Imagine working at a pizza place, and a customer tries to pay for an order with a $100 bill. Would you happily take the money and give her back her change, or would you question the validity of the bill?

In this story, one pizza guy is in this situation, and he has his manager take a look at the bill.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

That time a customer tried to pay me in fake money

This is the first and only time I’ve had someone try to pay with counterfeit money.

It happened on a regular Friday or Saturday night while I was in the front of the store, when this woman (I’ll call her Helga) walked in to carry out a pepperoni pizza she had ordered online.

The interaction started out normally enough.

Me: Hi! Are you here for pickup?

Helga: Yeah, I’m picking up for [name].

Me (Go into the computer, find the order): All right, it’s going to be $14.98.

Helga opens her wallet, which has several $100 bills, and hands me one of the bills.

The manager knew the bill was fake.

My manager, Matt, happens to be standing next to me, so I give him the bill to check and see if it’s legit.

He runs his fingers over it and almost immediately shakes his head.

Matt: Ma’am, I can’t take this.

Helga: Why not?

She shouldn’t have asked if she didn’t want the answer.

Matt (hands her the money back): I can’t take it.

Helga: Why?

Matt: Because this bill is fake as hell!

Cue moment of awkward silence.

It seems obvious.

Helga (filing bill back into her wallet): I don’t have anything else.

Matt: I’m sorry about that.

Helga: So you mean I’m not getting my pizza?

Matt: I guess not.

At least she didn’t put up a fight!

Helga rolls her eyes, but surprisingly, she doesn’t fight him and just walks out of the store.

I ask my manager how he knew the bill was fake, and he says it’s because it didn’t look “right” and Benjamin Franklin’s shirt didn’t have the proper texture (it felt smooth when the shirt is supposed to be ridged). And that, based on her wallet and how she was dressed, Helga didn’t look like someone who would just have $10,000 cash on her person.

We all laugh about it and move on.

The customer tried another scam.

20 minutes later, one of our drivers walks in with a confused look on his face. Apparently, a strange woman had run up to his car when he pulled into our parking lot, and offered him $100 to run into the store and bring her the pepperoni pizza from the rack.

Of course, having more than two brain cells to rub together, the driver turned her down and came back inside the store, leaving her empty-handed

The funny thing is, there is a bank 100 feet from us. It’s literally right in front of us, and there’s also three other banks within a 2-minute walk from the store where she could’ve had the $100 bill broken up.

But she obviously didn’t because, as my manager put it, that bill was “fake as hell”.

She must be totally broke. I’m glad her scam didn’t work.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This is a good idea!

What an awful roommate!

This person admits to taking fake money.

The problem with scammers is that not everyone will know it’s fake.

I’m glad she didn’t get away with it.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.