DesotoExplorer.com / Counterfeit bill sparks generousity in De Soto City Hall

Archive for Thursday, April 17, 2008

April 17, 2008, 12:03 p.m.

Updated: April 21, 2008, 10:05 a.m.

De Soto City Administrator Pat Guilfoyle is warning local merchants to be wary of possible counterfeit $50 bills through a story that illustrates the good side of human nature.

Guilfoyle said a De Soto resident paid the monthly water bill Tuesday with a phony $50 bill.

Bennett said she noticed later the bill looked odd.

"It just didn't look right," she said. "The edges look like they had been wet and been moldy. The color wasn't right. It was darker in spots."

It was a new style of bill dated 2004, said De Soto financial officer Bonnie Bennett. But she couldn't tell if it had a confirmation bar because it was so dirty.

A trip to the Great American Bank in De Soto for an ink test confirmed the bill was phony.

The city called the Johnson County Sheriff's Office to report the counterfeit bill, although it was not thought the man who passed it knew it was phony.

"Would you go pay your water bill with a counterfeit bill if you knew they had your address?" Bennett said. "You'd use it a gas station or someplace."

Later that day when Bennett collected a $50 bill from a traffic offender, she said she would have to check it carefully because the earlier counterfeit.

Hearing that someone was going to be asked to make good on a water bill the customer thought they had paid with the phony $50, the traffic offender gave Bennett a $50 bill to pay the water bill, saying he didn't want the water customer to have a bad day," Bennett said.

"He said, 'I believe somebody took advantage of that poor guy,'" Bennett said. "He said, 'I believe in the greater good," so he paid it."

Guilfoyle said the benefactor wanted to remain anonymous, even to the water customer.

"Not very many of us are is such a giving mood when we are forced to pay traffic tickets," Guilfoyle said.