefore shops decided en masse to no longer accept large denominations. The way things are going, the EUR 50 note will have to be redesigned, or it will end up being on the black list too.
Of course, the ECB could just publish all anti-forgery characteristics. But then, the argument goes, the forgers have it easier. Funny that the Dutch didn't seem to have that problem. As far as I know the central bank always published all details, confident that the measures were good enough to stop forgeries, and making it easy on businesses to detect the occasional ones. This suggests strongly that the anti-forgery measures on the Euro bills are just plain not good enough.
Mart"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
your country thinks our money is silly, and we think the same of yours when someone comes back from a vacation with money that looks like it came out of our childrens board games. We associate bright colors with fake money because for years and years thats been the case here. People didnt like the mild use of color on the new $20 that came out last year, it doesnt look like american money, its not all green...and after years upon years of having just green money, you get used to it.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
Here's the homepage for the moronic Baltimore County Government. Take the time to give them a call next week and express how proud they make you to be a "nervous" American! Baltimore County
But Officer, I DID read the f**king article!
> I had to work a lot of retail jobs through all my degrees, and they are not
> a party to start with, without having to contend with behavior like that...
Recounting a drawer is not the kind of chore that makes a fast food job hard.
Granted, it's mean to cause somebody extra work on purpose, but tossing an extra dime in the drawer is minor compared with the people who deliberately smear stuff all over the mirrors and other fixtures in the bathroom (a semi-regular occurance when I worked at T. Bell), or the people who come in five minutes before close, sit near the door for forty minutes, and keep opening it for anyone who wants in until you want to throttle them, or the employees who hide from work by going in the back and finding things (e.g., trays hamburger buns) to poke holes in with a pencil (one hole per bun, right through the plastic bag and into the middle of the bun -- the manager was less than amused when we discovered that one in the morning).
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
There are a bunch of "Best Buy" stores here in MD. It might be fun to organize a protest where everyone goes in a pays with $2 bills for everything for a whole day. :)
Later, GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
> wouldn't it make more sense to replace low-denomination bills with coins?
There are good solid reasons why the $1 note is paper rather than coin. We actually have $1 coins, but they're only slightly more common in circulation than $2 bills. This is not because they don't mint enough of them -- they *do* mint them. But they don't circulate, because people treat them like collector's items. They sit in drawers. The average household probably has almost as many $1 coins as bills at any given time, but the bills are sitting in wallets and will be spent in a day or two; whereas, the $1 coins are stacked in cedar drawers next to the good silver, laying in the bottom of jewelry cabinets, and so forth. A lot of people try to collect a "silver dollar", as they are called, for every year since their birth (i.e., one minted in each of those years). I guess almost 10% of the population does that around here. (Other folks collect a penny for each year, but you can do that your whole life and it adds up to about a buck, so it doesn't take that much currency out of circulation -- and, there's no paper $0.01 note.)
So, *why* do the $1 coins not circulate? Because, we have $1 bills, that's why. The paper notes are significantly preferable to Americans, because they weigh less and take up less space. Most men will tolerate carrying around about eight coins in a pocket before telling someone to keep the change. Women will tolerate significantly more coinage, because they have coin purses, but they don't like dealing with them either -- they don't, as a rule, get the coins out to pay for things -- they grab the bills, which are easier to deal with, and the coins accumulate until they fill up the coin purse, at which point they get emptied into a jar or dish at home. (A lot of men empty their coins into a dish at the end of each day, too.)
When the jar or dish fills up, it goes to the bank to be counted by machine and turned into bills. There are people who pay with coins, but they are in the minority. Just about every retail establishment in the US gives out a *lot* more coins than they take in. When I worked at T. Bell, I typically broke open one extra roll of quarters per shift, plus usually an extra roll of dimes or nickels, and often an extra roll of pennies. (An "extra" roll, in this context, is one besides the full roll your drawer stared with.) This was in the evening, which is the slowest time for fast food, and Taco Bell operates with a lower overhead and significantly lower gross take than, say, McDonald's (although, their evenings aren't as much slower than their daytimes as is true at a burger joint).
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Best Buy created the situation by being hostile with their own customer. Then they made it worse by continuing to be hostile with their customer.
{ - Generic Guy - }
TFA included details that he was cuffed to a stationary object while onlookers and other customers passed by. Best Buy doesn't have an office? 6 figures at the very least, imo.
If I really am talking out of my ass...explain it to me with respect so I'll at least pull my ears out to listen.
