How to Spot a Counterfeit Bill

How to Spot a Counterfeit Bill

In 2012, a Canadian man by the name of Frank Bourassa was arrested for printing $250 million dollars of counterfeit bills all in twenties. Only $200 million dollars of it was known by the police. While making his deal with police in 2014, he gave them $200 million dollars of the counterfeit bills and promised to never print another counterfeit bill again in exchange for a month and a half in prison. As startling as that sounds, that means $50 million counterfeit twenties are still out in the public. Could one of them be in your wallet? No one likes losing out on money. If you are in possession of a counterfeit bill, you are doing exactly that. I have worked as a cashier for 2 years and done research over the past two weeks in preparation for this speech. Although counterfeit money techniques are becoming more complex, there are numerous ways to detect it and protect you from fraud. Today I’m going to talk about ways to spot a counterfeit bill by judging the touch, inspecting the details, looking for security features and what to do if you suspect you have been offered or received a counterfeit bill.

One of the most common ways to a spot counterfeit bill is by judging by the touch. Unlike normal paper, which is made from trees, authentic currency is made from cotton and lined fibers. This makes money more durable to elements with a crisp texture regardless of age. Whereas normal paper is easily worn and torn. The cotton and lined fibers that our currency is printed on is not sold to the general public. The chemical composition and ink used on our bills is highly classified. You do not have to be trained to notice the difference in texture between authentic currency and counterfeit. Authentic bills also contain tidy tiny red and blue fibers. Counterfeit have trouble reproducing them in the same manner. They have printed red and blue fiber look-likes onto the bills and even tried using cat or human that has been dyed. Counterfeit bill lack the raised texture so they feel flat. Our currency has raised ink. It is raised just enough for you to feel it. This raised ink is not easily copied. Run your fingernail over the portrait's vest. It has noticeable ridges which cannot be reproduced. This is created by the intaglio printing process.

If judging by the touch method did not help, try inspecting the details of the bill. The details on our currency have high quality. On fake bills they tend to be blurry, flat and dull. The portrait on authentic currency has some 3-D detailing making it pop up from its background whereas a fake bill does not have a lot of the facial details making it blend into the background. The phrase "THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" can be seen using a magnifying glass at the rim of the portrait. Without a magnifying glass it just looking like a solid black line. This is extremely hard to recreate using office copiers