Well now I know what a fake money looks lilke...

Had a craigslist add up for a 24" iMac computer. Syracuse, NY area. I get a text from a guy that wants it. I set up a time and place. He shows up, late, I hand over computer and he hands me 4 $100 bills. I immediately look for the water mark... none. I turn around and the guy is speeding away. So off to the local Secret service field office to surrender bills and then to police station to file the crime. Luckily I have the serial number of the computer, but I don't have much information on the guy. I have a cell number, but I doubt its his, could be a burner phone. Needless to say I took all my adds down until I can figure out a way to avoid this from happening again. Which may not be possible. Expensive life lesson...

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Originally Posted by jiffy117

Needless to say I took all my adds down until I can figure out a way to avoid this from happening again.

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I don't release the product until I have the ca$H and have checked the ca$H
I have a smart phone and my son set it up with a drop box account
I take a photo of the persons ID / license >> It is instantly on my computer
Few times there has been a problem I just email the photo to the investigating officer

When selling or buying a car I place the license on the Title or Registration so vin and all car info is also in the photo
I save the file as the VIN so easy to find should there be a problem
Example of car purchased with no title
http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/johnc4x4...X8YS557790.jpg
Example of a car I sold
http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/johnc4x4...0_Ram_1999.jpg

Here is a cheap solution for checking US Currency.

Dri Mark 351UVB Dual Test UV Light and Detector Pen Combo

There are some very high quality forgeries out there. The one you really need to be aware of and careful about are the forgeries that are real money. What the forger does is takes a lessor bill, then bleaches it, and then prints the higher denomination bill on top.

There are a few things you can do to tell a forgery of this type, first the strip on the inside of the bill has the denomination imprinted on it, and if held up to the light can be read. If you are given a $100 dollar bill, and it tests good with the pen for example but you hold it up to the light and can see the strip with a $5 dollar denomination, you know what you have, a forgery.

Also, there are little red and blue colored hairs all throughout the paper. If it has been bleached, the bill will look too white. Some forgers tumble the currency in a dryer with plastic poker chips, which when the plastic gets hot will cause blue and red colors to imprint on the forged currency giving it a similar look, but if you look closely you can plainly see if the red/blue hairs are hairs or just markings.

The holograms are a good way to tell, but some people have become very adept at recreating very realistic holograms.

The feel of the currency will be very different if fake, currency is made from a cotton fiber paper. Ask someone who is blind how they can tell the difference between real and fake, or a $5.00 bill and $100.00. They have a lot of little tricks they use.

I have been fortunate enough I guess to have handled a lot of money when I owned retail stores. Not that I made a lot of money, I didn't, but I counted a lot. Just counting bills you get used to them feeling a specific way, and when you touch something that doesn't feel right it captures your attention automatically without even thinking about it. If the money doesn't feel right, don't worry about offending anyone check it, scrutinize it, make sure it's real. In this day and age nobody should complain about you checking to make sure the bills are real, and if they do then it's a fairly good bet you probably shouldn't be doing business with them anyway.

Scott

If you do a lot of larger dollar sales, look into a mobile card reader. There's a ton of providers for them some better for high volume, some better for low. I haven't had to use it yet, but I signed up with square. They take about 2% of every transaction, but you can always price accordingly. And if their card is declined, no product. I wouldn't go using it on every 5 dollar sale you do. But for larger sales it'd be worth the peace of mind. They give you a swipe reader free and if you want to accept chip cards, that reader is 50 bucks. They also have a deal if someone signs up with your referral link, you both get 1or 2000 (can't remember off hand) in transactions free for 6 months. Whichever comes first. I'll be using it for my collection event coming up. I'm gonna have the wife make an account (which is free to start) right before so any charges don't get the fee taken out. Little bit of system cheating but it works. Lol.

Another protection that I have used(and will use in future), meet up in a well lighted parking lot which has lots of video cameras. If they don't want to meet there then no deal. Mike

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Originally Posted by miked

Another protection that I have used(and will use in future), meet up in a well lighted parking lot which has lots of video cameras. If they don't want to meet there then no deal. Mike

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I have found a large percentage of Craigs list people to be no shows
I am not going to waste my time hanging out at a well lighted parking lot which has lots of video cameras
I just meet them at my house , Then I can get stuff done while I wait

If I had trusted my instincts I wouldn't have gotten taken. Always easier to look back on it though. But there were plenty of flags I looked over to make the sale. I will most likely switch over to credit cards only on anything over 20. I'd rather loose 2% on each then 100% on one.

This is why at our yard sales we do not take $50 or $100 bills even if we have change...

I've only dealt with funny money once.
The man had a nice talk with the police as they admired his wallet and I think they went to go get coffee.

I have that UV penlight! It's awesome.

Several local police stations have offered to let people do Craigslist transactions there. Safer for all involved. I haven't done it yet, but if I was going to meet for more than $100 I think it's a good idea!

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Originally Posted by NobleMetalWorks

If you are given a $100 dollar bill, and it tests good with the pen for example but you hold it up to the light and can see the strip with a $5 dollar denomination, you know what you have, a forgery.

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I've seen this exact scenario.

A convenience store I stopped at every day to get coffee before work had someone pass a $100 bill right before I got there one day. They were all holding it up to the light looking at the strip that said $5.