Would you mind changing your quote to instead point at the actual views of the administration of our country and not a generally vague and inaccurate statement about the sentiment of all the population? For example,
Current USA Government: the enemy of the free world.
That would be a much more accurate statement and wouldn't malign the large percentage of the US population who's views do not reflect that of our "leaders." There is a significant distinction. Thanks
Probably not. Check his account number. It is ten times less than yours!
"When God kisses Satan and the Incarnations applaud." "Death is dead. Long live Death!"
I don't have the time to say anything too rant-ish or wordy (An uncommon occurance for me) so I'll just say this: Japanese currency is cool. And I read a similar story about $2 bills here: http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/2-at -Taco-Bell.html
True or not, it's still funny.
As an aside, I spent some $2 bills when I was a kid, and no one thought anything of it. (I'm 24 now.) They really need to teach this generation of cashiers...SOMETHING. The people training them can't just ASSUME they know wtf a $2 bill is, or what any of those silver dollars and half dollars out there are. Anyway, busy busy. I'm off.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
Taxes are obvious.
I honestly have no idea what 'dues' are. Anyone?
Public charges are talked about here and seem to be things like the post office. Or toll roads, if the Feds operate any of those.
So a charge is exactly what you pay at a store: Something in exchange for goods or services that you will trade at the same time, instead of covering an existing debt.
Sadly, only public charges are required to accept payment in legal tender...the post office cannot demand you pay in goats, but everyone else can.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Wow. Several hundred comments on this and not ONE about how to take action and let your voice be heard at that specific best buy or police department. Unlike any other flame, I'll answer my own complaint. Here's hoping we can let our voice be heard. Keep in mind that all the news articles out there claim different things. They all say the Best Buy is in Lutherville, but a google map of lutherville is TOWSON or TIMONIUM. Makes no sense. Anyhow, I gathered up a bunch of PUBLICLY AVAILABLE data and here's the info.
BEST BUY (from best buy's site)
Towson MD (Store 149)
1717 York Road
Timonium, MD 21093
Phone: 410-561-2260
Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00am-9:00pm
Sun 11:00am-7:00pm
BEST BUY (from Google Maps)
(410) 561-2261
1717 York Rd
Towson, MD 21204
WHITEPAGES.com (possible match for Mike, based on closest distance from Best Buy according to MapQuest directions.)
Michael Bolesta
2 Airway Cir
Towson, MD 21286-3460
410-821-8623
WHITEPAGES.com (alternate match 20 miles from same best buy)
Michael C Bolesta
3406 Fait Ave
Baltimore, MD 21224-4309
(410) 327-1164
BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT
http://www.ci.baltimore.md.us/government/police/
CAPITAL CITY STUDENT TOURS (with Mike's pic)
http://www.capitalcitytours.com/
capitalcitytourguide@comcast.net
I wonder if this man is going to have the bright idea to sue Best Buy. Perhaps they'll learn their lesson about the way they treat their customers.
The $2 bill has been in circulation for longer than I've been alive. I remember getting one as a present on the Chinese New Year when I was a kid. Took it to the nearest store, bought candy, and that was that.
For a cashier (who's job is to handle cash and recognize potential fakes) to look at a $2 bill and mark it as counterfeit, I have to wonder if she even bothered to check to see if the ink had turned color. Had it not, hey, it's a relatively safe assumption that the bill is not counterfeit. Instead she holds the guy there, gets him arrested, all for using legal tender in a form of protest. In some ways, this sounds like a freedom of speech violation, plus wrongful arrest. I, for one, hope Best Buy gets nailed to the blasphemous cross that most Big Business needs to be nailed to in the justice system.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Here in Canada I've seen a stripper sit on the stage with a drink coaster protectings her privates as everyone threw loonies and twonies.
Necessity is the mother of invention!
It's been a long time since I was a manager at McDonald's so things might have changed since then, but I can tell you that when I was there, no such policy existed, in either franchised or corporate stores.
At the time I worked there, the policy was pretty simple:
- if someone complained about being shortchanged while they were at the register (or soon thereafter), the register was immediately closed, the drawer pulled, and a count done. If the customer was right, you gave them their money right then with an apology. No forms, nothing of the sort. If the customer was wrong, you went in the back, closed out the drawer in the computer, got a new one from the safe, and put the employee back on a register with the new drawer.
- if no customer complained during a cashier's shift, the drawer was pulled at the end of the shift and counted. Any variance, positive or negative, was logged into the computer. $2 variance was a write-up. More than $2 and you were fired, or at least told not to come back until the GM talked to you. Anything under a $2 variance was tracked monthly, keeping a running total. If it ever got to $2, you wrote them up.
