‘It’s scary what people are doing now’: Hawaii woman scrubs $1 bill, attempts to pass it off as $100. How to stretch your dollar without risking jail time

$1 bills being scrubbed to make fake $100 bills

Maelyn Ramos, a cashier at Ohana Foods in Hilo, Hawaii, had an inkling something was wrong when a customer handed her a $100 bill for a $15 purchase.

“I did our protocols and procedures which is to mark the bill with the marker and lift it up to see if it has the black line that all real money has,” Ramos told KHON2 News last month. “When she gave me the bill, it looked different from a regular $100.”

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When the customer told Ramos it was an old bill, she compared it to an old bill in the store’s tip jar, noting the genuine old bill had more of a yellowish tone. Ramos used a counterfeit bill detector pen to test the money — but the mark it left behind was yellow, indicating it was real currency.

When Ramos lifted up the bill to the light just to be sure, she noticed a faded “1” marking in the top corner and faint lettering printed on the bill, and she took out a $1 bill to compare.

“I realized this is real money, it was a one dollar bill they bleached or washed and printed $100 on top,” Ramos said.

“My gut instinct was telling me something was wrong, and it's scary what people are doing now because a lot of people would have looked at it and said it’s real — which I was close to doing at that point — but something in me was like, it doesn’t look okay.”

Hawaii Island police warn of bogus $100 bills

In April, state police warned the public about the usage of counterfeit $100 bills in East Hawaii. They told KHON2 News there have been around a dozen cases of this type of counterfeit in the last month.

“It appears the culprits are taking $1 — in another case, a $2 bill — and bleaching the ink off and printing over the original currency to make it look like a $100,” Hawaii Island police Capt. Rio Amon-Wilkins told KHON2 News. “Because it’s being printed on original U.S. currency notes, the pen still works properly and doesn’t identify it as counterfeit.”

Amon-Wilkins says the culprits will typically purchase something small, like a $5 item, with a fake $100 bill and then get real currency back in exchange.

He notes this is the first time he’s dealt with a case where fraudsters were working with original currency that had been washed and reprinted.

Ramos held onto the counterfeit money and told the customer she would have to report the incident to the Hawaii Island police.

She says she noticed the woman had a couple of $20 bills in her wallet and asked her whether she’d prefer to pay with those instead, but the woman declined.

“That’s when it popped in my head, that’s where she got the $20’s from, she’s giving stores fake $100 to get real cash out of it, and she doesn’t want to use the real money,” Ramos explained.

“I’m glad I was able to catch that, and hopefully this will help others.”

3 ways to stretch your dollar (legally)

A scrubbed and reprinted dollar isn’t worth the jail time. There are smarter ways to stretch your spare change instead.

For example, some platforms let you invest your leftover change from your everyday purchases into a diversified portfolio that automatically rebalances as the market changes.

You could also store your dollars in a high-yield savings account to protect yourself in case of emergencies or unexpected expenses. Currently some high-yield savings accounts offer interest rates of 5% or more.

Or, consider a lucrative side hustle, like sprucing up your space and renting out a spare room through Airbnb, selling off your old clothes and electronics on a resale platform or renting out gently used baby gear you no longer need.

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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.