$2 obverse with Monticello before changing in 1976
Posted on 07/30/2017 7:07:14 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Some people don’t know that two dollar bills are real, so when Mike Bolesta used over 50 of them to make a purchase at a Best Buy store, an encounter with the police and Secret Service ensued.
" The Baltimore Sun reports on the case of Mike Bolesta, who was recently arrested for the crime of paying a bill with $2 bills. This seems to be an example of an urban legend come to life--the urban legend being the one about a clerk in a store who doesn't realize that $2 bills are legal money and reports a customer who uses them to the police. In the case of Mike Bolesta, he did use A LOT of $2 bills, 57 of them in all, to pay a bill at Best Buy. But still, there doesn't appear to have been any good reason for the store to have him hauled away to the police station for this. (via Slashdot) Business/FinanceRead it again, PAR35, they did not report it as a hoax, but as something that actually DID happen to Mike Bolesta. That IS Mr. Bolesta in the video relating what happened to him, first person. Just because in the hoaxes.org writer's after-the-fact opinion Best Buy had no real cause to call the police and have Bolesta hauled to the hoosgow, does not mean it did not happen the way the Baltimore Sun reported and Bolesta say it happened. No, it's not a hoax.
Hoaxes.org is reporting on that rare internet bird, the non-hoax. . . an Internet story that is actually true and not an urban legend.
Counterfeiters seldom bother to sequence the serial numbers of the bills the print. They'll have random numbers on the sheets they print, then randomize the more when they age them. It's a pointless exercise because they'll pass them randomly as well. In addition, no sane counterfeiting crook is going to print $2 bills, a currency everyone stops and does a double take on, then examine closely. . . the return isn't worth the effort or the risk. It used to be the smallest bill counterfeited was the $10. With the the $20 being the most popular as easiest to pass. Now, most go right to the $100. . .
Maybe if we did searches on a computerized worldwide network, connected to millions of databases, capable of reading the data and indexing it. Say, we should patent that idea. . . Maybe we could monetize it by selling ads when people look? Or even if those people are selling something and want to connect with customers? We could force the customers to see the people who pay us to see their stuff first. . . Hey, I think you've got a great idea there. Why hasn't anyone thought of it before. . . Let me Google that to find out why not. . .
LOL
I give my grandchildren money for their birthdays in the amount of their new years... 1 10 yo gets $10 etc...
about 5 years ago I got a bundle of $2 bills so I could give them the right amount...they love the $2...the younger ones thought Nana printed the bills specially for them alone ...
would they arrest a child paying for her own treat in McDonald’s etc ???
I can top yours by a country mile.
About twenty years ago, I stopped into a Long's Drug Store on West Lane in Stockton CA, to drop off a prescription and wait for it to be filled. As I walked down the front aisle in front of the check stands I came upon two middle-aged Hmong ladies at the newly installed color copy machine. They were chattering away in Hmong and doing a lot of giggling as they were copying a large stack of paper, apparently doing the backside of a previous run of about a ream (500 sheets). They had a box on the floor with more paper.
As I walked by several sheets came out into the overfilled out tray and spilled onto the floor. Being a gentleman I stooped down and collected them and handed them to the blushing, giggling ladies, who were ever so effusive in their thanks for my assistance. As I handed them back, I glanced at the pages they were taking from me. There were three TWENTY DOLLAR BILLS on each sheet!
They were now in the process of copying the obverse side, which I saw on one of the pages!
I now knew what the two women were chattering and giggling in Hmong about: "Ain't America great? You can get ahead by printing your own money! Heeheehee!" And the other say, "yes, and they have money machines right in every store. Very convenient! And fun, too!"
There had been stories in the local TV and paper news about someone passing photocopied $20 bills up and down the valley. Especially in the Asian communities and fast food restaurants. I think to myself, aha! Here's the source of the funny money!
I knew the store manager, a friend for about ten years, so I went upstairs and knocked on his door jamb. "You won't believe what those two women are doing at your copy machine." He called the cops. They arrived in about five minutes. It was fun watching the Hmong women trying to explain what they were doing from my "eye in the sky" position in the manager's office.
The news that night credited "an alert customer" for spotting and reporting their activity to management who called authorities which resulted in breaking up a large counterfeiting ring.
ROFLMAO!!!!!!
We should put obama on a $3 bill. I’ve always suspected him being a bit queer.
You weren’t arrested and quiz by the secret service.
Would please give the citation date and page for that Nbaktimore Sun report. Or how about the date of the Slashdot report.....and tell us what the heck Slashdot is.
Just because you found a second hand something on the net doesn’t mean it happened.
Sorry for the snark. The report showed up on March 3 of 2005
But the article explains that it wasn’t food using two dollar bills. The cashier used a counterfeit pen on each bill and according to the article
“A Best Buy manager refused comment last week. But, according to a Baltimore County police arrest report, suspicions were roused when an employee noticed some smearing of ink. So the cops were called in. One officer noticed the bills ran in sequential order.”
Clerk and manager are both stupid as was police man. Smearing of ink isn’t the indicator from the pen. It turns dark black on regular paper....i.e. a counterfeit
My story:
About 35 years ago after purchasing my first modest house I went on a quick run to Kmart to purchase a few items. Broom, mop, skillet, soap etc.
Checking out I wrote a check. The cashier asked if the address on the check was correct. Me, the proud new homeowner said, “No, I just bought a place.” “What’s the address?” I told her. She wrote it on the check and then asked. “Ok I need some ID.”
I showed her my DL and of course the address did not match.
She called the manager over and they asked me if I had anything with the new address on it that also showed my name in conjunction with the address.
I said, “No, I just closed and moved in today.”
After several minutes of back and forth and the expected managerial gnashing of teeth, my check was finally accepted.
A couple weeks later I went back to shop and also wrote a check. This time when the clerk asked if my address was correct I simply said, “Yes” then showed my still not updated ID and everything went through like clockwork.
I notice more and more clerks are shocked when you use cash (and they must do elementary math); so much in my area now is EBT (on top of regular customers who just use another form of electronic payment)...
Some vendors in a large flea market in central NJ give out newer $2 bills for change; not sure why they do it, but it certainly is different!
The government could exchange it for silver; as the note indicates, you would get $1 worth of silver. It doesn’t entitle the bearer to an ounce or a gram or anything more specific...
Businesses don’t like $2 bills because too many times staff gives change of a $5 for them.
Agreed!
I had problems with the cashier, when I tried to pay my grocery bill with Susan B. Anthony’s. It was fun to watch.
“And Federal investigators who don’t know this s#!^???”
Wrong,
SS said they were real.
One and two dollar denomination currency should be coins, anyway. In Canada the one dollar coin has the Queen on the obverse, and a loon on the reverse, hence the name, "Loonie" for the Canadian dollar. A few years ago they introduced a two dollar coin, naturally dubbed the "twoonie".
Not too many people stand in line in the two-dollar window to make their contributions to improving the breed anymore, and cash drawers don't have two-dollar slots either. The deuce has all but disappeared from usage. People may be ignorant, but the two-dollar bill is an obscure piece of trivia these days, like June 6, 1944 or the name Salmon P. Chase. What if he had attempted to pay with one of these?
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