Man arrested at Best Buy for paying in $2 bills

I hate to weigh in on a topic in which several members have already pointed out the flaw in the topic title, or with the source op, but it needs repeating - the man was arrested for POSSIBLE COUNTERFEITING, after a cashier noticed the INK SMEARED ON THE BILL. The fact it was a $2 bill had NOTHING to do with why the guy was detained by police. The SMEARED INK did.

Simply put - they suspected counterfeiting.

I guarantee if any of you owned a store or worked as a cashier, and some grouchy customer came in and paid with $2 bill in a "protest", and you saw the ink smear on the bill, you would be calling the police as well to report a counterfeiter. And I also guarantee if any of you were police officers responding to a call of a counterfeiter and indeed saw the ink smear on the bills in question, you would be arresting the perp. as well.

As the police say, it turned out the bills were real and that yes, ink can smear on real bills.

To twist the headline around to read "Man arrested at Best Buy for paying in $2 bills" is just plain bad journalism. It doesn't surprise me that this example of bad journalism comes from WND.

Originally posted by ReadyPower


Bolesta says the cashier marked each bill with a pen. Other store employees began to gather, a few of them asking, “Are these real?”

Seems SHE is the one who should have been arrested:

(Text as of 2/19/02) 18 U.S.C. §331: Whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money within the United States; or whoever fraudulently possesses, passes, utters, publishes, or sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or brings into the United States, any such coin, knowing the same to be altered, defaced, mutilated, impaired, diminished, falsified, scaled or lightened - shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

I know that is something that is rarely ever (if at all) enforced, but technically she did break the law here... unlike him!

reply to post by Char-Lee

Heck, they could have even civilly asked him to come down to the station with them. Nothing like that is mentioned.

Heck, I would have taken the two dollar bills and replaced them with my own cash. I'm sure those two dollar bills will only increase in value in the next 50 years. I remember when I worked in a grocery store during my high school years, the older cashiers would always replace old coins and collectable bills with their own money.

More disturbing trends on an ATS thread.

First, none of you should be questioning the intelligence of anybody--I've read some of your posts and some saying about a pot and a kettle comes to mind.

Second, I can be honest and say that I would initially be a little thrown by a $2 bill. Just look at what all of you have said: "I collect $2 bills........You can ask the bank for $2 bills......yadda yadda yadda." So, obviously a $2 bill is not all that common. Does anybody "collect" extremely common things? Do you need to ask the bank for "common currency?"

Third, the poster with the awesome avatar of Kurt Russell on The Thing already pointed out that it was the fact that it was a stack of $2 bills with issues that was weird, and the guy did it on purpose to be snarky.

Fourth, this is from WND.

At least in the old days when this was first posted it only made it to 2 pages.

reply to post by ReadyPower


What idiot cashier, Idiot manager or idiot cop has never seen or heard of a 2 dollar bill. The clerk and managers responsible should be fired for not knowing general basic information.

reply to post by BrokenCircles


Sorry for the delay. I meant to say it sounded to me like a pissing contest and he lost. Not because somebody (or the whole town) couldn't recognize legal tender. He way playing her and she won. Don't really know if she knows someone at the police department or not, but it really sounds like it if they "chained him to a pole" and "called the feds". Talk about ratcheting up the pain. Thats the abuse of authority. Everyone is so afraid these days and the cops are just waiting to pounce.

Be nice to your local clerk. Hope that helps.

Well to be fair, didn't the alleged hijackers on 911 pay their baggage fees with a stack of crisp $2.00 bills?

So, out of curiosity I googled this story to see if there's a follow up lawsuit or an apology or whatever and all that I can find are re-bloggings of the same article over and over again and also a Snopes article about how there was a nearly identical (edit: should have said similar) hoax involving someone buying food at Taco Bell. The MSM loves to jump on stories of the little guy being pushed around by big corporations yet I can't find anything, not even a press release by BestBuy defending or condemning the actions of their employees . I know it's several years old, but has anyone actually been able to verify this as having actually happened?

What does a 2 dollar note have to do with September 11?

Originally posted by AR154
What does a 2 dollar note have to do with September 11?

For several years after 9/11 many people, especially Americans were paranoid about everything. Law enforcement jumped on this band wagon by telling everyone that all illegal stuff funded al-Qaeda. You buy weed? You're buying RPG's, you're using counterfeit money? You just financed an IED. It got to the point where people just freaked out whenever laws were broken. It's still somewhat evident today in how plane tickets sometimes come with a free prostate exam.

I hope he sues Best Buy and ends up owning the company. And then he does a $2 TV Tuesday promo, which gets you a significantly reduced priced TV if payed with $2 bills.

