Funny money? Tips to detect fake US bills
FEEL THE PAPER, tilt the note and check it with a good light. That’s the recommendation currency expert Michael Lambert offers to people who want to check if their US banknotes are fake or genuine.
Lambert, the associate director leading the banknotes division of the Federal Reserve in Washington DC, was in Bangkok recently to run the Currency Education Programme to inform regional law enforcement officials about US currency, including designs currently in circulation, security features and how to detect counterfeits.
“First, feel the paper, run your finger over it. The banknotes should feel slightly rough to the touch,” he told a press briefing. People should ask themselves whether bills feel overly soft or stiff, or are thicker or thinner than usual, he added.
Second, he advised, tilt the note. If a person is unsure if the note is genuine, subtly tilt it back and forth and observe the colour-shifting ink, which is found on denominations of US$10 bills and higher.
The newest edition of the $100 note includes two additional security features you can check by tilting the note: a 3D security ribbon and a colour-shifting feature known as the “bell in the ink well”, a graphic at the bottom of the bill.
The last method recommended is to check the bill by holding it to the light – the watermark and security thread should be distinctly visible.
Lambert said more information and an online training module are available at uscurrency.gov.
As the newest bills show, the US has already implemented complex new security features but authorities are aware that security features should be easy to verify in just a few seconds to be useful in authentication. If the verification process is too complicated, people will tend not to bother.
About $5 million (Bt142.8 million) worth of counterfeit bills was seized in the country in 2014, which may seem a lot to the community, Lambert said, but it was relatively insignificant when compared to the $1.4 billion in US bills that were circulated.
Switching to the topic of Thai banknotes, Lambert said rates of counterfeiting were quite low. “The new series of Thai banknotes I saw last year is wonderful because of good integration of security features into the new design,” he said.
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