Best Buy Has Man Arrested for Using $2 Bills

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SUMMARY

The forum discussion centers around the humorous and absurd reactions to the use of $2 bills, highlighted by an incident where a man was arrested at Best Buy for attempting to use them. Participants share anecdotes, including a reference to Steve Wozniak being interrogated for the same reason. The conversation critiques societal ignorance regarding the existence of $2 bills and explores the implications of such ignorance in a post-9/11 context. The discussion also touches on the absurdity of counterfeiting and the cultural perceptions of currency.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of U.S. currency denominations
  • Familiarity with cultural perceptions of money
  • Knowledge of counterfeiting laws and implications
  • Awareness of post-9/11 societal changes
NEXT STEPS
  • Research the history and rarity of $2 bills in the U.S.
  • Explore the psychological effects of currency perception on consumer behavior
  • Investigate the legal consequences of counterfeiting in the U.S.
  • Learn about the cultural significance of money in different societies
USEFUL FOR

This discussion is beneficial for cultural anthropologists, sociologists, law enforcement professionals, and anyone interested in the societal implications of currency use and public perception.

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This is a hilarious story about stupid people:

http://web.morons.org/article.jsp?sectionid=8&id=6131

Even Steve Wozniak was interragated for using two dollar bills:

http://www.woz.org/letters/general/78.html

I'm almost tempted to go to the bank and get $2 bills in bulk just to see people's reaction when using them.
 
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dduardo said:
This is a hilarious story about stupid people:

http://web.morons.org/article.jsp?sectionid=8&id=6131

Even Steve Wozniak was interragated for using two dollar bills:

http://www.woz.org/letters/general/78.html

I'm almost tempted to go to the bank and get $2 bills in bulk just to see people's reaction when using them.

I'm having a hard time believing people don't know $2 bills exist. Doesn't everyone have one somewhere in their house just for the sake of having? Sometimes it just seems people are getting dumber by the day.
 
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Moonbear said:
I'm having a hard time believing people don't know $2 bills exist. Doesn't everyone have one somewhere in their house just for the sake of having? Sometimes it just seems people are getting dumber by the day.

I used to...but i don't know what ever happened to it. Face it though, people are morons. Its not that they're getting dumber, more evidence of this is just coming to light.

Not much else to it.
 
Get them out of the genepool before it is too late.

That's all i can say about that

Fibonacci
 
I would go back to the same place and try to pass three-dollar bills. :biggrin:
 
Guy goes into the dollar store and tries to buy something with a $19 bill. Cashier blinks, then asks how he would like his change: 3 sixes, or two nines.
 
Ivan Seeking said:
I would go back to the same place and try to pass three-dollar bills. :biggrin:

I bet you would.

I lvoed the second story, i so wish i could do that. I would pay for everything in perforated sheets of two dollar bills, just to piss the troglodytes off.
 
Hurkyl said:
Guy goes into the dollar store and tries to buy something with a $19 bill. Cashier blinks, then asks how he would like his change: 3 sixes, or two nines.


Whoes dumber, the cashier or the crook?
 
I think we should have a pi-dollar bill. Make change for that sucker!
 
  • #10
Ivan Seeking said:
I think we should have a pi-dollar bill. Make change for that sucker!

OOOOH!

I want one!

Too cool. I would love to torture cashiers with it. Especially the particulary moronic ones who have no clue what the value of pi is.

It should just have a big pi where the number usually is. A picture of Euclid maybe? Or Poincaré? Even Riemann?
 
  • #11
franznietzsche said:
OOOOH!

I want one!

Too cool. I would love to torture cashiers with it. Especially the particulary moronic ones who have no clue what the value of pi is.

It should just have a big pi where the number usually is. A picture of Euclid maybe? Or Poincaré? Even Riemann?

:rolleyes: As if the lines aren't slow enough with the cashiers who can't make change from money in integer amounts.
 
  • #12
Moonbear said:
:rolleyes: As if the lines aren't slow enough with the cashiers who can't make change from money in integer amounts.


But i would be entertained.

And by the laws of probability, there is a darn good chance the people behind me are just as ignorant as the cashier, in which case i really don't care.
 
