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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?
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."
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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.
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
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
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.
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.
Not entirely true. You must accept it for DEBTS. You do not have to accept it for products and services yet to be rendered. In this case, they are not obligated to accept it.
This was a case where the customer had something installed, and after the fact Best Buy decided to charge him for installation. It was a debt.
It was not as simple as not recognising $2 bills.
The cashier noticed smearing of the ink - which apparently was actually there. The $2 bills may have been the first thing that got her notice but the smeared ink on them is what she claims made her suspicious enough to call her manager.
When the officer came, he noticed that the bills all had sequential serial numbers - apparently a common sign in counterfeit currency.
At that point, given the smeared ink and the sequential serial numbers, the officer felt he had grounds to detain the man until the secret service could be called.
Now it turns out that, according to the secret service officer, the ink on legitimate bills does smear from time to time. I'd not heard of that, I'm guessing most people hadn't.
The fact that he gets them as a custom withdrawl from his bank - which probably has absolutely no other use for $2 bills - explains the sequential serial numbers. They likely get them relatively directly from the treasury in large batches and only issue from those large batches to him.
None of this proves he was a criminal - it was all completely explainable.
But it wasn't a simple case of not recognising $2 bills. The smeared ink and sequential serial numbers were enough for the officer to detain him until an explanation could be verified.
It may suck but the officer had reasonable grounds to detain him until he could confirm the story. I would imagine, in the majority of cases where suspect money comes up, the person caught tries feeding a story. At the end of the day, the question is whether you believe it's right to occasionally wrongfully detain one person or regularly let go many. Rightly or wrongly, the concept of reasonable grounds enshrines the former.
Let's clear this up:
FAQs: Currency
Legal Tender Status
Question I thought that United States currency was legal tender for all debts. Some businesses or governmental agencies say that they will only accept checks, money orders or credit cards as payment, and others will only accept currency notes in denominations of $20 or smaller. Isn't this illegal?
Answer The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 102. This is now found in section 392 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The law says that: "All coins and currencies of the United States, regardless of when coined or issued, shall be legal-tender for all debts, public and private, public charges, taxes, duties and dues."
This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.
From the faq.
Kill, Tux, kill!
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.
The reason corporate payouts are so large is because corporations do not feel the weight of small disbursements. I swear corporations have more rights than actual citizens these days.
A parking ticket can run $200. That's an entire week's take home pay for some people. You can bet they won't be parking there again. What's an entire week's take home profit for Best Buy? Don't you think that this guy was effectively slandered by the best buy representative, and that slander is worse than a parking tickit?
Think about it.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
That's once
At most
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.
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 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.
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"?
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.
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
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."
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.
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.
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