We'd always sort of assumed that someone had to check the to make sure money was real before they put it into an ATM, but apparently a few fake bills have been known to slip by. Wealth Junkie blogger Alexander had $4 in his wallet when he stopped by a Bank of America ATM to get cash for his Costco shopping trip. When a cashier at Costco spotted a fake $20, Alexander knew exactly where it came from.

The Costco cashier was nice enough to give Alexander the fake $20 to take back to Bank of America, where the bank apologized and told him that they outsource their ATMs to another company.

From Wealth Junkie:

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.

We're surprised the Costco cashier let him keep the fake $20. One time a cashier at Taco Bell told us we had a fake single. She showed it to us and sure enough, it was about as real as monopoly money. There was, like, a picture of Stephen Colbert on it. Not really. We'd gotten it as change from a pizza guy the night before...which says something about our diet. Anyway, she wouldn't let us keep it. Who knew that fake singles even existed? —MEGHANN MARCO

Bank of America Gave Me A Counterfeit $20 [Wealth Junkie]