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[sol5377]

bestbuysux.org

 

[maharg]

Every new iteration of american bills features a cartoonier version of the Presidents. I'd think they were fake too.

 

[Phoenix]

Every new iteration of american bills features a cartoonier version of the Presidents. I'd think they were fake too.

Yep, but it is the Department of the Treasury's job to make sure that before circulating new tender that vendors are familiar with it and are aware of how to determine its authenticity. If a store doesn't know that a particular piece of currency is real/valid it means one of both of the following:

1) The DoT didn't properly inform vendors/the public that the tender was valid

2) The vendor was negligent in training its employees about the various forms of legal tender in the United States

 

[TheOMan]

No he did not have to handcuff him. The article does not say that he was showing any signs of flight, taking physical action against anyone in the store or anything else. There was no reason to handcuff this gent given the evidence we have and that alone equates to false arrest. For those of you unfamiliar with what false arrest REALLY is, it doesn't have anything to do with you being taken to the station or anything along those lines. If you are detained without cause or an order of the courts, you have been arrested. Nothing in the story suggests the officer in question had cause.

Next up is Best Buy. They cannot refuse any legal tender of the United States - ever. No business can. He could have come in with a drum of nickels and dimes and been well within his rights to pay in that manner - they cannot refuse that.

In this case we have two parties that acted wrongfully (though proof on the officer will be harder to come by), and should be punished for their actions.

So I'm not from the US and haven't paid super close attention to the nuances of the new acts that have come into being since 9/11, so excuse my ignorance, but could the cop claim "terrorist" and "Patriot Act" in order to get off the hook here? Just curious.

 

[Blackace]

So I'm not from the US and haven't paid super close attention to the nuances of the new acts that have come into being since 9/11, so excuse my ignorance, but could the cop claim "terrorist" and "Patriot Act" in order to get off the hook here? Just curious.

I don't think so, only unless he can link two dollar bills and a car stereo to terrorist acts...

 

[fennec fox]

I'm sorry to be contrary here but $2 bills are just stupid and if I was the Best Buy manager I would not only handcuff that guy, but also kick him out on his arse and send him to some ghetto store where they actually accept clowns who pay with funny money.

I want dollar coins and nothing else.

 

[whytemyke]

Best Buy gets such a bad rep because the organization is usually filled with mongoloid stores with managers who couldn't tell you the difference between their ass and a hole in the ground. I worked at a top 20 store, and I'd have people from all over coming in (just passing through and wanted a CD) and they'd always, ALWAYS stop and say how it's so nice to be in that store, because every other Best Buy they've been to had been full of shoddy service and asshole employees.

But my store quit liking me after awhile but had to keep me. I was awesome at selling those stupid PRPs (for those not in the know... BUY THEM EVERY TIME OR DONT SHOP AT BEST BUY!!! I saw some guys my first night there drop an entire stack of DVD players 20 feet to the ground, then look at each other, laugh, pick them up and say "better sell some service plans!"), but aside from the PRPs, anyone who's been to a BB lately probably knows about the magazine subscriptions. Well, me and my friend who worked there had a competition to see how long we could go without selling one... and anyone who's familiar with Best Buy culture knows what a horrible taboo that is. I made it two weeks before stupid LOTR:RoTK came out and we were forced to just give them to people unless they specifically said 'No.' I tried to make them say know, but they wouldn't listen. STUPID PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!

ANYWAYS-- disparity between the top of the chain and bottom of the chain is really shocking. Go to a top 20 store (if I had a list I'd tell ya...) and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's just that most Best Buys in shitass places are run like a second rate Kmart, and not a high end technology store.

 

[shantyman]

So I'm not from the US and haven't paid super close attention to the nuances of the new acts that have come into being since 9/11, so excuse my ignorance, but could the cop claim "terrorist" and "Patriot Act" in order to get off the hook here? Just curious.

Absolutely not. There was nothing terroristic about this man's actions. he was trying to pay the store for God's sake.

 

[SickBoy]

I don't think so, only unless he can link two dollar bills and a car stereo to terrorist acts...

There was nothing terroristic about this man's actions. he was trying to pay the store for God's sake.

Car stereos are actually the trigger component in suitcase nukes. Betcha didn't know that.... terrorists

 

[Cauliflower of Love]

huh, funny thing is, he offered to pay them with legal tender for all debts and purposes and the store initially refused, he could have walked away right there and not payed them a dime.

