Friday, December 2, 2011

Wells Fargo passes Counterfeit $100

After cashing a check at Wells Fargo the funds were taken to Chase to make a mortgage payment.  Among the bills a counterfeit $100 was detected!   After almost an hour of review and completing forms the bill was confiscated for the Secret Service .

I am out $100 with no recourse!!   I went back to  Wells Fargo and was told that since I cannot PROVE the money came from them they would not replace it.  Now if by some small chance after 4 bank employees at Chase having reviewed the bill if the Secret Service were to decide they had made a mistake I would get the bill back in a month. 

I hope this makes you as angry as it made me.  If we cannot trust our banks to pass out real money than something is terribly wrong.  Now regardless of whether I can PROVE it or not if I had wanted phony money I would have dug into my Monopoly set, not gone to a bank.

Yes, I'm stewing on my next soapbox post and will have it up soon.  Please don't jump to the conclusion that "See, debit cards are better" before you read it.  As I mention on the sidebar I was in banking and worked in the computer center of a major bank.  I was one of the small fry people working on EFT at the birth of what was called Merchant Services in the early 70's.  This eventually became what is now called the debt card. That is why I DON'T have one.  Now my some small chance after 4 bank employees at Chase having reviewed the bill if the Secret Service were to decide they had made a mistake I would get the bill back in a month.

I wanted to keep this short and simple as the story is, the title says it all:

Wells Fargo passes counterfeit $100!

7 comments:

Practical Parsimony said...

Wow! When I get bills from a bank from now on, I will demand they use their pen on it. Or, maybe record the serial numbers and have a bank employee sign the record. This is just amazing. Thanks for the warning.

Carol Schultz said...

Yeah, the situation couldn't have caught me more off guard.

Olivia said...

I was wondering how much one of those pens cost. Perhaps we should all carry them with us to test our money as we receive it. Sadly even the smaller bills can be suspect. Someone passed four fake $5 bills at a local grocery a couple weeks ago.

Carol Schultz said...

I've never looked into the pens before but probably should do so. If anyone knows please pass the info on.

Practical Parsimony said...

Well, that's just great. Small bills faked. I would think it would not be worth the time. But, it is probably easier to spend twenty $5s than one $100. I may ask them to use the pen when I get change now. I am sure Christmas is a great time with busy clerks to slip a small bill past the scrutiny.

Carol Schultz said...

Yes, I have heard that $20 are hot for counterfeits because since they are smaller bills they don't get as much scrutiny and are therefore easy to pass.

Carol Schultz said...

Update Sept 18, 2012 And here's another story about a woman who receives a fake $100 from Walmart. Wouldn't you think the stores and banks should be equipped to test these and not pass them on?
http://news.yahoo.com/video/fake-bill-walmart-costs-family-193000244.html