I had four bucks left in my wallet last weekend. It was time to go to the ATM..
My usual routine is to withdraw $200 in cash from the ATM that way I don’t have to go back for a while. So I went to a nearby Bank of America ATM machine and made a withdrawal. Good thing, because the next day we decided to go shopping at Costco.
Costco does not take Visa or Mastercard - its either cash, check, debit, or AMEX. I did not have our checkbook and I don’t have an American Express card, but luckily I had just gone to the ATM the night before.
I was not really focusing on the cashier when we were checking out, but I did notice that she very quickly handed something to another Costco employee and said “check this”. I did not think much of it at the time, but in retrospect I now realize that what she handed off was one of the $20 bills I gave her.
Things happened too quickly for me to put it all together on the spot, as I had other thoughts running through my head at the time, but I did think it was particularly strange that it took the cashier so long to count out the $8 in change that she gave me.
We were just a few steps away from exiting the store when a Costco employee ran up to me and said, “Excuse me, sir. There’s a problem with this twenty dollar bill.”
I worked at a 7-Eleven when I was in high school and learned how what to check for when breaking big bills. There are a number of security features in American currency to thwart counterfeits, including watermarks, microprinting and a strip running inside the bill that you can see. You can also use a special marker that will show as yellow on real bills but black on fake ones.
Even though I knew all that stuff, do you think I checked every $20 bill I got from the ATM? Of course not - I just shoved them in my wallet and drove off.
The woman at Costco was very nice. I explained to her that I had just gotten the bill from the Bank of America ATM the night before, and I still had the receipt in my wallet for the withdrawal. I went through all of the $20 bills I had left in my wallet, just to double check and make sure they were all good. There are several styles of $20 bills, and so I compared my other real bills to the counterfeit that the bank gave me.
She told me to take the counterfeit bill back to my bank as soon as I could, and just asked that I give her a real $20 bill. She gave me the counterfeit bill back, I gave her a real one, and we were on our way.
The following day, I went back to the branch of Bank of America to resolve the counterfeit bill issue. At first the woman at the bank seemed defensive and kept asking how I knew I got the bill from their ATM. But since I had $4 before I went to the ATM and took out a stack of $20 bills there is no possible way I could have gotten the bill from somewhere else.
It turns out that their branch of Bank of America did not maintain the ATM machines. Instead, they outsourced the job to another company. So the problem was that the other company slipped up and did not check all of the $20 bills before refilling the cash in the ATM.
All in all the lady at the bank was nice. She said that she had never seen an instance where the ATM machine was the one with the counterfeit bill. I told her that this was not about the money and I did not need for her to give me the $20 there and then. However, I did expect for the bank to take responsibility and for her to credit my account within a few days.
After a number of phone calls and about 40 minutes of my time, she figured out how to handle it paperwork-wise so her teller would not be off by $20. Then she gave me a new $20. And that was that.
I was really concerned that the bank would not take responsibility for the counterfeit money even though I got it from their ATM. It took some time to sort out, but I am glad that Bank of America owned up to this error.
April 24th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
I wonder where ATMs get their money from. If they get it from banks, then presumably the real fault was with whichever teller accepted the $20 at the bank that then recycled it into the ATM…
Also, I couldn’t tell from your picture, were there supposed to be features to differentiate the real from the fake, that we can tell from looking at it? I didn’t notice anything, even after reading your text about what to look for.
Interesting story!
April 24th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Hi Bennett,
From the photo I showed, you can see a difference in the watermark on the left side of the bill as well as an overall slight different with the inks.
Also the black mark on it is from the counterfeit bill tester marker.
But there were a number of things that I could not show:
1. it did not have the hidden strip on the left side of the bill (when you hold it up to light)
2. it felt different than the other bills in my wallet (i.e. different paper)
3. it did not have a watermark of the president’s face on the right side of the bill (when you hold it up to light)
April 24th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Happened with me as well but not at the Bank of America, the bank’s policy is to stay firm on denying that it was from them. It’s really quite bad PR for them to get caught with their pants down accepting counterfeit bills.
