A North Carolina man, Michael Fuller, was recently arrested for trying to use a (counterfeit) $1,000,000 bill at a local Wal-Mart, for the purchase of $476 worth of merchandise. This is far from the first time that somebody’s tried to use an absurdly-large counterfeit bill.
The logic here escapes me: Did he actually expect the cashier to have $999,524 in the register to give him as change?
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There’s always the old canard about the hillbilly who uses a $30 bill (counterfeit, of course) to pay for $5 worth of cigarettes, receiving two $9 bills and one $7 bill as change.
Or the (apparently true) story about the guy trying to pass a legit $2 bill at Taco Bell…
There’s LOTS of stories about people who rejected $2 bills… (not as many stories about rejected $1 coins, although both are subject to the same cashier dynamic… whoever is due change next after the guy who uses it is getting it, because there’s no place in the cash drawer for it.)
Or legitimate stories about people paying for groceries with a $200 George W. Bush bill …
Seems to me the hillbilly was no fool, Kilby; he got free cigarettes out of the deal, didn’t he?
The way I heard it, he bought $1 of tobacco, and paid with a $7. The clerk says, “How do you want your change – a $6 or two $3s?”
All I can think is that the guy was *trying* to get arrested.
Maybe the guy’s out of work and he figures he’ll get food and shelter in prison?
I think the guy who’s TRYING to get arrested doesn’t take an hour to pick out $450 worth of stuff… instead, he heads back to the electronics section, and picks out the biggest TV they got.
Maybe he hoped by saying “keep the change”,he could walk away with the stuff.
Perhaps he read the Twain short story, and expected to be greeted and rewarded as an eccentric millionaire?
Or perhaps he’s an idiot?
Back in the 1980′s I heard that some people would show up to a fast food restaurant with no money other than a $1,000 bill. Neither the cashier nor the supervisor could make change for it, so instead of sending the (presumably wealthy) customer away empty-handed, they would give him the food free of charge, on the idea that it was the restaurant’s fault that it couldn’t properly come up with the change to complete the payment.
Wealthy or not, the customer walks away with a free meal!
(I don’t know how true this story was, but this was back before fast food restaurants accepted credit cards, and $1,000 was worth more than it is worth now.)
Not $1000; they haven’t been made since 1946, and were officially pulled out of circulation in the 1960s. I’ve heard stories like that with 50s or 100s, but it’s more the food, already made, is a sunk cost, and instead of pissing off the customer, or wiping out your change for a possibly counterfeit bill, it’s better just to let them take the food.
Hmmmm… after reading Winter Wallaby’s post, I’m wondering if the “true story” I heard was just an urban legend based on Mark Twain’s “The Million Pound Bank Note” story.
I think he’s just an idiot. It reminds me of the bowler had guy
from “Meet the Robinsons”, There, his plans were so bad that on two
separate occasions, a minion found itself with no possible chance of
success and had to tell him, “I’m just not so sure how well this
plan was thought through.”
The cashier only needed $999,524, not $999,526. Or did he try to pay with a $1 million AND a $2 bill?
Corrected my math. Thanks. -Bill
Regardless of the “legal tender” language on a bill, a restaurant CAN refuse to take a $1,000 bill, just as they can refuse to let you pay a $75 tab in pennies. These days I doubt anyone would refuse a $100 bill. I’ve had dinner at fancy restaurants where the cost for two people was over $100.
When I lived in a tourist town in Canada, every store had a sign, “No US $50 or $100 bills”. Tourists had to go to the bank to exchange them due to the high number of counterfeit US 50s and 100s being passed.