Is this true? Linkage to information?

 

[Phoenix]

So I'm not from the US and haven't paid super close attention to the nuances of the new acts that have come into being since 9/11, so excuse my ignorance, but could the cop claim "terrorist" and "Patriot Act" in order to get off the hook here? Just curious.

No - all he needs to show is that he felt there was a reasonable concern that this guy might escape or harm others.

He can't call him a terrorist because counterfitting money is not an act of terrorism. He couldn't use the Patriot Act either, because none of that would condone the arrest of an innocent by local law enforcement if there is no act of terror being committed.

 

[Blackace]

Car stereos are actually the trigger component in suitcase nukes. Betcha didn't know that.... terrorists

if we didn't know that....doesn't that make you the terrorist? I hear them coming for you

 

[Phoenix]

So I did some more research into the matter and it turns out I was very wrong on the currency issue - Best Buy actually is under no obligation to take a particular note of US currency. There is no Federal statute for that strangely enough.

The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 102. This is now found in section 392 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The law says that: "All coins and currencies of the United States, regardless of when coined or issued, shall be legal-tender for all debts, public and private, public charges, taxes, duties and dues."

This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.

Write your local law legislator and push for some common sense currency acceptance standards!

 

[SickBoy]

if we didn't know that....doesn't that make you the terrorist? I hear them coming for you

That's OK, I've got a bunker filled with car stereos... they'll never take me alive!

 

[Blackace]

So I did some more research into the matter and it turns out I was very wrong on the currency issue - Best Buy actually is under no obligation to take a particular note of US currency. There is no Federal statute for that strangely enough.



Write your local law legislator and push for some common sense currency acceptance standards!

With that being said.... I don't think that a store manager in a chain like Best Buy, can just decide that he doesn't want to take 2 dollar bills. I might be wrong about this, but I am pretty sure that the store manager is going to get hell for this. Because BB doesn't have a policy for not talking 2 dollar bills...

 

[UltimateMarioMan]

This of course means the next game I buy will come from Best Buy and be payed for with a combination of 2$ bills and 0.50 cent pieces. :lol I mean it I'm doing it.

 

[fennec fox]

This of course means the next game I buy will come from Best Buy and be payed for with a combination of 2$ bills and 0.50 cent pieces. :lol I mean it I'm doing it.

See, this is the point I was trying to get across in my flippant post earlier. And that point is: Civil disobedience like this doesn't affect Best Buy at all. It just affects the floor employees, whose lives are already horrid and MAF-like enough without some clown goofing around at their expense.

Every time I feel like I'm about to yell at a retail guy, I recall my own experiences in high school/college, and then I calm down.

 

[StoOgE]

Ugg, of course the bills are sequintial. No bank keeps 2 dollar bills, they are all in storage at the banks central vault or the reserve. So the bank has to special order large quantities of the bills for this guys and his tours, so they are coming from storage, not circulation.. which means sequential.

The funny thing is, you will know fake money when you see it. Even "good" fake money is pretty obviously fake as long as you are paying any attention at all... it never feels right, it allways feels a little too slick and waxy. The coloring is allways off.. besides, WHO THE HELL COUNTERFEITS TWO's? If you are going to go through the trouble to set up a counterfeiting ring you are not going to do it with a strange denomination that would arouse suspicion. You will do it with 20's (or higher) and you will mix them in with real bills. And you sure as hell wouldnt have sequential bills if you were counterfeiting them... counterfeiters are trying to avoid obvious red flag like that.

And to be clear: you cannot offer to pay a debt in pennies, have them refuse it, and then walk out of a store saying you tried to clear all debts, if it went to court the judge could use common sense and say it wasnt reasonable to think you could pay like that. This situation is a bit different, but if they had refused payment they probably wouldnt have had a problem.. calling the cops on him for not paying an instillation fee is another story, if they let him out of the store without forcing him to pay I dont think they can do anything about it.

 

[Inumaru]

So I did some more research into the matter and it turns out I was very wrong on the currency issue - Best Buy actually is under no obligation to take a particular note of US currency. There is no Federal statute for that strangely enough.



Write your local law legislator and push for some common sense currency acceptance standards!

Actually, while that's correct, any business that is going to refuse a form of legal tender needs to make that clear before engaging in a contract/transaction with the customer, otherwise the customer attempting to pay with legal tender will have the upper hand in a court.

