Woman awarded $3.1 million after Target rejects her $100 bills

She went shopping at two Target locations and both times tried to pay with a $100 bill, which was an older, 1974 series bill. A Target loss-prevention employee emailed an image of woman and ID'd her as a suspected shoplifter along with warning that she had tried to pass a counterfeit bill. The e-mail led the Secret Service to question her, but agents cleared her after reviewing the bill. (Greeneville Online)

Comments

[stopeatingmysesamecake]

I read an account (I don't know if it was true) about a clueless youngin and not too bright manager calling security on a person trying to pay for fast food with a $2 bill. I think there are plenty of people who don't know they exist.

Which doesn't excuse this story - you'd thinksomeon specializing in loss prevention would be aware currency was printed before the year 2000.

Ever get ahold of a bicentennial dollar coin? I hate it when some asscoin passes one off to me. For some reason I don't shove it back at them and make them give me a bill. Actually, I read once that due to the life of a dollar bill being about 14 months or something like that, we would save a bunch of $s switching to dollar coins.

[Kelly]

In 1997, I tried to buy a cheeseburger at a McDonald's in Virginia Beach with some Susan B. Anthony dollars and the teller wouldn't accept them. I had her get the manager, who also didn't know what they were - idiots. I left and went to Burger King. Apparently, they has smarter people working there because I got my cheeseburger.

[stopeatingmysesamecake]

Although I will add if anyone wants to email my picture anywhere and accuse me of being a shoplifter, and even have the Treasury Department crawl up my azz with a magnifying glass - if you give me $3.1 mil afterward - I'll be fine with that.

[David]

I applaud the jury giving 3.1 million and wish it had been more.

Who the hell does the store think it is sending out emails accusing people of being "suspected shoplifters"?

I'm sure if there was someone passing out flyers stating that Target was suspected of bait and switch and price gouging that Target would be pursuing punitive damages and think they were well within their rights to do so.

[Farmer Bob and the City]

Where I can I get some of those $100 bills and where's the nearest Target?

[troschne]

I wonder what would have happened if she had already spent the bill someplace else, before the Secret Service caught up with her.

[R]

I need to check some of those old bills I saved like those old siler certificates. Man, I could use some of that coin. I don't blame her for suing though. They need to train the cashiers better, include the managers and loss prevention jerks...

[Kee]

$3.1m?! You've got to be kidding me!! While I don't agree the store was right for emailing local businesses, I can see where they might think they were looking out for their business partners in doing so. And they certainly were correct for contacting law enforcement.

[Joe]

Ok, $3.1 Million is straight up ridiculous.

However, there are so many cases of stupid people handling money and having no clue whatsoever. I one time tried to get something at the dollar store and paid with a Susan B Anthony dollar. They told me I was 75 cents short. I suppose karma bit them in the ass because every once and a while i'd get them in my change when i shopped there. Fools.

Also, I remember one time my dad was trying to buy stamps from a post office vending machine after hours, and it wouldn't recognize the (then) semi-new ten dollar bills. Honestly, you'd think the government machines would be the first to be upgraded to accept new money.

And then there was a hilarious account in our local paper of a Taco Bell employee who gave change for a "300 dollar bill".

[stopeatingmysesamecake]

----
I wonder what would have happened if she had already spent the bill someplace else, before the Secret Service caught up with her.
----

That's a good point. I would guess they would have given her more grief by investigating further, but in the end realized that she is not part of a counterfieting ring.

[Obadiah Slope]

Two-hundred dollar bill accepted at store:

http://web.archive.org/web/20040902072028/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5890269/

[Justin]

Silver Certs aren't legal tender anymore if I remember correctly, I have one as well. I don't think anyone has to accept them. And I already knew the people employed at Target were idiots.

[Justin]

Actually I could be wrong about silver certificates, it might just be that you can't get silver for them anymore.

This is a pure case of why the Jury system in this country for civil trials is worthless. Yes she may have been wronged but not 3 million worth. It will get thrown out or reduced dramitcally by a judge. Remember that lady that spilled coffee from Mcdonalds and burned her leg, then a jury awarded about the same amount. In the appeals process she got one dollar. But most people didn't follow up on that one.