April 24th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
The bank did not fill the ATM. That part was outsourced. So they can just say that their servicing company is responsible..
April 24th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
If they hadn’t worked with you, a report to the United States Secret Service would not have been out of line. In effect, the ATM operator passed you a counterfeit $20, which is a federal offense.
April 24th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
You are lucky. According to the law, the Costco employee should have confiscated the $20 and called the Secret Service, leaving you with nothing to show the bank. By giving it back to you, they illegally passed counterfeit money.
April 24th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
I’m glad they owned up to it. I’ve had BofA in the past and not been pleased with it in any way at all.
April 24th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
I am really surprised they did. But I told them that I’ve been banking with them 10 years (in their “Military Banking” branch) and if they didn’t believe me I was going to have a real problem with that.
April 24th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
“ATM machine” is redundant, as the M in ATM stands for machine.
Examples:
NIC card and NT technology
April 24th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Happened to me once. Got a 20 from a Bank of America atm. Noticed it was missing the plastic strip through the side. I spent it, since I didn’t think they would exchange it for me. Now I know better.
April 24th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Hi grumbles,
I realize that ATM means “Automated Teller Machine” or something like that. I guess I just say “ATM Machine” sometimes. Its a bad habit, I know, but I have worse bad habits.
April 24th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
http://calladus.blogspot.com/2006/09/testing-counterfeit-money-detector-pen.html
April 24th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Its good that Bank of America at least handled it. Canadian banks are known to NOT check their bills and even if you receive on from a Canadian Bank, it is your own problem and they will NOT, EVER provide you with replacement currency - it becomes a police and criminal matter and our banks will not assist in this.
April 25th, 2007 at 12:39 am
Hmm, am I the only person that thinks this is a very clever con?
You say that the cashier had already completed the transaction, gave you your change back and you were leaving…. then you were approached AFTER?
Not to side with the bank here, but what if what you gave the cashier a real 20 and the night before she happened to print off real shoddy looking fakes to give to unsuspecting customers like yourself? and the person ‘checking’ the bill is in on it, and was passed a fake to approach you with.
Looks to me like you got scammed my friend. Damn what a good scam, pull that every 10 or so customers and nobody would know.
April 25th, 2007 at 1:30 am
I thought the same thing James.
I worked as a cashier and you don’t let a customer leave if you have a suspect bill.
You have them initial it for identification, call a manager, and if its a fake you call Secret Service.
I think the Cosco cashier passed you a bad bill.
April 25th, 2007 at 1:58 am
One would think that adding counterfeit bill detection technology to ATMs should not be that hard…
April 25th, 2007 at 5:15 am
There’s definitely something strange going on with the Bank of America ATMs.
I withdrew $200 from my local branch last August to give to my mom. Being late, I folded the cash as soon as the ATM spit it out and simply handed her the still folded stack when I arrived at her house.
She later phoned to ask why I’d given her $360 instead of the $200 agreed upon. When I told her I had no idea what she was talking about, she explained that I’d handed her eight $20s and two $100. We soon figured out that the Bank of America’s ATM was randomly kicking out $100 bills!
All manner of thoughts entered my head, believe me. Obviously, a mistake had been made, but this looked like it was done on purpose. If it were an accident, then the person filling the ATM would have loaded a stack of $100s where only $20’s should go, meaning they’d all come out of the machine concurrently — but these $100s were mixed amongst the $20s.
This told me that I was either seeing the sabotage of a disgruntled employee here, or the $100s were some kind of corporate trap to entrap me in a crime.
Long story short, the extra $160 wasn’t worth the paranoia, so I returned them the next day. Turns out they were aware of the problem, but had no clue as to who had the $100s, or exactly how many were missing! When I asked the bank manager if anyone else had returned them, he said there was one other guy — with eleven of them!!