From Snopes:

Claim: U.S. law specifies that a creditor does not have to accept more than 100 pennies towards the payment of a debt or obligation.

Status: False.

Origins: This
is one of the pieces of misinformation that makes me wish web sites like this one had been around when I was a kid so I have could pointed my father toward it and told him to shut up already. I can't recall how many times he solemnly intoned that "Pennies are not legal tender in quantities greater than 100" and therefore merchants were "legally" allowed to refuse any offer of payment that included more than one hundred one-cent coins (and, presumably, could not "legally" refuse payment offered in any other form of legal tender). As with so many other things he was dead wrong (and I knew it even then), but I had no way of proving him wrong. I can now, though.

Title 31 (Money and Finance), Subtitle IV (Money), Chapter 51 (Coins and Currency), Subchapter I (Monetary System), Section 5103 (Legal Tender) of the United States Code states:

United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts.
What this statute means, in the words of the United States Treasury, is that "[A]ll United States money . . . is a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal law mandating that a person or organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services."

That's it. All this means is that the Federal Reserve System must honor U.S. currency and coins, not necessarily anyone else. U.S. currency and coins can be used for making payments, but a debtor does not have to pay in legal tender, nor does a creditor have to accept legal tender. If a shoemaker wants to sell his products for 8000 jelly beans per pair, he's entitled to do so; the buyer cannot demand that he accept the equivalent value in legal tender instead. However, legal tender is the default method of payment assumed in contractual agreements involving payments for goods or services unless otherwise specified. So, for example, if an automobile dealer signs a contract agreeing to sell you a car for $8,000, but when you begin making monthly payments he rejects them and insists he wants to be paid in gold instead, you can go to court and have your debt discharged on the grounds that valid payment was offered and refused.

Up until the late 19th century, pennies and nickels weren't legal tender at all. The Coinage Acts of 1873 and 1879 made them legal tender for debts up to 25 cents only, while the other fractional coins (dimes, quarters, and half dollars) were legal tender for amounts up to $10. This remained the law until the Coinage Act of 1965 specified that all U.S. coins are legal tender in any amount. However, even in cases where legal tender has been agreed to as a form of payment, private businesses are still free to specify which forms of legal tender they will accept. If a restaurant doesn't want to take any currency larger than $20 bills, or they don't want to take pennies at all, or they want to be paid in nothing but dimes, they're entitled to do so (but, as mentioned earlier, they should specify their payment policies before entering into transactions with buyers). Businesses are free to accept or reject pennies as they see fit; no law specifies that pennies cease to be considered legal tender when proffered in quantities over a particular amount.

 

[Phoenix]

Unfortunately - no they don't. The information I posted comes directly from the Department of the Treasury. If they don't take that tender, they have to give you an opportunity to pay in a tender that they DO take, but there is literally no Federal statute that requires them to take it with any level of notice.

 

[robochimp]

This of course means the next game I buy will come from Best Buy and be payed for with a combination of 2$ bills and 0.50 cent pieces. :lol I mean it I'm doing it.

I would suggest using only sacajawea dollars

 

[teh_pwn]

I'm going to pay for Xbox2 with pennies this Fall, get arrested, collect $1million settlement and stuff. It pays for itself really.

 

[marsomega]

Unfortunately - no they don't. The information I posted comes directly from the Department of the Treasury. If they don't take that tender, they have to give you an opportunity to pay in a tender that they DO take, but there is literally no Federal statute that requires them to take it with any level of notice.

What if they don't specify that in their policies? Should that provide some legal grounds to take them to civil court?

 

[Gek54]

No one is currious about the big hole in the story about them waving the instalation fee, letting him go home and then changing their minds?

 

[maharg]

Probably not, since most of us have probably experienced similar fuckups personally. I just went through something very similar with my phone company, for example. Not ending with being led away in chains, mind you.

 

[Phoenix]

What if they don't specify that in their policies? Should that provide some legal grounds to take them to civil court?

No. An unstated policy does not give you grounds for civil suit if they are not changing the contract between themselves in the state.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

Hmmm...


I live 20 minutes from this Best Buy. And I have a couple of old 2 dollar bills.

Nah.

 

[UltimateMarioMan]

I would suggest using only sacajawea dollars

BRILLIANT!