We’re going to the zoo today. My 3-year old just handed me a wad of her play money and told me I could pay for the zoo with “this.” It got me wondering. I mean, if I were to actually try and hand those bills over to a cashier, they’re not gonna call the police, right? They’d tell me “Real funny, guy. How about a card?” Even if I were to walk up with the full intention of “deceiving” the cashier, it’s just not a believable trick, right?
So, what is the criteria for actionably counterfeit money? I suppose that may revolve around the legal definition of “counterfeit.” I mean, the play money has “not legal tender” printed on it.
Anyway, I’d love to hear some thoughts.
Edit: To be clear, for inquiring minds and any lurking feds—at no point did I consider ACTUALLY trying to pass off play money as real money. We have a member pass that gets us in (we paid for that with real money too).
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Wikipedia:
Counterfeit money is currency that is produced without the legal sanction of the state or government to resemble some official form of currency closely enough that it may be confused for genuine currency. Producing or using counterfeit money is a form of fraud.
Have a great day at the zoo
People have been arrested for fraud for trying to use monopoly money.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/irish-tourists-arrested-magaluf-monopoly-money-080249447.html
No word on if they had a “Get out of Jail Free” card.
It’s just like shoplifting, there has to be intent. If you go into a store and pick up something and put in your pocket because you have your hands full, but then take it out when you are at the register, there’s no intent. If you put the same item in your pocket and go out the door, busted, then there is intent to conceal and steal it.
I would get your 3 year old to hand over the money and hope the cashier plays along before getting your card out to pay.
It also means that if they do call the fuzz it is your toddler that gets banged up and you can have a quiet weekend!
In the US, there is!
If it’s 50% larger or smaller than a bill it’s not a counterfeit. If it has printing on only one side it’s not a counterfeit. There’s a few other things that I can’t recall at the moment.
But.. ultimately… if you try to pass it off as real money then it’s counterfeit… even if it’s 50% smaller than real money and only printed on one side.
Say to the cashier – “(Child’s name) would like to pay with his/her special money”.
The cashier will then hopefully pick up the game.
You can buy fake money from Amazon. It even says it’s not real and yet cashiers at my company have taken it for payment!
The real deciding factor is what you do with the counterfeit money. Depending on where you are, it may or may not be a crime just to produce counterfeits, but what is a crime is trying to buy something with your fake money. So, if you tried to pay for the zoo with fake money (and the cashier thought you were serious) you could be prosecuted. You probably wouldn’t be, as you say most cashiers would just laugh it off, but if you were committed enough to the bit then you could get in real trouble.
They become illegal at the point that you try and pass them off as money. So if you genuinely attempt to purchase something with them, it’s illegal. A crime is still a crime even if the person committing it is really dumb.
About 20 years ago I was making some sideshow games for a local fair, and some of the prizes I was making were novelty money like £20 notes with Harry Potter on instead of the Queen. An inkjet printer I was trying to print them out on would print about print about 1cm of a note before quitting and printing out a counterfeit warning instead. Had to use an older printer instead which didn’t have anti counterfeiting detection built in. Not sure if it was the printer or drivers which was detecting the note.
I have a funny story about this!! I worked as a lifeguard at the community pool growing up. I was in the concession stand when a mom came up and told me “I think my daughter paid with Bunny Money. Here is real money.” I opened the cash drawer and sure enough, there is a bill that is the same size as a US dollar but there is a bunny where the person should be. It is CLEARLY fake.
I asked the worker why they would accept this as payment and he said “it says ‘legal tender’ on it.” I mean, yeah, but there is a fucking bunny on it.
Bow Wow did this at a strip club (with custom printed Bow Wow Bucks) and his only punishment was being banned for life.
I worked at a copy shop in the 90s. You’d be surprised at how many times I had to explain these rules to someone. We eventually had to make a sign over the color copier, and another one behind the flatbed scanner.
https://www.uscurrency.gov/media/currency-image-use
Technically once you try to spend it, you have committed a crime. I would hope cooler heads would prevail though in the scenario you have described. But yeah, that’s a felony.
Yes. Play money is fine.
Then it becomes tricky if your actual intent is to deceive, then you’d be on a tightrope. But your money says not legal tender, so you won’t get in any legal trouble.
In terms of making realistic prints or copies, yes. It’s built into most printer and scanner drivers these days.
Attempting to pass it off as real will get you in trouble.
Two examples from my experiences 😉
I bought a three dollar bill that had been folded into a ring. It cost me five bucks, from a street magician in key west. At no point did he, or I (11 at the time) believe in any way that a three dollar bill was legal tender 🤣
I’m pretty sure that was legal, I was buying a piece of origami in the shape of a bank note.
The other one is my buddy smuggled some of the monopoly money used in a local strip club out, copied it, then used it for dances.
Probably illegal, and he got his ass whopped at least three times (bouncer and the two girls) and blacklisted. Not recommended, even if the zoo keeper probably isn’t going to beat you up 🤣🤣
So there was a chap from my town that got done for this. His wife had just left him and he had a breakdown, was clearly struggling so went and photocopied some £10 notes.
No special paper, or other attempts to make them convincing, just a straight photocopy and then tried to spend them in another town.
He successfully spent one but then the second shop alerted the local shop watch, and when he tried it again the police were called and he was arrested.
They found over 100 at his house. He was jailed for 2 years.
No. It only matters that you tried to use it knowing it was fake.
Intent, not degree of mimicry, is what matters.
Some years ago, there was an artist in New York, New York, who would make exquisitely hand drawn ink images of real US currency. Then he’d take the art into a store and find the owner and tell him, “I want some merchandise from your store. I’m an artist, and this bill is a hand drawn piece of art. Will you trade me for the face value of this art plus remit whatever change there might be for an equivalent amount of merchandise?” Sometimes they said no. Sometimes they called the Treasury department for passing “counterfeit” money, but the agents had to let him go because he never tried to pretend it was real and always emphasized that it was art being sold for the face value of the drawing. But sometimes they accepted, he got his merchandise plus change and they hung it on thier wall.
Depending on what you’re buying and the denominations you’re trying to use, it may not even be worth it. Of course, the whole idea sometimes is to use a big bill on a small purchase and get real money back.