April 25th, 2007 at 5:32 am
B of A is awesomes sometimes…one day i woke up to find that $800 was missing from my checking account…no real reason, just poof! gone! since i had less that $800 in my account, this meant i overdrafted. So i go into the bank to see where the $800 went, since it wasn’t a purchase i made (in fact the website just listed the transaction as a transfer). Turns out it was a computer error, they took the money out of the wrong account (scary). But oh, i’d still be responsible for the overdraft charges of nearly $100 (since i actually USE my checking account daily, $20 charge per overdraft…thanks guys). EXCUSE ME!??? Seriously 3hrs later, and its finally sorted out with the manager…I closed my account right after he showed my account bank to the balance it should have been.
A banks only real job is to keep your money, they find clever ways of charging us for this service, when all along they use our money their holding to make investments that make them MORE money. When they fail at their basic job of keeping your money safe…job ship. The mattress under my bed doesn’t put out counterfit 20’s .
April 25th, 2007 at 8:50 am
It’s impressive that the bank took ownership of the issue and helped you out. In 2000, I had an account at the bank which is now Wachovia I believe, and I withdrew over $2000 to pay first and last months’ rent, as well as an additional fee to rent an apartment. In place of a $50 bill, there was a $5 bill in the stack, and since I didn’t notice it before leaving the bank, they basically told me I was flat out SOL. And on top of that, that was my very first interaction with my new landlord, and I think he thought I was trying to pull a fast one over on him, so it was embarrassing, and then I needed to to another atm and get out more money, and of course pay both banks fees to hit up an out of network atm.
I changed banks within 7 days.
April 25th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
As someone who (15 years ago anyway) used to work for tips in Vegas. I was constantly receiving fake twenties and hundreds from the casino cage. It was an ongoing thing to figure out who in town would take them. Most of us wound up saving them for the electric bills as they local power co. never checked.
But if every fake bill at a cash register counter in Vegas caused all that ruckus, no one would ever get through a store line.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Actually the vendors that fill these machines (Loomis Fargo, Brinks, etc., not including branch serviced machines) usually get their money directly from the Federal Reserve. The cash vendors rarely go through the stacks of cash bill by bill, and so if The Fed gives them a counterfeit, it’s tough to catch where the vendor and ultimately, The Fed, got the bad bill from.
BofA (or any other bank) shouldn’t be blamed for something like this happening, as long as they take care of the customer with minimal hassle.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Some vendors using strong detection method compered to others.
April 28th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
well glad boa helped you out… but i dont trust em…
April 29th, 2007 at 8:17 am
That sucks good thing it was only one bill, otherwise they might have accused you of being a terrorist.
April 30th, 2007 at 5:42 am
of course don’t have to trust them.
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:16 am
Well can you belive it??
May 10th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
well if we can’t trust the bank who else do we trust, God?
August 31st, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Face it, we are in deep trouble in this countrty with a weak, inept government and big oil and big banks pulling the strings. You can be arrested (at the discretion of the responding Secret Service agent) for trying to pass a counterfeit bill even if you didn’t know it was in your wallet. What happened to this country ????????
April 9th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Bank of America teller gave me a fake $100 bill. I tried to deposit it at a another bank and the teller told me it’s fake. So I take it back to the bank. They won’t give me my money back.
May 29th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
You see ladies and gentleman this is where you take the gift god has handed you and spend the cash instead of trying to right the wrong. Who in their right mind would return 100s when they were supposed to get 20s? It may be morally right but the odds of you getting caught by us are slim to none. So be grateful and keep the cash next time and recirculate all those fake bills… at least it gives me something to do.
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:08 pm
happened to me once (i mean getting counterfeit cash) it was a 20 as well i went to the local walmart and baught a few essential items some food and a card for my mom (it was close to mothers day) the lady gave me 37 something from my 50 when i got home i inspected the money it was dark outside when i counted the cash back to make sure there were no mistakes the next morning i saw what i knew was a counterfeit 20 i went to the atm to get out another 20 to compare it to and it proved my suspitions i went back to walmart and asked the lady for a refund she marked it with a the pen and it showed up yellow she said it was real just faded i then pointed out it didn’t have colorshifting ink water mark or a thread she looked at me like i was crazy long story short i went home and threw it my paper shredder