[ReginaFilangee]

Actually, the McDonald's woman got substantially more than a dollar. Rightfully so, since the coffee was SO hot that it caused her to slough some of the burned tissue and be forced to have surgery in a rather delicate, sensitive area of her groin.

[outofsalt]

I don't know. If someone accused me of being a criminal, sent emails with my photo to law enforcement agencies, I'd hope that I'd have legal recourse like this. Goodness knows, if they only had to pay something like $5k or even $50k, Target bigwigs would just shrug.

[clare]

millions of dollars would be the only way to slap silly stores into some sort of sensibility. they're lucky they got off with that much for accusing this woman of being a criminal. people forget innocent until proven guilty. this @$$ considered himself judge, jury and executioner. i hope he was fired.

[David]

They should be paying the salaries of the secret service agents too. Geez, where does Target hire their "loss prevention people from? Wal mart?

[lester]

target doesn't think they did anything wrong. that's why the jury gave her so much money. if they fired the employee that posted her picture and apologised, they probably would have been okay.

[Heath]

Okay, so I agree that the woman was wronged, but 3.1 mil seems a bit excessive. This is one of the fundamental problems with our legal system: The punishments rarely fit the crime, and the settlement rarely fits the infraction.

[Zimbabalouie]

While some of you are thinking right others need a little knowledge. In a civil suit the jury once finding for a plaintif can and often do award punitive damages. These are amounts calculated to appropriately punish the offending party or corporation. When you hear the amount those punished often lead you to believe that such an award is eccessive, as Target is doing here or McDonalds did in the New Mexico coffee case.

What you don't know will not only hurt you but, will hurt other Americans if coporations can simply out litigate you at no substantial cost to them. What would be the incentive to change or stop causing harm if you could litigate damages as a part of daily business operating expense's?

Look back in the 80's at the McDonald case where the woman was burned by "hot coffee" she won a civil damage award of just over 400k dollars but, the jury also awarded her 86 million in a punitive award. Ooh McDonalds screamed in the media loudly claiming it was an eccessive amount and that the jury was off of their twelve collective rockers.

Well the truth is the jury when they decided to award the punitive damages they simply said that McDonalds should pay the sum of one days profit on coffee sales in the United States. This was not eccessive and was upheld on appeal. They did not know how much the sum would be, they only knew that it would punish the coporation for ignoring their own internal scientific evidence that their choice to sell coffee brewed at 170 degrees was dangerous and would result in injuries.

The coporation sided with "the hotter the brew, the better the taste" crowd and they placed profits over consumer protection inspite of their own internal studies suggesting severe burn injuries would occur as a result.

So is the award then or now eccessive? You decide. However there is alwyas more to a story than we get to know.

[Soo]

My mom manages a "family travel center" which to you and me is an oversize trucks top with a sandwich counter and a lot of crap to buy. She gets people (mostly teens and young adults) coming in with all kinds of "weird money" to pay for gas.

She assumes the kids are raiding their parents' or grandparents' hoard of "collectible" money.

Anyhoo, "legal tender" is legal tender. If it's printed by the US mint, it's legal, even if it's outdated. There are collectible dollar coins sold in the US market, and although the ads claim they are legal tender, they are not legal tender in the US because they were not printed by our mint.

The thing is, if you use a $10 silver certificate bill, printed in the 1930s and in excellent condition, all you get is $10 in merchandise. That same bill could fetch more, if you found the right collector market. On the other hand, you can't spend CSA dollars or dollar coins that say "legal tender" but minted in Liberia (or anywhere else outside the US).

Over the years, my mom has had to rent bigger and bigger safe-deposit boxes because of all the unusual bills and coins she's accepted and exchanged before making her deposits.

Why? Because "outdated" money gets returned to the mint for destruction, even $2 bills, which were only printed in 1976 in commemoration of our bicentennial.

