Use $2 bills, Go to jail

[jimmy no nose 0]

So awesome.

 

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=43685

A man trying to pay a fee using $2 bills was arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail after clerks at a Best Buy store questioned the currency's legitimacy and called police.

 

According to an account in the Baltimore Sun, 57-year-old Mike Bolesta was shocked to find himself taken to the Baltimore County lockup in Cockeysville, Md., where he was handcuffed to a pole for three hours while the U.S. Secret Service was called to weigh in on the case.

 

 

Bolesta told the Sun: "I am 6 feet 5 inches tall, and I felt like 8 inches high. To be handcuffed, to have all those people looking on, to be cuffed to a pole – and to know you haven't done anything wrong. And me, with a brother, Joe, who spent 33 years on the city police force. It was humiliating."

 

After Best Buy personnel reportedly told Bolesta he would not be charged for the installation of a stereo in his son's car, he received a call from the store saying it was in fact charging him the fee. As a means of protest, Bolesta decided to pay the $114 bill using 57 crisp, new $2 bills.

 

As the owner of Capital City Student Tours, the Baltimore resident has a hearty supply of the uncommon currency. He often gives the bills to students who take his tours for meal money.

 

"The kids don't see that many $2 bills, so they think this is the greatest thing in the world," Bolesta says. "They don't want to spend 'em. They want to save 'em. I've been doing this since I started the company. So I'm thinking, 'I'll stage my little comic protest. I'll pay the $114 with $2 bills.'"

 

Bolesta explained what happened when he presented the bills to the cashier at Best Buy Feb. 20.

 

"She looked at the $2 bills and told me, 'I don't have to take these if I don't want to.' I said, 'If you don't, I'm leaving. I've tried to pay my bill twice. You don't want these bills, you can sue me.' So she took the money – like she's doing me a favor."

 

Bolesta says the cashier marked each bill with a pen. Other store employees began to gather, a few of them asking, "Are these real?"

 

"Of course they are," Bolesta said. "They're legal tender."

 

According to the Sun report, the police arrest report noted one employee noticed some smearing of ink on the bills. That's when the cops were called. One officer reportedly noticed the bills ran in sequential order.

 

Said Bolesta: "I told them, 'I'm a tour operator. I've got thousands of these bills. I get them from my bank. You got a problem, call the bank.' I'm sitting there in a chair. The store's full of people watching this. All of a sudden, he's standing me up and handcuffing me behind my back, telling me, 'We have to do this until we get it straightened out.'

 

"Meanwhile, everybody's looking at me. I've lived here 18 years. I'm hoping my kids don't walk in and see this. And I'm saying, 'I can't believe you're doing this. I'm paying with legal American money.'"

 

Bolesta was taken to the lockup, where he sat handcuffed to a pole and in leg irons while the Secret Service was called.

 

"At this point," he says, "I'm a mass murderer."

 

Secret Service agent Leigh Turner eventually arrived and declared the bills legitimate, adding, according to the police report, "Sometimes ink on money can smear."

 

Commenting on the incident, Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey told the Sun: "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."

[Nighthawk 0]

I've also tried to spend $2 bills and been told they were fake before, at a video store. Also happened with sacajawea dollars at Taco Bell.

[Hank Kingsley 0]

I keep a $2 and a Sacajawea in my wallet. It's a thing.

[jimmy no nose 0]

The only time I ever had a $2 I spent it at KFC or some other fast food place and the guy working there was really excited about it and kept it for himself and put 2 1s in the register from his pocket. I have had a convenience store worker not believe a Sacajaweah dollar was really a dollar, but he asked the manager and they took it.

 

I wonder what kind of money the guy is going to get when he inevitably sues over this.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

And those CSRs didn't bother to call a manager?

 

Some months ago there was this idiot in the Pittsburgh area (I think it was at a Jo-Ann Fabrics store) that accepted a fake paper currency that had George W. Bush on the front.

 

I think this guy's lawyer is going to get him one hell of a Reward Zone card...

[NYU 0]

Commenting on the incident, Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey told the Sun: "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."

 

True. Those $2 bills really are a menace to society.

[Damaramu 0]

Well I thought his form of protest was funny. I love doing stuff like that to people that are dicks.

Like at the movies one time where this guy told me that there card reader was broken and then in the snottiest voice possible he told me that I should use an ATM and get out of line. So I went home and got 7.50 worth of dimes and pennies.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

*shreds all of his counterfeit $2 bills*

 

damn, there goes my master plan!

 

*goes to work on reassembling shredded bills from the mint gift shop*

[Styles 0]

$2 bills are awesome for horse racing, where $2 is usually the minimum bet. When I went with my dad he got a whole bunch of them from the bank for us to use, and the clerk at the pay window would give me looks and make comments like "where did you get all these from?" every time I placed a bet. The government needs to bring the $2 bill back into regular circulation. It just makes sense, and it's stupid that so many people don't think they're legitimate....

[Jingus 0]

With inflation, gas costs, etc, might as well reintroduce the $2 bill. Why not? After all, contemporary innovation did work so well with those gold dollar coins...

[Ced 0]

My workplace breakroom has a change machine that dispenses dollar coins. I get change for a twenty on payday then go out and confuse various cashiers with them.

[LessonInMachismo 0]

My workplace breakroom has a change machine that dispenses dollar coins. I get change for a twenty on payday then go out and confuse various cashiers with them.

