Counterfeit

Oh my Lord! Things have been really busy, and I haven't had an opportunity to talk about this, but after the phone call I just got, I have to catch up.

I picked up some extra hours at work on Saturday. I was working the closing shift. A couple came in to do some shopping. When they came to the front to check out the woman handed me a fifty dollar bill. It had an old school look to it, and it just didn't feel right. It was too heavy and too paper like (less like fabric if you know what I mean). So I held it up to the light to see if I could see the security strip in it, and I couldn't. I was hesitant to call it fake though because I didn't know when they actually started putting security strips in. So I started looking at it closely. You could see that it was two pieces of paper glued back to back, and the closer you looked at the type didn't look right either. It looked scanned (it almost had a little amore-dotted- pattern to it almost). With all these other elements I knew it wasn't real. I asked Em (the guy working next to me) to take a look at, and he agreed with me. At that point I told the couple that I needed my manager to look at the bill. This was for a number of reasons included but not limited to the fact I didn't know what to do next.

I have to take a second and say the manager that was working that night was not a regular manager at our store. MC was down from another store to help us out, so he was really kind of being put on the spot.

MC was kind enough to talk to the couple for me. He calmly told them that we could not give the the fifty back because it was a counterfeit, and by law we were suppose to report it. The gentleman said he just wanted it back so he could take it back to the person he got it from (when we mentioned the cops, the woman kind of just disappeared). MC and the man kind of stood there at an impasse, so I said the only way this will be resolved is if we call the police. So MC said why don't you do that. So I called the police and MC continued to talk to the man. In the mean time MC found out that the couple had warrants out for their arrest. MC told him if he ran he would look guilty, if he stayed he might be able to beat it. So he hung around and the cops showed up. After the cops showed up he called his girlfriend and got her to come back. And of course the they were both arrested. The police made me fill out a statement. While I was doing that the police were going through their car in the parking lot.

MC kind of made a deal of it, emailing the whole district about it. But I thought that was that.

But come to find out it wasn't...

I was sitting in class today at about a quarter after one and my phone rang. It was work. I thought that was strange because I thought that work didn't have my cell number (which got me excited thinking maybe it was Company Man). So I let them leave a message, and I check it. It was G from work she was calling to tell me that Channel 4 news had come to the store looking for me. They were doing a story about counterfeit money. Apparently there was like 6000 dollars in counterfeit bills in the couple's car. It was kind of a big thing I stopped, just by paying attention to the tender I was taking.

They want to do a news story on the ten o'clock news tonight. I called the reporter back and gave him my number so he could call me if he wanted to (I doubt he will). I don't know if I am going to be a part of it or not, but the story should be on. :)

I will keep you up to date if anything else happens with this.
It was probably the most exciting thing to happen to since I started at this job.
To quote MC "Good Eye." ;)

edit

So it was on again off again. First I was going to do an interview, then I find out that my company won't let me talk on camera about anything. So my 15 min. of fame isn't going to happen...but that's okay, at least we caught the guys.