Slashdot Mirror
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."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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?
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...
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
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
Well not exactly. I believe it is the coinage act of 1967 (76?) that says vendors do _not_ have to take any form of legal tender if they disclose what they _will_ accept up front. If you attempt to pay with legal tender and are declined without them telling you they don't accept that form of payment up front they you are no longer responsible for providing payment. Interpretations of the law vary though.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Yeah, you are only required to accept legal tender to pay off a preexisting debt. But this was a preexisting debt.
He had bought the radio the day before, and the employee then told him that the installation fee was waived because of a mixup, so he went home thinking the transaction was complete. The next day Best Buy called him and told him that if he didn't come in and pay the installation fee they would call the police. So he came in and tried to pay off the pre-existing debt with legal tender. The cashier then called the police because she thought it was fake.
So employees of this store broke the law at least once during the transaction. The manager should definitely be sued, and the staff sacked.
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.
Let's clear this up:
FAQs: Currency
Legal Tender Status
Question I thought that United States currency was legal tender for all debts. Some businesses or governmental agencies say that they will only accept checks, money orders or credit cards as payment, and others will only accept currency notes in denominations of $20 or smaller. Isn't this illegal?
Answer The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 102. This is now found in section 392 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The law says that: "All coins and currencies of the United States, regardless of when coined or issued, shall be legal-tender for all debts, public and private, public charges, taxes, duties and dues."
This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.
From the faq.
Kill, Tux, kill!
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.
"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.
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!
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.
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.
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
Best Buy would have no reason whatsoever to call the police in a case like that. If they give you something free, you leave the store, and they later want you to pay, too bad for them. Merchants threatening to call the police in order to collect a debt is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Act, which may apply here. There's something else this guy could sue for. When will people realize, Best Buy will keep doing shit like this because people let them. They will continue to stuff money in Best Buy cash registers no matter how poorly they are treated. Yes, it is possible to avoid them, I haven't shopped there in 3 years and I've bought plenty of electronics in that time.
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.
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
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.
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?
The cops didn't have an issue with the two dollar bill, they had an issue with the fact that a disgruntled customer tried to pay a debt with 57 sequentialy numbered two dollars bills and one of the had an ink smudge. Take those bold pieces and put them together and you start to see why the cops reacted the way they did. Should they have brought up 9/11? No. Should they have taken him back to the station to investigate? Yes. Should they have put him in hand cuffs? Depends, how much of an ass he was being. We know he went in with the intent of being an ass (that was why he was paying with two dollar bills). How loud and obnoxious was he being? That isn't stated in the article.
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
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.
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?
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
Am I the only one who expected to see that followed by "walk into a bar"?
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.
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."
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
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
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."
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
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
Let me add a couple of examples to further the point that you made.
Scenario 1: You go to the corner store, grab a 6-pack of Heineken, and walk to the checkout counter. The cashier tells you that your total is $7.48. You put four $2 bills on the counter. The cashier says, "We don't take those." The cashier is not violating the law; you have no debt to the store, the beer is still technically theirs. The store is not required to accept any particular form of payment from you.
Scenario 2: You go to the bar, grab a stool, and order a Heineken. The bartender brings it to you, and you drink it. You go to leave, and the bartender tells you that your total is $2.25. You put two $2 bills on the bar (and being a good patron, you tell the bartender to keep the change, of course!). The bartender says, "We don't take those." The bartender is violating the law. When you drank the beer, you incurred a debt to the bar; the bar is now obligated to accept any legal tender as payment.
Re: "the law," it's 31 USC 5103.
"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.