OT: Unbelievable but true...
 

Just when you thought retail drone stupidity could not get any worse:

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?s...23&tid=103

Best Buy Has Man Arrested for Using $2 Bills

An anonymous reader writes "Mike Bolesta of Baltimore thought he would protest Best Buy's not-so-great customer service and pay his bill with 57 $2 bills. For his trouble he got to spend some time in the county lock-up." From the article: "..Bolesta was contacted by the store, and was threated with police action if he did not pay the [installation] fee he was told before did not exist. As a sign of protest, Bolesta decided to pay using only $2 bills, which he has an abundance of because he asks his bank for them specifically. Unfortunately for him, the cashier did not seem to understand that the $2 bill is indeed legal US tender, since the bill itself is not often used. After rudely refusing to take the money, the cashier accepted the bills, only to mark them as though they were conterfeit."

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This is a fake story Baron.... They cannot threaten you with police action to pay any bill. Additionally anyone who is stupid enough to believe that an entire store, including the police, have never heard of or ever seen a two dollar bill is ubsurd.

This story is BS. A fun read none the less though, but complete fake.

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Not true AT actually you CAN beleive there are people that have NEVER seen a two dollar bill, for example I was working at Wendy's one time and I had not seen a two dollar bill well a customer decied to pay with one and I was a little confused at first so I asked my manager where to put a two dollar bill in my register.
The manager was like "I think it's fake" and so was everyone else except for one woman who was in her 50s and was there when they first made them LOL (which I don't even know WHEN they made two dollar bills only that they don't anymore.)

So it is understandable....oh and yes you CAN threaten police action for someone not paying a bill, it's actually quite common.

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Yes, the story is entirely true. The guy is told by a Best Buy rep that there is no installation fee for his car speakers because they screwed up the first time. The next day, they call him and threaten to call the police unless he pays the installation fee (which he was already told didn't exist). In protest, he pays the $114 bill in $2 bills. The cashier believes there is no such thing as a $2 bill, and refuses to take them. Under Federal law, since the man was paying a debt, and he tried with legal tender US Reserve Notes, and the payment was refused, the debt is automatically cleared.

But, he eventually convinced the cashier to take the bills. She marks all of them with a pen as counterfiet, and calls the manager over. The manager calls the police. The police notice a few of the bills are smudged (a not-uncommon occurrance), and hold the man in handcuffs and leg irons for three hours until the Secret Service arrives and lets everyone know that they're all morons.

The sherrif's department explained away the whole mess with some bull**** about the "post-9/11 world". I hope the guy sues these people for all they're worth. I'm normally against gratuitous litigation, but this is just too much.

So, AT, yes. People really CAN be that stupid. But I think you already know that.

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Yeah, I never understood why US $2 bills aren't more widely circulated... I find them more useful then the 1$ ones. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

But then I'm Canadian, so I'm just used to loonies and toonies ($1 & $2 coins) we have here. They stopped printing paper $1 & $2 in 1987 and 1992? respectively.

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Hey I resent the fact not knowing a 2 dollar bill is real can fall under stupid I prefer "misinformed" lol, but the fact that they arrested the man over it IS incredibly stupid! I mean they should have just called the Secret Service or heck the US mint and asked them about it....or if they had anyone over the age where they made and then ceased to make 2 dollar bills ask them LOL.

Heh I think they stopped making the 2 dollar bill before I was even born or at least that's what the woman that told me and my Wendy's crew they were real said http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Oh and the reason I know for a fact you can call the cops over a refusal to pay is because we had a guy on my crew arrested because he bought a stereo and refused to pay them, they threatened to repo he hid it they arrested him lol.

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They used to make them in the 19th century and into the early in the 20th century. I have heard that they stopped during World War II because the Nazis planned to sabotage the US economy by flooding it with $2 bills. Why did they choose the $2? Because you only had to make half as many! (Large denominations like $5 and $10 were actually much less commonly used in those days because of the difference in the value of money).

In 1976 they started printing them again to 'save money' (by printing fewer ones) but most people don't see them very often. You usually have to go to a bank and ask for one.

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You guys should do what we did and make a $2 coin. Much simpler and usefull.

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First off guys, it is illegal for a them to threaten calling the police over someone not paying a bill. He can sue on that basis alone. Secondly, the store supervisor or manager, or any one over the age of 21 in that store personal would know. I simply do not believe or will buy into this fabracation.

I worked retail for 10 years and NEVER ONCE, did any one refuse to accept a $2.00 bill. $3.00 bills yes, with Clintons face on them, but never a $2.00 bill especially if the numbers were sequential.

Unless Best Buy hired complete back water dumbasses with no education at all, or shallow teenage girls who know more about a cell phone than they do about a conventional phone, would it even be remotely a possiblity.

Last, if this did indeed happen, then Best Buy is looking at one hell of a law suit, three fold, first for threatening him, second for the unlawful detainer, and last but not least, defimation / humilation.

Oh ya and any legal fees he has incurred.

If he was arrested and trust me, they DO TEST the bills with a marker pen to see if they are fake, then he can sue the city for unlawful arrest and imprisenment.

I simply refuse to believe that there are people out there who are this stupid. Again they TEST the bills with a marker pen at the check stand, and a simple call to the bank, any bank, with the serial numbers of the bills would confirm where they were issued.