ScrappinRed, that is an excellent idea.

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Originally Posted by ScrappinRed

Several local police stations have offered to let people do Craigslist transactions there. Safer for all involved. I haven't done it yet, but if I was going to meet for more than $100 I think it's a good idea!

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That's a very good idea.
Just tell them the actual address, number and street. Ask what sort of car they will be driving so you can get the item you are selling out of the car first "because you are in a hurry" ........

And watch the look of shock on their face as they do 'U' turn and hot tail it out of there.
Just the thought of it makes me laugh.

But, on a %, fake $ won't happen very often.
But given a chance the % will skyrocket. Police stations will have lots of security cameras about too.

NZ $ would be pretty hard to fake. Its all polymer and holograms and windows and different sizes. We are going thru another upgrade of our $ notes right now too.

Very very pretty notes. Got voted 'best in the world a few weeks ago.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...hWsnwd_aKCeXgA

I see you have monopoly coloured money in NZ like we do in Canada

and to think I've probably taken over $10,000 in hundred dollar bills in the last 3 years for selling things...

That NZ money looks cool.

Plus they have Kevin Kline on their $50 and Kevin Costner on their $100.

eesakiwi my kid likes to collect foreign money, can I send you some USD for a $5 bill with extra for postage back to the states?

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Originally Posted by lousypirate

and to think I've probably taken over $10,000 in hundred dollar bills in the last 3 years for selling things...

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I thought maybe it was just me and was being a little embarrassed about how much I do with Ca$H
I circulate at least $1000.00 a week, in and out >> So that puts me at $52K a year
I have yet to get stuck with a bogus bill

I also take Credit cards for the people that don't do Ca$H
I use PayPal and my smart phone >> Cost 2.9%

eesakiwi- Dig those colorful bills. You Canadian fellows, isn't at least your $20 just a piece of plastic mylar with a 2-sided hologram and embedded chip on/in it??

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Originally Posted by hobo finds

eesakiwi my kid likes to collect foreign money, can I send you some USD for a $5 bill with extra for postage back to the states?

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Yep, sure can, I have been looking around for a older $5 note and may find one soon, since the new $5 has just been released, we are still using the older first polymer edition notes as well, so I can get 2 or probably 3 versions of the $5 note.

I have some of the last editions of our coins too (metric dollars & cents) and the Imperial/metric crossover (1968) of the 10cent peice, along with some of the Imperial 'Shillings (10cents) and some Penny's etc.
I was told our old 50 cent coins was one of the largest coins still in circulation at the time.

So that would be 3 editions of our coins, plus one 'crossover' coin, maybe there's some limited edition coins too.
There might be some other local country's coins too.

I have a small can which I drop old coins into when I find them. Before the current edition of coins, we got really really lax about what we used.
Any coin from no matter where, would substitute for a coin that was roughly the size of what we were paying.
So when I find coins these days, most of them are old versions and cannot be used as currency anyway.

So yep, can do. The notes will cost money but the coins will be free.

On the $5 note the person is Sir Edmund Hillary. He and the Nepalese Sherpa, Sir Tenzing Norgay, were the first to climb Mt Everest for the 'British expedition' on. 29 May 1953
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzing_Norgay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Hillary

Some info about our notes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank...Zealand_dollar

The guy on the $100 note is Rutherford, something to do with splitting the atom.

My advise is to have a camera system at you house. That means everyone, not just scrappers. EVERYONE. It's a must. Please buy a few signs up stating that you have a camera system also.

Fortunately I have a Cobra Drive HD dash cam (it reduces my insurance and overall liability premiums by almost a 1/4) Twice I've had to pull footage off of it which is easy because it automatically breaks it up into 4 minute blocks which is great!. You can press a button on the side that will tag a block so it is easy to look for and it wont auto erase it either when it recycles the memory. This one has to be positioned below the brow so the GPS works on it but other than that it works very well. It has sound but it wont pickup much outside the cab. It never even occured to me I have this tool to use for transactions until now. Very nice.

I signed up to accept credit card. That is only part of my plan when I start selling again. I will let customers know up front that I will need picture of car/license plate before I can start transaction. IF they pay with cash I will verify each bill before I hand over merchandise. But I'd rather only do credit. Its a small fee, but it saves issues like this and saves a trip to the bank, so minor convenience as well. I have two high dollar Apple systems that I need to sell soon. ~1k each, so hoping my new approach works. Hopefully I can get this target off my forehead. I'll look into dash cam too, those seem to be a must these days with all the crazies in the world! Thanks for all the replies, they have been a big help. Stay safe friends.

Another safety device you might try if you have a friendly relationship with your bank is this- using their currency counting/counterfeit detection machine. I would work out something with a person at the bank in advance so you don't surprise them unannounced. Call them each time you have a Craigslist transaction so that they know you will be with a stranger that may not necessarily be the most trustworthy individual.

And, no, I don't mean that you'd go behind the counter to use the machine yourself. You tell the teller that is expecting you that you want to verify some large bills you are receiving. You might consider telling them that if the bills are legit, you will deposit them to your account.

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Originally Posted by AdmiralAluminum

I see you have monopoly coloured money in NZ like we do in Canada

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https://s15.postimg.cc/sqjg5vl1n/poly.png

https://s15.postimg.cc/mcud2mvl7/poly2.png