Walmart shopper tries to use $1 million bill

Images One-Million-Dollars

A gentleman from Lexington, North Carolina was arrested for trying to pay for his purchases at Walmart with a $1 million bill. (No report whether it's a Reagan bill as seen above, Statue of Liberty, Grover Cleveland, Santa Claus, or any of the other bogus $1 million bills in circulation that I posted about in 2007.) From the Winston-Salem Journal:

Michael Anthony Fuller, 53, of 3 Parker St., walked into the Walmart on Lowes Boulevard in Lexington on Nov. 17. He shopped for a while, picking up a vacuum cleaner, a microwave oven and other merchandise, totaling $476, an arrest warrant says.
When he got to the register, Fuller gave the cashier the phony bill, saying that it was real.
Store staff called police.
Fuller was later charged with attempting to obtain property by false pretense and uttering a forged instrument, both felonies, court records show.

"Lexington man charged with making a fake $1 million bill and trying to spend it"

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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Locobot

What a horribly written article. There’s either mental illness or a sever lack of a sense of humor involved with one or more of the parties here.
- Bubba73
  
  Someone’s sense of humour has certainly been severed.
- frifrofrizzum
  
  The only thing that should be “sever-ed” is the stem from your brain. Imagine working at a restaurant and the party you’re waiting on pays in cash. If you went back to collect the money a little too late (after they had left) for both dinner/tip and saw this bill, I’m sure you’d want those crooks to get what they deserved.
voiceinthedistance

“Uttering a forged instrument”?

That’s what they nailed Kenny G for, isn’t it?
http://www.mynameisjay.com/ Jay

I think he was either trying to be funny.. or has some kind of mental disability. Either way I doubt he would have put up a big fight if the cashier refused to accept his fake payment. Seems everyone overreacted big time.
m1kesa1m0ns

I have an uncle who is the undeclared King of Bad Jokes who does exactly this sort of thing. I could totally see him walking up with stuff he fully intended to buy, whip a $1m bill out, and say cheerfully, “Ever seen one of these?” After he got his jollies he’d pay for it with real cash.

It’s tempting to think it was just a bad joke, but it was $500 worth of stuff at a WalMart, so all bets are off. You can’t assume an intact sense of humor, or sense of reality for that matter.
CSBD

Reasonable Man Standard must be applied here…

Is it reasonable to believe that Walmart employee ever fall for the old $1million bill gag?
Is it reasonable to believe that a counterfeiter believe that a Walmart has change for $1million? Do you how much that weighs in $5,s 10s, and 20s?

I remember reading that in many Walmarts, the cashiers are ignorant enough to call the police if you attempt to use a $2bill that is legal tender. If they won’t believe a $2 bill is real, why would anyone think that a $1million is going to work?

Finally, the guy should be let off for the Stone Cold Steve Austin 3:16 reference in the serial number.

The only thing more awesome would have been “Legal Tender, How does That Work” as a motto.
- Halloween Jack
  
  I don’t know about Wal-Mart, but Best Buy sure did.
http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Warren

His bail was $17,500 – I wonder how he paid that.

As for the $1mln bill in the first place, I’d believe it was a joke if he was dressed as Dr. Evil. As it is, the whole thing seems tragically like a case of the stupid failing to dupe the subpar.
- Work_Watch_Buy_Repeat
  
  He probably paid it in the only way most Americans can: by paying a bail-bond agency a non-refundable 10% fee to post bail for him. $1,750 cash straight into the bail-bondsman’s pocket.
  
  Actually, if he’s truly like *most* Americans, he doesn’t have $1,750 in cash lying around, so he has to resign himself to a few weeks (or months) of pre-trial confinement.
  
