Funny money no laughing matter

Stephanie Sherr
Business Reporter

Humber’s North Campus bookstore will no longer accept traveller’s cheques, after cashing $300 in counterfeits.
“We just got verification from the bank that we received counterfeit traveller’s cheques,” said bookstore manager Debby Martin.

Martin said that the primary reason behind the decision is the difficulty in detecting this type of forged currency. Without easily recognizable security features or special markings that can be detected by the store’s ultraviolet light scanner, staff cannot distinguish fake cheques from real ones.

“We did check,” said bookstore employee Kiran Aslam. “But sometimes if there was a line up, it was hard to figure out.”

“At least with the bills,” Martin said, “we’ve got the information from the police on what you’re supposed to look for to detect counterfeiting. But a traveller’s cheque looks like a traveller’s cheque. It’s just got Visa or American Express on it.”

According to police documents provided to the bookstore, one can detect an authentic $20, $50 or $100 bill by looking for particular security features. These include a gold-green colour change patch on the top left-hand corner of the currency which cannot be peeled off, small green dots called watermarks that appear randomly on both sides of the note and can be removed if scratched, thicker raised ink used on numerals, portraits, parliament buildings and the coat of arms, and portrait details such as concentric circles within the eyes and fine lines in the hair and face.

Although most of the food locales on campus are equipped with counterfeit currency detectors, Humber’s food services manager Don Henriques said staff is trained to detect fake bills without them.

“We’ve come across occasional counterfeit bills and they’re very good,” Henriques said. “But for the most part, we catch them before they go through, more so from the training of our staff as opposed to the use of the machine.

“What happens with the glow machine,” he said, “is it just focuses on putting the money under and looking to see if there are watermarks showing. But, the counterfeit bills that have the chemical on there that glows will get through and our staff wouldn’t even think about it. But, if they’re trained for the feel and the look (of the bills) then it’s easier for them to pick up.”

“For us it’s not a huge problem. Over the course of a year we may have maybe, sixty dollars in counterfeit money get by our staff,” Henriques said.