At some point in our lives, we’ll come across counterfeit dollar bills and you’d like to think you could instantly tell them apart.
Well, apparently Gen Z cashiers struggle to tell the difference between an authentic bill and a fake – which has left one boss banging his head against the wall as he posted a photo of a $10 and $5 notes on Reddit.
“These bills confiscated by teen cashiers and deemed ‘counterfeit’,” posted the account PhillipEngMBTA. “I shed a tear because of the sharpie they scrawled onto the bills.”
Over the more expensive bill it had the words ‘FAKE DO NOT ACCEPT’ while the $5 note had ‘FAKE’ over them… unfortunately, they were both very much real and eligible.
The first of which dated back to 1950, with the second bill being just three years younger – dated 1953.
Newsweek caught up with the original poster, a 22-year-old called Sam who only gave his first name and who works in Florida as an assistant manager at a frozen yogurt shop.
He told the news outlet that he had to ‘sternly’ speak to the teen employees to reiterate that the currency they scrawled over was ‘just old, not counterfeit’.
Sam went on to explain that teenagers are unfamiliar with cash these days due to the easy access to digitalized money through bank cards and apps.
Gen Z is the generation between 1997 and 2012, and those born in the most recent years of that generation will have likely grown up with money being mostly online and rarely coming into contact with cash.
In fact, a Talker Research survey carried out this year revealed that around one in three ‘zoomers’ (someone born in Gen Z) avoid having cash in their possession in case they are robbed – while one in three believe the may misplace cash if they had it on them.
“It’s a digital world nowadays, so I would suspect that to be one reason [the young employees thought the bills were fake],” Sam added – who ‘rarely’ carries cash himself.
“Another reason is that we just should’ve shown the kids what all bills people might pay with would look like since currency has changed in design a few times over the last 30 years.”
Users rushed to the comments of Sam’s Reddit post to share their displeasure, with one writing: “I remember years back using a $2 bill for something and the cashier called over the manager because they thought it was a fake.
“The manager sighed and had to explain that $2 bills are real. Just not very common.
“That red seal would be worth quite a bit of money to a collector and that dumb f**k defaced it…”
While another added: “I’m so confused as to how they think they’re fake? I personally have not worked long as a cashier ever but isn’t the ink supposed to change if they are fake.”