Commenting on the incident, Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey told the Sun: “It’s a sign that we’re all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world.”

Oh? A man being arrested for paying with legal currency is a sign of a decade old terrorist attack? Geez.

Don't let the rules overrule common sense

Wow. Sad times when today's work force can't recognize a $2 bill!

I have been given a hard time a few times using $2 bills where I live. We had a customer at my previous job who always tipped with $2 bills. He always had a stack of crisp ones. We all liked it, it was that old wives tale that they are good luck. I still have quite a few stashed in places I believe are "lucky." I guess they aren't as popular as they once were.

It is bad when it resorts to a man getting arrested because people today are too dumbed down to know any better. How stupid can that many people be?! I find it hard to believe that many people don't know about a $2 bill and that it is still legal tender!

Am I the only one who noticed that that article is from 2005?

Just wondering...

THE last time Ive heard sometthing similar was in texas were a black lady was arrested in wal-mart for running a check with a non updated ID,she was trying to pay her purchases and the people from the store call the police on her,she was booked and spend time in jail ,she later sued walmart for 9,000,000.00 long story short ,she won....

reply to post by Blackmarketeer

I hate to weigh in on a topic in which several members have already pointed out the flaw in the topic title, or with the source op, but it needs repeating - the man was arrested for POSSIBLE COUNTERFEITING, after a cashier noticed the INK SMEARED ON THE BILL. The fact it was a $2 bill had NOTHING to do with why the guy was detained by police. The SMEARED INK did.

I have to say the real point to bring up on this is that the man never stood there and just said something like 'Well..I've had them forever and they're real cause I say so! Hmpf!'. No.. quite the opposite. He very logically and directly told them how he got his bills, where he got them from and how they could, with a single phone call, verify that one way or the other. I don't know if he told Best Buy that, because the story only specifies he said it to the Police......immediately before they arrested him.

So..It's not as if he could have been some master mind counterfeiter....when he was perfectly willing and actually did name the bank as the source and encourage a 1 minute telephone call to verify. That ALONE should have had the cop taking a step back. How many guilty parties actually hand you a way to PROVE their guilt, on the spot and within a moment?

After all...if the call had NOT confirmed things....He would have just signed his own prison sentence and in his own words. All that tho...and the solution isn't to 'Protect and Serve' by INVESTIGATING...like a cop might be expected to do. It's to arrest an innocent man and leave him cuffed like the proverbial punk on display in the squad room.

What a police force...and what a bunch of incompetent fools at Best Buy. OF COURSE ink can smear.... geeze... These idiots could have done the same thing to one of their OWN bills right out of their own damn wallet to verify THAT part happens on 100% legit currency.

Originally posted by ReadyPower
Just another example of our future 'leaders'.. ignorant people.. how do you work somewhere where you deal with money every day and NOT know $2 bills are legal tender?? I knew this when I was like, 8.

Well, goodie for you. You knew this when you were 8. Wow, great, here's a cookie.

Considering that you don't see $2 bills out in open circulation any more, I can see why some knucklehead 18 year olds questioning it.

Here is a more current story where a man was arrested and jailed because he tried to use an old $50 bill. The store clerk thought it was counterfeit but it was real.

After Lorenzo Gaspar was jailed, Horner showed the bill to Sgt. Bill Logue, the Shelbyville Police Department's evidence technician, who told him old legitimate bills wouldn't "check" with a marker and suggested he have it inspected at a bank.

Horner took the bill to two banks, where it was determined as "real but very old" at one and proven real by a black light and magnifying glass at another.

Goes to show that any one of us can be hauled off to jail if the markers fail to determine real vs fake or smear, as in the other story.

Story Here

reply to post by ArrowsNV

Originally posted by ArrowsNV

Am I the only one who noticed that that article is from 2005?

You're not the only one, but you are definitely among the minority. It's been mentioned on every page. Personally, I think it is a sort of selective reading. It wouldn't make sense to get pissed off about it, if it occurred 7 years ago, so many will just automatically ignore that particular detail.



reply to post by porschedrifter

Originally posted by porschedrifter

I hope he sues Best Buy and ends up owning the company. And then he does a $2 TV Tuesday promo, which gets you a significantly reduced priced TV if payed with $2 bills.

It is probably too late now. The time allotted by the Statute of Limitations has most likely expired.




reply to post by AR154

Originally posted by AR154

What does a 2 dollar note have to do with September 11?

I'm sure you could find an amateur numerologist on this site who would say that the 2 events are clearly connected to one another, because....

September 11
11 is 1 + 1
1 + 1 = 2
$2 Bill!!!!! OMG!!!!!