Old Hundred Dollar Bills....

[robj144]

Originally Posted by Murphy Slaw

That was what was entertaining to me. I wasn't mad although I WAS behind the guy with the BIG bill.

This wasn't at a small Mom and Pop store, where a hundred dollars could be a big deal. This was at WALMART.

And with the Christmas rush on, there were MANY people behind us moaning because it was taking so long. With only half of the checkouts open, as usual, and lines as long as you will ever see it was almost a scene.

And then the guy who approved it was about my age, just smiled at us and that was it. The bill wasn't checked with one of those "pens" or anything, he just knew the old ones didn't have the strip, or the watermark and that was it. And she was embarrassed because she simply wasn't trained to be a cashier.

I gave her a hundred too, but mine was newer.....

But do you know the difference between a good counterfeit $100 bill and one that isn't? I know what old bills look like, but I don't know the difference without checking somehow.

[guitar george]

Originally Posted by frankmcr

I wouldn't blame the cashier. I would blame the corporate MBA genius who decided they shouldn't waste time (and time is money!) on training cashiers to do anything but scan barcodes and say "Haveaniceday, next".

You're pretty lucky if you get a "Haveaniceday" out of any young cashier nowadays. I feel thankful if I hear anything including "No problem" or "No worries".

[imwjl]

Originally Posted by frankmcr

I don't think the $100 thing is common knowledge. I wouldn't blame the cashier. I would blame the corporate MBA genius who decided they shouldn't waste time (and time is money!) on training cashiers to do anything but scan barcodes and say "Haveaniceday, next".

And they pass the savings on to you!

Cashier is a history of low pay for a job that requires skills many do not possess. Good ones and training are as much a challenge for a little business as it is for a large one.

I do not believe there are many corporate firms that do not have a considerable effort for training cashiers. It's a high penalty for failure job. It's an important spot for where customers get an impression of the business. It's also a job where every merchant has a compliance issue - PCI DSS.

My opinions on people in service jobs poor perceptions of them comes from starting out in rust belt industry and ending up in high tech and operations. A few decades ago the US had a lot more people hidden from the public doing low skill factory work. Now people who might have done stuff like spray paint on a metal part or bolt that metal part to a machine have to face customers selling them spray paint or a fastener and it's just not an ideal job for their personality and/or natural skill set.

I share a conference room where new cashiers get training. Even higher wages and benefits for part-time workers still give the trainers batches of new employees who just don't cut it. No more drug screening except for accidents has helped a bit but it remains hard to get cashiers and good ones.

Most people have the perfect option for payment to be fast and to best address the crime part tied to this topic. That includes your own protection. Just use the contactless payment most phones, many cards and most smart watches have. As an example, Apple Pay is faster than a chip reader process and better yet doesn't even give your card number to the merchant.

[ManyMartinMan]

Originally Posted by Murphy Slaw

....A young cashier stopped Christmas progress yesterday.....You would think this would be protocol for someone handling money...

She was obviously trained and did exactly what she was trained to do. It would be her rear if she accepted a bill different than current issue.

Originally Posted by thomasinaz

..I had a similar experience recently. I got two 100 dollar bills from the 70s, .....instead of putting them in the drawer he set them off to the side, but didn't say anything......

That's because all those old bills are set aside to be exchanged with the Federal Reserve and then destroyed.

Originally Posted by RedJoker

Good for her. Sounds like she did what she should have done and it all worked out as it should.

Amen to that.

[DenverSteve]

Heck, I'm surprised you found someplace that would take anything over a twenty.

[arwhite]

Wait. You guys carry cash?

[AmericanEagle]

Originally Posted by arwhite

Wait. You guys carry cash?

All the time.

[Neil K Walk]

Hoo boy, here's another "okay, Boomer" thread! When was the last time any of you had to "cash out" at the end of a night at a retail/restaurant job? $100 is a lot of cash for people who make minimum wage and have to reconcile their cash drawers at the end of their shift. If they see a frayed bill that looks like it came out of a Monopoly game it just makes sense from a certain perspective.

It's also a pain.

[Denny B]

I was getting ready to say "Wait for it"...."Wait for it"...

But that train is never late...

Anyway... Merry Christmas, Y'all!!

[woodbox]

When I was in my twenties I worked with an old guy- he was REALLY OLD, like 50 or so-
and a couple times a day he would say:
“This reminds me of the time ... ... “
and off he would go with a story.
And most the time, they were good ones.
Here’s one of those:

In his younger day he did home delivery of some product I cannot recall, that required the home owner pay him in cash on the spot.
He’d come back with hundreds of dollars to be turned in at the end of his shift, usually $20-$30 from each of a couple dozen customers each day.

One day he was payed- by a little old lady incidentally- with what he called “some bogus bills”.
As she layed out the cash, he saw “a couple bills that didn’t look right”, but was reluctant to call her out as she was a regular customer who, he figured, had unknowingly been stuck with this “counterfeit paper”.
The ink was darker, and the engraving looked “off” somehow.
He was actually quite curious as he had never seen counterfeit money before, and figured the company could better absorb the loss than the little old lady.

Turns out, she was digging into her reserves.. her personal stash of old money she’d squirreled away.. and was paying in “Silver Certificates” from the 1920’s and 1930’s.
Yep, she was pulling out un-circulated Silver Certificates from a shoebox under the bed.

Things aren’t always what they seem.

As he told the story, he wished he’d had the insight, and the cash himself, to swap out those bills and hang onto them, but he simply couldn’t afford to do that at the time.

[Murphy Slaw]

I work at a farm implement dealership and we see tens of thousands of dollars of cash monthly during the busy seasons.

In 14 years we've NEVER had an issue with a single bill being counterfeit.

It's simply not that common.

[AX17609]

Darn things are hardly worth anything anymore. I just use 'em to tip the valet.

[Otterhound]

Originally Posted by piper_L

Also, try using $2 bills, just to confuse people. -)

There are stories (well, Internet stories...) of folks being accused of counterfeiting for using $2 bills, since the bills were so unfamiliar to the cashier. Sounds plausible at least - but don't most stories?

The $2 bill certainly has a beautiful reverse side, a engraving of the painting "Declaration of Independence" by John Trumbull.

The original $2 bill has a depiction of Monticello on the back .

[Otterhound]

I'm going to go off the deep end now . I have 1 each of 32 count sheets of $1 & $2 bills . Bought directly from the mint , they are real currency . Try to have anyone accept them as payment . Go ahead , I dare you . Better yet , try to get change .

[RedJoker]

Originally Posted by Otterhound

I'm going to go off the deep end now . I have 1 each of 32 count sheets of $1 & $2 bills . Bought directly from the mint , they are real currency . Try to have anyone accept them as payment . Go ahead , I dare you . Better yet , try to get change .

There's a funny story from Steve Wozniak where he bought uncut sheets of two dollar bills but then had them perforated and bound into a notepad. That way, he could just tear out however many he needed to pay.

What a fantastic way to cause random chaos in the world!