Fake money is flowing in Sequim and Port Angeles and leaving merchants with $20, $50 and $100 bills that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
A clerk at J.C. Penney Co. Inc. store on West Washington Street in Sequim discovered 10 counterfeit $20 bills in her register at about 11 a.m. Monday.
Store Manager Ron Farquhar suspected the woman might head to another Penneys store — possibly in Silverdale — to return the merchandise she bought using the fake money.
But the woman apparently stayed long enough in Sequim to pass counterfeit bills at least five other merchants, said Police Chief Ken Burge.
One of those was the state liquor store at 990 E. Washington St., where a woman matching the original suspect’s description tried to pay for a purchase using a $20 bill.
“It was an awful bill,” said store clerk Tom Headley.
“It was discolored and really transparent. When you held it up to the light, you could see almost all the details from the front of the bill on its back side.”
Headley said he told the woman the bill was bogus. He said she claimed to have received it as change from a purchase at the Safeway store on West Washington Street.
He advised her to take the bill to a bank for authentication, and she left.
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The rest of the story appears in the Wednesday Peninsula Daily News.