  The economically tiered “justice” system in America is a disgrace.
  - http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Warren
    
    Nah. I think he just printed off a $17,500 bill and handed it to the desk sergeant.
Antinous / Moderator

Since I never take my reading glasses when I go out, I could easily accept and try to pass on a $1,000,000 bill. It’s just a blur.
jimkirk

It only has to work once…
t3kna2007

Mark Twain would advise simply making it known that one possesses it, then grinning confidently and waiting for others to draw their own conclusions. That, and not shopping at an international big-box retailer.
i_prefer_yeti

To be a big tipper, give a Gipper!
Mujokan

I dunno, he looks pretty normal.
http://www.lexingtonnc.net/p2c/arrests.aspx
Teller

Effing 1%ers.
BadIdeaSociety

The commenters on the Winston-Salem Journal are some joyless, lame people. “Who’s picture was on the bill? Probably our Dear Leader, Barry” Is that the funniest line you could come up with?

He only owes $17,500 for bail. He will be free just as soon as Wal-Mart gets him his change.
bcsizemo

*sigh*…I was hoping I wouldn’t read this on BB…

Right down the street, I mean seriously, not EVERYONE from NC is a hillbilly or “retarded”.

And to those that wonder why all the comments on the WS Journal’s site seem to be overly right wing hard core Republicans…well cause they are. The vast majority of the news articles are trolled by that crowd.
yri

I thought the Gipper was on the 1 billion dollar notes – though you’d still need a lot of them to bribe your way out of the Klink.
Guest

I’m just wondering if someone owed him money, paid him with the million dollar bill and said “give me back the amount I don’t owe you when you get change”. He may not (Lexington, North Carolina) be aware the bill wasn’t legal tender.
Nadreck

Does seem like an over-reaction: I mean, this bill isn’t so much more bogus than the bills the US government is burning out the printing presses making.
- EvilSpirit
  
  Still not over that whole Gold Standard thing?? Seriously, it’s time to move on.
TokenCapitalist

Now, if only they hadn’t arrested Bernard von NotHaus for creating the Liberty Dollar. At least in that case, it was out of spite that private citizens were using a better currency than the US Dollar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_von_NotHaus

In this case it was either stupidity or a joke gone wrong.
http://halfbakedmaker.org Robert Baruch

One day I bought a new wallet, and in it was one of those little credit-card sized cards that said “Credit Card”, as if I needed to know that credit cards could go in the wallet. But I kept it, and the next time I went out to a restaurant, and the waitress (who was very happy and good-humored) gave us the bill, I whipped out the little card and said, “Do you take ‘Credit Card’?”

She actually laughed, took it, and went to her manager to ask “Do we take ‘Credit Card’?”
ill lich

And to think he COULD have paid with commemorative 9-11 coins, you know. . . the ones with “actual silver recovered from ground zero” that have the little pop-up World Trade Center towers? Those are so collectible, they must be worth a fortune by now, no?
- Jonathan Roberts
  
  I thought those were only legal tender in Liberia?
BombBlastLightingWaltz

He implied it was fiat money. Everyone uses some type of it.
Mike Jackson

I know there’s a rationale for stopping real counterfeiters, but what will be the ultimate cost of processing this wannabe through the system? Why not take it away from him, copy down his info, humiliate him on the local news assuming he was seriously trying to pass this bill and just send his dumb ass home?

It’s going to cost lots to jail this guy, pay for his court-appointed attorney and whatever else they do to him if they arrest him. So much “crime” like this is costing our local, state and Fed governments to prosecute than it’s worth!
- chgoliz
  
  That could be his game plan. He wouldn’t be the first to commit a non-violent crime so as to get shelter, 3 squares, and access to medical treatment.
Marc Macoy

That 1 million dollar bill would be worth something to art dealers that’s for sure. Reminds me of this artist in NYC who tried to circulate bills he custom made, and told the counter that his bills were worth more than they could imagine. But nobody believed him, and of course they did call the cops on him. He got arrested multiple times, but his art is worth a lot of $$. Only if I remember his name.
juepucta

They’re not worth didley. Jesus freaks, for example, have been passing around bills like this around turists areas here (LA). There’s is some really small print malarkey about salvation being worth more than any earthly riches, etc.