Counterfeit $20 bill turned in to MOPD
By Catharin Shepard
Published in News on September 25, 2009 1:46 PM
A Goldsboro resident attempting to pay Thursday for a meal at Huddle House in Goldsboro was in for a surprise when he handed the cashier a $20 bill.
The bill was a fake, the Huddle House worker told the customer.
Peter Barden reported the problem to police and turned in a police report, and then gave the counterfeit money to Officer Eddie Sasser of the Mount Olive Police Department.
Barden told the police that the day before the incident, he put change in the Coin Star machine in the Mount Olive Piggly Wiggly and received the $20 bill in exchange from a store cashier.
Coin Star machines allow customers to pour in coins and trade the change for bills at checkout counters. The automated coin counters are often located in grocery stores and similar venues, according to the company Web site.
"(Barden) thought he might have gotten it from the Piggly Wiggly," said Mount Olive Chief of Police Ralph Schroeder, but added that Barden reported he wasn't completely sure where the fake bill came from.
This is the first time in recent weeks that there have been any reported cases of counterfeit money, Schroeder said, and the discovery of the fake $20 is not currently believed to be linked to any other counterfeit money.
"It wasn't that there were a bunch of them floating around," he said.
While there have been no recent cases of counterfeit money reported, the Mount Olive Wal-Mart on N.C. Highway 55 West reported April 28 that a customer passed a store clerk a $100 counterfeit bill. Prior to that, an employee of the Mount Olive Piggly Wiggly on North Breazeale Avenue reported Feb. 6 that she discovered a counterfeit $10 bill at the store.