Seller Beware

When Cinda Baxter, owner of Details Inc., Minneapolis, accepted rolled dollar coins in payment for an expensive pen, she could only hope they were genuine U.S. currency — because she wasn't prepared to inspect them.

"As retailers, we have a pathetic lack of information," she notes. "Yet other than bank tellers and casino personnel, who handles more cash on a daily basis than retailers? You'd think our banks would find ways to communicate with us about these things."

But banks are not forthcoming, even as the amount of counterfeit money in circulation increases. However, the U.S. Treasury Department's Secret Service, the unit responsible for tracking counterfeit notes, is stepping up to the task, using its website — www.secretservice.gov/money — to inform and educate the public.

According to a spokesman for the Secret Service, there were about $55 million in fraudulent bills, along with the $753 billion in genuine notes, in circulation as of September 2006. And although the overall instance of phony money isn't staggering (about one note in 10,000 is a fake, the Secret Service reports), new technology is not only facilitating the counterfeiting process, but expediting it as well. Whereas once a master engraver had to meticulously duplicate the details of a note, today's printers and color ink make it possible for even unskilled counterfeiters to produce high-resolution color reproductions. With sophisticated scanner/copier combinations users can reproduce currency by simply "copying" a bill.

In recent months, bogus bills — especially in the $20 and $100 denominations — have been uncovered from Alaska to Arizona, and from Wisconsin to Massachusetts. Coins, including the $1 Sacagawea, are subject to forgery as well.

To help counter the technological advances that make counterfeiting easier, the U.S. Mint introduced new paper currency with subtle green, peach and blue coloring throughout the bills. Nonetheless, printer technology continues to keep pace with changes made at the U.S. Mint.

Indeed, learning how to recognize a bogus bill is a business task retailers may want to consider mastering. When fakes go undetected, the cost can be as burdensome as getting stuck with counterfeit products, because there is no reimbursement for counterfeit money.

There are, however, tools available to help identify counterfeit currency.

One of the easiest ways to identify bad money is by marking it with special pens, costing as little as $3. Make a slash mark on a suspect bill, and if the bill is good the ink turns yellow; if it's bad, the mark turns black or brown. The simplest of these pens are available under brand names such as MMF Industries, Dri-Mark and Smart Money; find them at office supply stores, including Office Depot and Staples, as well as online.

More refined pens are available online for $19 from various suppliers, including ABC Office and OfficeZone. These pens test other properties of the bill in question. One type, the MD-600, examines the magnetic properties of bills; if the note is phony, a buzzer automatically goes off. A second type of counterfeit-detecting pen, the MD-630, reveals hidden visual properties of authentic bills using an infrared sensor.

More sophisticated detectors, which can be used to scan every suspect note, are also available. For $30, retailers can purchase a scanner that uses both ultraviolet and watermark detection to document authenticity. On the high-end, there are devices such as a Superscanner ($550) that displays the denomination of every bill not verified, as well as the total number of notes checked and the total dollar value of all genuine notes.

Although it represents a lot of effort for rather small returns, counterfeiters do attempt to produce and pass fake coins. Most are made by pouring liquid metal into molds or dies, a procedure that often leaves inconsistencies such as cracks or a pimple of metal on the coinage, according to the Secret Service.

Moreover, if a coin is worth more than five cents — except for the Sacagawea dollar — it should have corrugated outer edges, often referred to as "reeding." The reeding must be even and distinct. If it's uneven or crooked, reject it, suggests the Service.

When she was handed that fistful of rolled coins, Baxter — a member of the Gift and Home Trade Association retail board of advisors — took the time to open each roll to check for "slugs." But since she didn't have information about how to spot counterfeits, she benefited from some luck. As it turned out, the dollars she received as payment for an expensive pen were genuine U.S. mint-produced coins.

And that luck was worth its weight in gold — or at least worth its weight in Federal Reserve notes.

For more on "The World's (Other) Oldest Profession," go to giftsanddec.com and click on GDA Interactive under the Topics section.