Marked-Up Bills Fight Counterfeiters
Don't be surprised if the larger bills you get at the stores are all marked up. That's because merchants are using special pens to test the cash, KOIN 6 News reports. Good bills turn out one color, while counterfeits come out black. Despite this safeguard, someone has been passing phony $100 notes in Salem. The phony bills look convincing. They're photocopies, KOIN reports. And someone in Salem passed about three dozen of them since Nov. 1. They turned up in stores, restaurants and the local Greyhound depot. Greyhound station manager Linda Loop told KOIN somebody stuck her with a bad $100 note. She said the employees get busy, and the bad money is slipped through. Of course, many merchants get too busy to hold the bill up to the light or conduct other tests. That's why a lot of them are pulling out a special chemical pen. They're marking up the bills, and the color means everything. The ink turns black on a counterfeit bill but remains light colored on real money. Modern counterfeiters can't easily duplicate the special paper or the watermarks on real money, KOIN reports. They also cannot duplicate the way the numbers on good bills turn dark when you turn them. But bad bills get by when nobody's looking closely.My Sardonic Thoughts
- So, are we all going to start carrying these pens around to mark up the bills that we get from people and stores?
- What happens when you get a bill that has the mark on it already? Do you ASSUME that it was marked with a magic pen? or do you mark it yourself again?
- How many marks can a $100 bill take? I guess that depends on how big the marks are made...
- After the bill is covered in marks, does the pen still work (on marks on marks on bills)?
- How will you know it's a $100 and not a $50 or $20 if the whole thing is marked up with these pen marks?
- Isn't it a crime to deface money?
- What if you run out of ink... What then? ... Hey, buddy, can I borrow your magic pen to see if my money is real? ... How do you know that that person doesn't have a fake magic pen?
- This opens up a whole new line of business for the counterfeiters... fake magic pens...