Mine too. Don't they teach these morons who jockey cash registers anything? When I worked at Target the first time from '93-'94, one time this lady gave me some kind of Canadian coin for a quarter and I wouldn't accept it. She was a snotty cunt about it, so I pulled out the binder that each register had and showed her the pic and exchange rate. She got pissed, I called the CSM, who agreed and was adamant about it, so then Loss Prevention came out and told the lady that I would have been fired if I had taken it. The lady got pissed and left. Now that was okay...we don't need worthless hippie money soiling our own...

 

On Best Buy...fuck them. They are getting shittier and shittier. I have been buying most of my stuff from via the internet or Circuit City. Best Buy actually said last year that one of their goals is to be less customer friendly.

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=printable

[Damaramu 0]

My workplace breakroom has a change machine that dispenses dollar coins. I get change for a twenty on payday then go out and confuse various cashiers with them.

My dad borrowed 500 dollars from my uncle one time. To repay him he went to the bank and got 500 bucks worth of gold coins and gave it to him in a large burlap sack. It was kind of funny.

[Damaramu 0]

*double post*

[elite 0]

My workplace breakroom has a change machine that dispenses dollar coins. I get change for a twenty on payday then go out and confuse various cashiers with them.

Mine too. Don't they teach these morons who jockey cash registers anything? When I worked at Target the first time from '93-'94, one time this lady gave me some kind of Canadian coin for a quarter and I wouldn't accept it. She was a snotty cunt about it, so I pulled out the binder that each register had and showed her the pic and exchange rate. She got pissed, I called the CSM, who agreed and was adamant about it, so then Loss Prevention came out and told the lady that I would have been fired if I had taken it. The lady got pissed and left. Now that was okay...we don't need worthless hippie money soiling our own...

 

On Best Buy...fuck them. They are getting shittier and shittier. I have been buying most of my stuff from via the internet or Circuit City. Best Buy actually said last year that one of their goals is to be less customer friendly.

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=printable

There is no exchange rate on coins valued under a dollar.

[The Czech Republic 0]

COIN-PWNED

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

When I worked at Target the first time from '93-'94...

Most places I worked at (and believe me there have been many) would have just said "f" it and accepted the hippie money.

 

With inflation, gas costs, etc, might as well reintroduce the $2 bill. Why not? After all, contemporary innovation did work so well with those gold dollar coins

 

Perhaps if we put some hippie Indian on it they'll give the $2 another go...

[Ced 0]

My dad borrowed 500 dollars from my uncle one time. To repay him he went to the bank and got 500 bucks worth of gold coins and gave it to him in a large burlap sack. It was kind of funny.

You just gave me a more nefarious idea than my 30 Dollar Punch.

[{''({o..o})''} 0]

Something similar, my family has a little secret santa gift exchange with the price limit set at $25. I picked my brother's name out of the hat, with whom we've made it a goal to make these presents difficult to open. I picked up a bag of concrete and got $20 of pennies from the bank. I won the contest that year. He ended up just going with the flow and put the top of a bird bath on it the next spring.

[Carnival 0]

Commenting on the incident, Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey told the Sun: "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."

 

True. Those $2 bills really are a menace to society.

Nice excuse Bill. Thats the dumbest thing i've heard in a long time.

[Matt Young 0]

The Sacajawea dollar must be very common. I have 5 right here, all of which were minted in 2000 (was that the only year they were produced?).

 

I got them all as change when I bought my Metrolink ticket (what a farce, they don't even check for tix) at Union Station in Los Angeles. I had never received one before, but I officially hate them- just as I hate Canadian $1 and $2 currency- because I have a tendency to lose change from my pockets. I much prefer paper money.

[LessonInMachismo 0]

There is no exchange rate on coins valued under a dollar.

I guess the binder was a figment of my imagination...

 

I don't think the point of the book was to figure out how much somebody could get for a coin, it was to show how many equal one dollar. Besides that, I don't even know why we had the binders, since we didn't accept Canadian currency, anyways. Target is one fucked up place to not only shop, but to also work.

[elite 0]

I'm sure you didn't hallucinate the big binder of Target knowledge. It's just, if you take 4 Canadian quarters into an American bank, you're still only leaving with a dollar. That's the rules of exchange or something. I guess Target just makes up its own rules. How fun.

[AndrewTS 0]

"There is no exchange rate on coins valued under a dollar."

 

ASAIK, not in the US, but surprisingly, in a Canadian arcade they'd give not take them the same.

 

But the games were more expensive overall, anyway.

 

The Post Office sometimes gives me change in Susan B's, but I give 'em back to them anyway.

[Slayer 0]

When I first arrived in Toronto for a vacation back in '02, the exchange place refused to change out my US coinage, saying "People here will just take your American coins. No issue there."

 

I pointed out that that doesn't benefit me at all, because if I gave someone a dollar in American quarters, I'd be undercutting myself by 60 Canadian cents (at the time), so I just left all my American change in my hotel room for the remainder of my trip. Of course, on the same note, since banks down here don't exchange coins, I still have a bag with $2.50 of Canadian coinage in my sock drawer as a "souvenir" of my trip.

[Matt Young 0]

I still have two Candian $10 bills and some coins somewhere since no place in Illinois would exchange them. All the places labeled "currency exchanges" were only check-into-cash places.

 

There's a currency exchange in the Ontario Mills mall in Ontario, CA, (ironic since my Canadian money's from Toronto, ON) that I want to check out, but I'll have to locate a number since I don't want to take a 45 minute trip only to find that the bastards only trade USD for pesos.

[JJMc 0]

At the gas station I work at, last summer some guy paid me with two brand new $2 bills dated 2003. I thought this was a little strange since I didn't think they made them anymore, at least not that recently. So I go inside and hold them up to a regular $1 bill to find that they were about half an inch longer than normal currency. ??, whatever.