Scammer Uses Counterfeit Cash To Buy Motorcycle, Calls Victim To Warn Against Using Bogus Bills

Most people who end up with a wad of counterfeit cash don’t find out until they take it to the bank or try to use it at a store that checks for funny money, but a woman in the St. Louis area says the man who bought her husband’s motorcycle using bogus bills later called to let them know they’d been had.

The victim tells KTVI-TV that her husband had listed his bike for sale on Craigslist because the family had been strapped for cash following the premature birth of their baby girl.

Things seemed to go just fine when an area man showed up, cash in hand, to pay $600 for the motorcycle. The customer handed over the money then left with the bike.

But then, she recalls, “We get a call about 3 hours later and [he] says, ‘The money I just gave you is counterfeit. It’s fake. You can’t use it.’”

When the couple looked at the six $100 bills, they realized that all of the serial numbers were identical, a sure sign of counterfeit cash.

So they turned over the money to authorities, meaning they have absolutely nothing to show for their attempt at raising some much-needed cash.

“No bike. No money. No title. No nothing,” says the wife.

This PDF from the Secret Service shows all of the easy-to-find security features on the currently circulating $100 bills. These include a “security thread” that can be seen running vertically across the bill when held up to the light, a watermark of Benjamin Franklin, and color-shifting ink on the “100” on the bottom-right corner of the bill.

And this page contains links to information about how to identify counterfeit bills for each level of currency.

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