Also, switching to dollar coins would save the taxpayer a truckload of money as well as dropping the penny. I have British pound coins from the 1980s, but I rarely come across a US dollar that's more than 5 years old. Not having to reprint money every year would be fantastic. And it costs more than one penny to mint a new penny, so making pennies is kinda like negative equity for taxpayers.

[Azrael Brown]

Soo: The $2 bills have been reprinted and available at banks for thirty years -- the last run was done in 2003 or so. That said, a friend here in Fargo once found a Euro two-cent coin in a 'take a penny, leave a penny' bowl at a gas station. And, in other news, when my daughter took her piggy bank to the bank years ago, the teller came back from the coin counter machine with a handful of Sacagawea dollars, and wanted to make sure I wanted them deposited. Who uses cash anymore? It confuses people to force them to understand the value of things purchased according to the money used to buy it. I'm sure it has nothing to do with our recent economic woes, too.

[Soo]

A lot of people hoarded the Sacagawea dollars, thinking it was a promotional thing.

I didn't know they had reprinted the $2 note. All of mine are from '76. Interesting. I'll have to head to the bank and get some more. Nothing like having a more-complete collection.

[HeyJohnWhatsYourNameAgain]

He was jealous because he only makes $7.02 an hour mopping up lung butter in the food court

[Gina]

My great-grandparents did not believe in banks, so they kept all their money in shoeboxes in their house. My great-grandma died earlier this year and we had to clean out her house, finding over $10,000 in money ranging anywhere from the 60's to present. My cousins and I divided it up amongst ourselves, with my grandmother's permission (great-grandma's daughter). I deposited most of it in the bank but kept a few $5 bills for spending money. Everywhere I went, they tried to tell me they were counterfeit, until I pointed out the date & that they were printed BEFORE the pens were invented to check if they were real. The manager at one store told the cashier to accept the bill finally but it was quite a hassle.

[thetruth]

Quite sure that Target could have settled out of court with this woman, but instead chose to go to court.......so sssoorrrrryyyy greedy Target big-wigs, now pay the Piper!

[MONKEY JERK]

SHE DESERVED EVERY PENNY

[mel]

semsc
For some reason I don't shove it back at them and make them give me a bill.

Moneys money
And if I was the cashier i'd shove it back and make you take it.

[twerp]

What's "lung butter?"

I'd be pissed if there were emails circulating that I was a shoplifter. Kudos to this lady winning the lawsuit. She deserves it.

[jj]

what a clusterf*ck.....sorry, but $50,000 would have been plenty..as a matter of fact...give me $50,000 and I will gladly pose for photos you can send to stores saying I am a suspected shoplifter....oh, and FIRE the f'in idiots that work at Target that started this....case closed.

Oh...and Soo, I have a 2003 $2 bill in my pocket right now.

[jj]

to all the people that are thrilled for this woman's settelment....care to take a guess at where the money will come from?..duh....your $20 tops and $9 DVD's at Target will now be $23 and $11.....don't complain about it.

[Dances With Books]

Heck, you can't even get a lot of places to take the more recent dollar coins (the ones they are making with the presidents on them). A friend of mine works in one of those fast food places, and she certainly likes when people bring dollar coins. She simply buys them off afterwards. Kelly would certainly get her food at my friend's place just fine. Actually, according to my friend, people who pay with dollar coins so on are usually scraping the bottom of the barrel (i.e. using the change under the couch cushions kind of thing).

But seriously, outside of getting dollar coins as change from Post Office vending machines, where do you see those coins circulate?

[merkin4]

I used to work a fireworks booth in a small town leading up to the 4th of July each year. We'd get all sorts of cool bills, silver certificates, silver coins, 1800s coins, you name it. Same thing with a lot of 7-11 type stores - kids raid Mom's old money jar and have no idea that the silver quarters are worth three to ten bucks at a local coin shop. I once went into a gas stations and was given a Franklin half-dollar coins in change I asked if they had any more and ended up getting $22.50 in brilliant mint uncirculated condition silver coins from pre-1964. Got over $400 at a coin shop for them just three hours later. It had probably been a complete set, but the cashier had been giving them out as change to anyone willing to take them for about an hour before I got there.

[queeriMum]

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