Counterfeit money is creating havoc for merchants

When the merchant deposits a fake bill the bank will find the fake money and alert them. The merchant then suffers the loss on the money. More and more merchants are discovering that counterfeit money is hard to detect. The bad economy is causing a big rise in the number of counterfeit bills circulated. The bills are harder to detect because counterfeiters are learning new methods to disguise fakes. The pen detectors are now obsolete. Counterfeiters are washing bills and then reprinting higher denominations on the blank government paper, this makes the counterfeit pens useless because they work by detecting the chemicals in the government paper. Also counterfeiters are using chemicals such as fabric softeners to fool the counterfeit pens. Now the only foolproof method of identifying counterfeit bills are with an electronic infra-red detectors such as the C-3300 counterfeit detector . The detector should be installed next to each point of sale station and every bill $20 or larger should be checked at the time of the sale. If a fake bill is detected it should be refused and authorities should be alerted.

Federal Reserve Announces Delay in the Issue Date of Redesigned $100 bills

The Federal Reserve Board announced a delay in the issue date of the redesigned $100 note. This new design incorporates cutting edge, anti-counterfeiting technologies and the Federal Reserve imposes strict quality controls to ensure that users of U.S. currency around the world receive the highest quality notes. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing manufactures Federal Reserve notes and has identified a problem with sporadic creasing of the paper during printing of the new $100 note, which was not apparent during extensive pre-production testing. As a consequence, the Federal Reserve will not have sufficient inventories to begin distributing the new $100 notes as planned. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing is working to resolve this problem, and the Federal Reserve Board will announce a new issue date for the redesigned $100 note as soon as possible. The originally scheduled issue date was February 10, 2011.