  • #13
Here is an even better idea: Pay with sheets of two dollar bills.

You can purchase them here:

http://www.moneyfactory.com/store/section.cfm/69/84
 
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  • #14
dduardo said:
Here is an even better idea: Pay with sheets of two dollar bills.

You can purchase them here:

http://www.moneyfactory.com/store/section.cfm/69/84

Thats what the guy did. He just happened to get them perforated.
 
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  • #15
I didn't know about the $2 bill till I read this thread. I've been in the US since 1999 and have never come across one. At some point someone needs to be told about these things. Being unable to suck information out of the air is not stupidity.
 
  • #16
learningphysics said:
I didn't know about the $2 bill till I read this thread. I've been in the US since 1999 and have never come across one. At some point someone needs to be told about these things. Being unable to suck information out of the air is not stupidity.

In 99% of cultures, what you call being unable to suck information out the air, would be considered stupidity. You've obviously never read the articles of anthropologists, who like you, were also unable to suck information out of thin air.
 
  • #17
learningphysics said:
I didn't know about the $2 bill till I read this thread. I've been in the US since 1999 and have never come across one. At some point someone needs to be told about these things. Being unable to suck information out of the air is not stupidity.
It really isn't much more than once given public libraries (not to mention the internet), one should be marginally well-read. Above all this, this person was working as a cashier.
 
  • #18
franznietzsche said:
In 99% of cultures, what you call being unable to suck information out the air, would be considered stupidity. You've obviously never read the articles of anthropologists, who like you, were also unable to suck information out of thin air.

How does one suck information out of thin air?
 
  • #19
learningphysics said:
How does one suck information out of thin air?

It was your phrase, you tell me.

And besides, utter non-sequitur.
 
  • #20
franznietzsche said:
In 99% of cultures, what you call being unable to suck information out the air, would be considered stupidity. You've obviously never read the articles of anthropologists, who like you, were also unable to suck information out of thin air.

I think that's a little unfair to call stupidity. Its more of ignorance. I can see being in the US only 5 years not knowing what a $2 bill is. No one EVER uses one... and no one ever talks about em. I think I've heard them mentioned on tv 1 time ever and if i didnt get $2 from my bank for my birthday (or wlel... they use to... cheap bastards! :P), i probably wouldn't have known they existed either.

Whats really funny though is this

"as stated by Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey: "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world.""

What does this have to do with 9/11?? "What?? Someone tried to pass a fake $2 bill? Must be a terrorist buying a cd player for his next airplane hijacking!"
 
  • #21
What does this have to do with 9/11
Counterfeit money is a favorite weapon of war. We are most worried about $20 bills - the one most often counterfeited.
 
  • #22
Ivan Seeking said:
Counterfeit money is a favorite weapon of war. We are most worried about $20 bills - the one most often counterfeited.
from a 2002 article:
http://www.banktech.com/story/justThinking/BNK20020807S0001
That the United States is in the midst of a currency counterfeiting epidemic is hardly debatable. According to statistics released by the Secret Service's Counterfeit Division, roughly $48 million in phony money was put into circulation last year, compared to just under $30 million in 1996.
 
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  • #23
Pengwuino said:
I think that's a little unfair to call stupidity. Its more of ignorance. I can see being in the US only 5 years not knowing what a $2 bill is. No one EVER uses one... and no one ever talks about em. I think I've heard them mentioned on tv 1 time ever and if i didnt get $2 from my bank for my birthday (or wlel... they use to... cheap bastards! :P), i probably wouldn't have known they existed either.

Whats really funny though is this

"as stated by Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey: "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world.""

What does this have to do with 9/11?? "What?? Someone tried to pass a fake $2 bill? Must be a terrorist buying a cd player for his next airplane hijacking!"


Jesus BLoody Christ.

Has the collective average IQ plummeted lately??

You two entirely missed the point of my post. I mean not even bloody close. I want you to learn two new words: Irony, and Subtlety.

Ok. Good. Now let me explain what i meant:

franznietzsche said:
learningphysics said:
I didn't know about the $2 bill till I read this thread. I've been in the US since 1999 and have never come across one. At some point someone needs to be told about these things. Being unable to suck information out of the air is not stupidity.
In 99% of cultures, what you call being unable to suck information out the air, would be considered stupidity. You've obviously never read the articles of anthropologists, who like you, were also unable to suck information out of thin air.