If this story is true, then I this guy would have to be incredibly dumb not to sue both best buy and the city over what happened. And yes, in this case a lawsuit would be warrented.

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Most stores only check $20 bills or larger, but still, most anyone should know that a $2 bill is real. I wonder what would happen if the guy had paid in silver and gold dollars....

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Slashdot is quoting morons.org.
I tried to track the story back to a reasonable paper but ended up with one I needed to register to see. Since news.google doesnt have multiple stories carrying the story I have doubts of it.

I would not be too surprised to find out its at least partially true. But my wife has worked retail in a large variety of stores and all of them had training about bills

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You must be new here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

AT, when was the last time you've gone to a Best Buy? All the ones I've seen employ the dregs of the uneducated lower class and high school kids. If you have an IQ anywhere over 70 (or just intelligence anywhere above the border between retard and superbly dimwitted, for those who don't look kindly on IQ tests), you would look to be hired somewhere OTHER THAN a Best Buy. Their so-called experts are only trained to spout off numbers and statistics for products, without knowing what any of it means. And I don't doubt for a second that every last one of them would tell you a $2 bill is just as fake as a $3 bill. Expecting them to call a bank to confirm the validity of the bills is something that would require intelligence, so it wasn't done.

But you are right on the lawsuit. Most likely the unlawful detention won't fly. The police were right to hold him until the Secret Service could arrive, since local police aren't trained in sophisticated counterfiet detection, and SS are. The bills were suspected counterfiet because of some smears, not from the pen (and the pen only detects counterfiets made on PAPER, sophisticated copies would be made on material similar to real bills, IIRC a cotton/linen blend). The police had to hold him until they could get confirmation from experts. I still think the police were morons because they held the guy handcuffed to a pole and in leg-irons, but I don't really think he can pull off a lawsuit over that.

--edit: GP, check the text of the morons.org article. The guy has a login/pass posted: bselig@dodgeit.com / bselig
I get 8 hits on Google News off the guy's name, Mike Bolesta.

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I guess the Best buy up here, aside from their crappy *** return policy, seems to be operated by somewhat higher IQ'ed individual than the local Good Will employes.

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Uh as I said I'd really wish you guys would stop acting like anyone who doesn't realize a $2 dollar bill is real right off the bat is an idiot because as I said I hadn't even seen one till I was 17 and working at Wendy's and most of my crew hadn't seen one either.....although granted I am smarter then most of them were, and most of them were "dregs of the undereducated" in that specific store.....but I most certainly am not and I was in the same "Uh is this real?" boat as them.

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Not seeing one is not calling any one an idiot SH. Its someone who calls the police because they see one, and the police officers for arresting a man for using them that classifies them as idiots.

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Seconded Narf! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

That Said over here in the UK the highest coin value we had was £1, then we had notes from £5 onwards. These days we have a £2 coin which is somewhat common and then the £5 coin, which I have only seen once and looks more like a Discus. I have to admit if someone paid with a $5 coin I would be somewhat suspicious if I had never seen them before.

"hey? hello? HEY!! What is this? Did you steal this out the back of a washing machine? What the hell is this? It looks like some sort of primitive metal frisby to be used as a hunting weapon!"

The problem is, automatic machines (passport photos, vending machines, ticket machines and all those sort of things) rarely accept anything over £1. The wonderful advance of technology huh? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

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Hey, I didn't know 2$ bills were real untill after my Dad told me he *wasn't* joking about them -- they are extremely rare, which makes finding them difficult. And therefore, most people don't know they exist unless they have been introduced for some specific reason.

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..speaking of Idiots,.. when is the last time you went into a 'Radio Shack' and got a 'knowlegable salesperson'? I've ran into just about every 'idiot' saplesperson in there. I now simply reply to their eager greeting of "Good Day, May I be of Assistance?" with a simple reply.. "Not unless you have more than my 25 years experience in the computer industry."

I mean to sel, computers and not know the difference between SDRam and DDR? and worse than that, not know what kind of RAM the computer in question has. A Typical reply to "How Much Ram does this computer have?" is.. "mm, aaah,.. Oh, it has 80Gig of Ram sir and a 2000mhz processor.."

Anyway, I'm sure this phenomena is not limited to Radio Shack, but they do advertize "You got questions, We got answers!" as their slogan.

nuf said, Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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Oh, they have answers alright, just not the ones you want to hear.

It should be called Cellphone Shack and their slogan should be "You've got questions, we've got blank stares. WANNA BUY A CELLHPONE?!?!?!?"

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$2 bills are not as rare in certain dancing establishments. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif They seem to be better to use than the $1 bills in attracting the type of talent ones attends these places to receive. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

I once gave a $2 bill as a tip in a restaurant. The waiter basically freaked out and thought I was great for giving such a rare bill as a tip. He said he would take it home and save it. Strange, but better than calling the police.

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They're not that rare. You can just walk into a bank and ask for one (either as change, or part of a withdraw transaction... TANSTAAFL). I have one in my wallet right now, in fact.

And I think they might still be printed... I know the year on bills indicates only when the bill was designed, not when it was printed.

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Think I'll go buy some video cables at Best Buy. I'll be bringing some $2.00 bills and some old $1.00 "Silver Certificates" Me needs some damages money for a BMW cycle or Harley.

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I just asked for 2$ bills and was told "no-go".

And I ran into a knowledgeable computer-geek at Radioshack just the other day. Very knowledgeable, in fact.