As long as the cashier ran the month less than $2 off total either way, nothing happened. I used to have 16 year olds who kept their number in their head...if they got close to $2, their drawer would miraculously come up with a variance the other way to balance it out.
The only forms were computer screens filled out after each drawer was counted. The system already knew what the drawer should have in it based on the sales on that register. The closing manager would balance everything, and make sure the overnight money was correct (it was called "counting the safe"). Each drawer had $50 in it, there were usually 10-15 drawers, plus $200-$300 in change, plus the day's sales receipts which were kept in the safe until the next business day, when they'd be deposited.
Incidentally, a good manager could count a drawer in less than 5 minutes, never more than 10. Cash policy dictated that periodically during a rush you would skim the 20 dollar bills from all registers, and put them in the safe, so if you were on the ball, a cashier's drawer rarely had more than $200 or so in it at the end of a shift. Counting it took no time at all.
Also, it was policy during a rush, especially in drive-thru, to simply take all change and dump it in the drawer without counting it. It was quicker to ask "is it all there?" or "is it exact?" and take them at their word then to sit there and count it. We never had a problem...the drawer might be off $0.25 or so either way after a rush, but that was nothing if you were doing several thousands of dollars per hour in sales.
On spending all those $2 bills at Best Buy - Well, I spend $2 bills all the time for the fun of it. The cashiers at Wendy's seem to get the most confused. One time the cashier looked at my $2 and then went to ask the manager if they took these coupons. Of course living in the Detroit area with Canada right across the river, I once got a comment from a lady in a dollar store who said "Oh, we do not take Canadian money" Yes, I am sure, just look what it says on the bill - United States of America. I even had one lady start to give me change as if it was a $20 bill. Anyway, all the bills I get are brand new and very crispy, so most times I just say something like "I just printed it up for you this morning"
I hear you- tossing dimes into the till isn't messy or brutal, but a real PITA when someone needs to catch that last bus to get home, or has someone watching their children waiting for them, so they can go to work, etc.
Watching how people treat retail staff and places, it makes me wonder about making people work well-monitored menial-pay gigs in their youth (not unlike mandatory national service) so they would (hopefully) learn about empathy, respect, having to live on low wages-something along those lines. So often, people act like those working manual or retail work are less than human somehow, and fair game for rudeness and contempt.
It may sound naive, but I was raised to believe that a person should not be judged because of the work they do, if it is honest work done well. If a person abuses others by their power and position (Enron management, anyone?)- they deserve contempt- not the guy who collects the trash. At the hospital where I currently work, the director of my service is highly-credentialed - also dissembling, judgmental, biased, and driven primarily by his image. OTOH,a custodian I know on the evening shift is one of the the most pleasant and hard-working people I've known. I know the access he has- he could do amazing damage or theft is he chose to do so. And I'd rather spend an hour with him than five minutes with the director, any day.
Folks, this is an Urban Legend! I am really surprised y'all were taken in by a submission pointing to a website that marked it as a USER SUBMITTED article with no newspaper reference! from http://www.snopes.com/business/money/tacobell.asp Mike Bolesta, a 57-year-old Baltimore County resident, stated that in February 2005 he purchased a radio/CD unit for his son's automobile at Best Buy (a chain of retail electronics stores). Bolestra said in order to rectify a mix-up they'd made in selling him the wrong unit, the store initially waived the installation charges for the stereo, then called him back the next day and threatened to report him to the police if he don't come in and pay the $114 installation fee. Irked that Best Buy had gone from "them admitting a mistake to suddenly calling the police," Bolestra decided to stage a mini-protest by paying the charge with fifty-seven $2 bills. He described to the Baltimore Sun what happened next: "I'm just here to pay the bill," Bolesta says he told a cashier. "She looked at the $2 bills and told me, 'I don't have to take these if I don't want to.' I said, 'If you don't, I'm leaving. I've tried to pay my bill twice. You don't want these bills, you can sue me.' So she took the money. Like she's doing me a favor." Nonetheless, police were summoned when a Best Buy employee noticed that the ink on some of the $2 bills was smeared, and after one officer noted that the serial numbers on the bills ran in sequential order, Bolesta was handcuffed and taken to the county police lockup. Police reportedly kept him handcuffed to a pole for three hours while they notified the Secret Service, but when an investigator from that agency (which is tasked with handling counterfeiting cases) determined that the currency was legitimate, Bolesta was finally released.
--- Donal, SysAdmin of The Brewers' Witch BBS