So This Happened Today...
- Thread starter HUKIT
- Start date
They seemed normal enough, looked at the pieces as I had it disassembled, and I counted the money. All seemed pretty straight forward until I hit the bank.
You did nothing wrong. Those guys were good. Sadly they're not in jail for the last thing they did.
Others (we) will learn from it. The other bad deal is the used car paid for by certified check or money order. Many of those are counterfeit.
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I had my Connelly pool table for sale and the two "gentlemen" came last night to pick it up. The table was purchased for $1700.00 and they came with cash last night. Today I go to the bank to deposit the money and 10 of the $100.00 were fake!!! The rest was a combination of 10's and 20's. I have never been so pissed at someone else and myself at the same time. The bills looked and felt normal while I counted them but the when the bank teller put them through the counting machine they kept stopping. She confiscated and marked the bills and I had to file a report to the treasury department. I then had to fill out a police report giving them the contact information I had. The bills all had the same serial number and were from 1996 so they looked much different than the current batch. I can't believe at a glance I couldn't tell the difference but I feel like a ****ing fool today.
Here are a couple of them after she marked them with today's date. They all had the same serial number on them.
Sorry to hear of your situation.
The damned thing about all this is that U.S. currency (and most, if not all, world currency) is absolutely worthless--has no value, even "authentic" bills.
It's called fiat money. It's only a unit of exchange, nothing more than that.
U.S. currency has "value" only if it conforms to certain federal rules, standards, and regulations.
Not too comforting, I know.
But if you or the police catch up with them they may have to return the table. You can give them back the good bills you received from them in that case. Although it's doubtful they will be found.
If there have been other counterfeit transactions going on in your area then the Secret Service will probably investigate it as well.
The pen won't work on the best counterfeit bills that use the same paper as the real bills. Once again, look for the holographic image of Franklin! That's the tough one for any counterfeiter to duplicate.
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I got one (bank check) several years ago for 14K on the eBay sale of a late model SUV. It was out of a Phoenix area bank and I immediately went to my bank and got the manager to call that bank to verify it. It came back as being invalid!
The guy who sent it to me had informed me by e-mail that his friend in L.A. would be there that day to pick up my Explorer. He called me later that morning to ask me if I got the check okay (it came via Priority Mail) and I told him I had and was taking it to the bank to deposit first. I then went to the cops (there's a Sheriff's station near my house) but they said there was no crime committed yet and there was nothing they could do. No one had stolen anything yet. So far it's a civil matter is what they told me.
I had some dark thoughts about letting the "friend" come to my house and holding him at gun point, and calling the cops then. I wanted to empty the guy out and send him on his way with only his undies on. It's the kind of thing I might do in my younger days to teach them a lesson, but my more mature mind stopped me. I began to think of the consequences if the guy put up a beef and I shot him. That could get ugly and costly to defend. So when his "friend" called me later that day I just told him not to bother coming by. He got the message. I still have that check in the mailing envelope to this day.
One other thing - If you do get bilked like that, once you've signed the title away you're screwed. So in this case, let the seller beware! I've got a couple more horror stories about selling cars on eBay. One guy sent me a $500 deposit via Paypal, came and picked up the car paying the $4,000 balance and then waited several months before lodging a complaint with Paypal that he never got what he paid for! Fortunately I had saved all the e-mail communications between us and sent them to Paypal during the dispute process. Paypal had put a $500 hold on my account in the meantime. After thirty days it was settled in my favor. Once again, save all communications, phone numbers and other pertinent information in any transactions you make with strangers, even going so far as to get a copy of their drivers license.
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Good call. The value of walking away. It's cheaper to walk away. Just let it go.
One more - I played in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker a few years ago and paid the 10K in hundred dollar bills. One bill came up bad in the counting machine. The teller at the window held it up and showed it to me but would not hand it to me. I asked to get the bill back so I could take it to my bank for verification. I was willing to give them another bill to replace it. She called the manager over and he told me they were required by the law to keep the bill and turn it in to authorities themselves. So that year my entry ended up costing me $10,100! :sorry:
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I heard a story about someone making a deposit and bills were no good. The teller held them. The customer wanted real money back in exchange.
I asked to see them so I could compare inspect them and she stated legally I wasn’t able to touch them as her excuse was they had to be fingerprinted and I laughed. She did lay them side by side after both the managers signed them so I could take a picture. I figured hell if I’m out a grand I should have a cool souvenir for my stupidity
that really bites man
a good cautionary tail though, im going to get one of those pens to check the bills now
a good cautionary tail though, im going to get one of those pens to check the bills now
One thing I do that is probably by accident is that I often look at serial numbers. I often get sums of cash in $1k-$5k quantities and stacks of $20s, $50, and $100s are often sequential, at least in each bundle. I am sorry to hear of beating you took, that really sucks
I just wanted to echo this....thanks for sharing. I don't handle money often anymore, but reading this account will make me think about this the next time I sell something for cash.
What a crappy situation. Sorry to hear you got ripped off.
The pens are no good really, as Jay mentioned you need to look for the hologram.
What counterfeiters started doing years ago was to acid wash $5 bills to get all the ink off. Then they would print them into $100 bills.
They used 5's instead of 1's because $1 bills have no hologram or strip in them.
So the paper is real and pens show that it is real paper but the printing is fake.
You HAVE to look at the hologram and the magnetic strips to confirm the bill is what it is because you could easily look and see a hologram and not notice it's Abe instead of Ben.
You have to be so careful nowadays with anything.
Hell, look at Gabe Owens, he was beating all the coin shops in the Midwest at $10,000 plus a pop with counterfeit gold coins and they deal with currency every day. They had APB's on him everywhere and who knows, they still might be looking for him because I never heard of him getting caught.