No BS. I've run into it myself. Clerks and store managers don't recognizing $2 bills because they have no till slot for them and seldom run into them. Many people consider them bad luck. I helped a guy out once who only had a couple of $2 bills at a McDonald's when he was buying his lunch and none of the employees recognized them as real money. They were laughing at how obviously fake they were! I exchanged a $5 bill for them and some change which he had in his pocket, which was enough for him to buy lunch. When I made the offer, I spoke loud enough so the employees could hear me. The employees thought I was nuts. When I ordered my meal, the clerk told me I could get in serious trouble buying "phony money." I told her it's real and showed her an older $2 bill I keep in my wallet, a 1953 series, that was the first money I ever got paid for my own work earned helping my mom with an afternoon of gardening when I was seven years old (I still have it). She was shocked.
Another time at a Dairy Queen, neither the clerk nor the store manager would take the guy ahead of me's REAL silver dollars at face value. They said they were "too big to be real dollar coins," and argued that "real" dollar coins were close to the size of quarters, referring to the Susan B. Anthony flop, what we jokingly called the "Jimmy Carter Quarter," or the "JC Penny," due to them often mistakenly given out in change AS quarters! ,p> Those Dairy Queen employees were shocked when I gave him ten bucks apiece for the four he had with him! $10 was about the spot price for an ounce of 90% silver then. Numismatic value was higher. One of those cartwheels I later learned was worth $65. . . The others from $15 to $20 each, yet these bozos in the store did not have a clue these coins were real, much less still legal tender!
You weren’t arrested and quiz by the secret service.
Businesses don’t like $2 bills because too many times staff gives change of a $5 for them.