I was not calling learningphysics stupid.

Now, notice my reference to articles written by anthropologists. Anthropologists, as part of their post-doc work, go and immerse themselves in a culture of interest, studying it. One common thing reported by almost all anthropologists, is that despite their PhDs (i'm sure this will come as a shock to you), they will often meet at least one person, maybe more depending on the culture in question, and the people they are dealing with, who will consider them stupid for not knowing this universally known within that culture. Its a manifestation of the ethnocentrism of the people they are studying.

See, the anthropologists could not suck the cultural knowledge of the people out of thin air, just like learningphysics could not suck knowledge about the $2 bill out of thin air.

Now, I'm sorry for assuming you would ever understand this, and from now on i think maybe i should systematically dumb down my posts, but i was making a satirical joke, about the universal ethnocentrism of people and what defines stupidity.

Don't worry though. After this I'm thoroughly convinced that i really need to dumb down my posts, so that I'm not doing this all the time dealing with people who just don't get it.
 
  • #24
I worked with brain-damaged people who would often get conned into accepting, e. g., three! of these ($1) bills for the one! ($5) bill they had.

The history of U. S. coinage includes pieces of eight, the half penny, two- and three-cent pieces, all kinds of weird colonial specie, and wooden nickles, any of which (excepting the nickles) I would gladly pay twice face value for.
 
  • #25
We are most worried about $20 bills - the one most often counterfeited.
See this just made me wonder for a second: could you even drive a profit from counterfeiting $2 bills that would appear authentic? Because I think it's slightly more expensive to print a bill then that, which is why you usually find them in much higher denominations.
I feel for the guy who got arrested in Best Buy however. I mean why would you use leg irons for someone who's not being violent? Among other things...
 
  • #26
franznietzsche said:
Now, I'm sorry for assuming you would ever understand this, and from now on i think maybe i should systematically dumb down my posts, but i was making a satirical joke, about the universal ethnocentrism of people and what defines stupidity.

Don't worry though. After this I'm thoroughly convinced that i really need to dumb down my posts, so that I'm not doing this all the time dealing with people who just don't get it.

You might want to reduce the inflation pressure on that ego while you're at it. :bugeye: Are we supposed to be able to read your mind to know just what you're talking about with regard to anthropologists and thin air?
 
  • #27
Andromeda321 said:
See this just made me wonder for a second: could you even drive a profit from counterfeiting $2 bills that would appear authentic? Because I think it's slightly more expensive to print a bill then that, which is why you usually find them in much higher denominations.
I feel for the guy who got arrested in Best Buy however. I mean why would you use leg irons for someone who's not being violent? Among other things...

Yeah, if you're going to counterfeit strange denominations of money, go for the $40 bill! :bugeye:

http://www.thedailytimes.com/sited/story/html/202773
An employee at Food City, 131 N. Hall Road, Alcoa, reported at 2:38 p.m. Monday that two counterfeit $40 bills were passed at the store and discovered later.

Sad, the poor guy with a $2 bill gets arrested, yet somehow, someone manages to pass $40 bills without anybody noticing! :cry:
 
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  • #28
I forgot to mention - Best Buy assumes and treats all of their customers as thieves. Meanwhile the employees are carting subwoofers out the back door...
 
  • #29
hypermorphism said:
It really isn't much more than once given public libraries (not to mention the internet), one should be marginally well-read. Above all this, this person was working as a cashier.
I'm not sure what's more entertaining. The cashier that doesn't know what a two dollar bill is or the idea that a person working as a cashier would know something about currency. ;-p
 
  • #30
Now, I'm sorry for assuming you would ever understand this, and from now on i think maybe i should systematically dumb down my posts, but i was making a satirical joke, about the universal ethnocentrism of people and what defines stupidity.

yeah dude, you probably better dumb down your big fancy lingo, so us po' country folk kin git the gist of what you be towlkin' about. But really though, don't get mad at other people because they can't connect your widely spaced dots.
 

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