HOUSTON — Here's a warning for Girl Scouts (and their parents) across the country.
Fraudsters are passing along fake money to buy their cookies, according to multiple reports.
In Salem, Oregon, Astute Girl Scouts recently notified police of a man using fake $20 bills to buy one box of cookies and get real currency for change.
In fact, KGW reports two separate troops reported the man and the counterfeit money to police in mid-February, according to the Salem Police Department.
In one of the incidents outside a Walmart store, 13-year-old scout Ava first spotted the counterfeit money.
"I kept looking at it and I was like, there's no way this is the same, this does not feel right," said Ava, who waited until the man left to alert her mom, who called Salem police.
"He was intimidating and I didn't want to say anything," Ava said. "I didn't know if he could be aggressive."
Walmart security was able to scan the surveillance video and identify the suspect. He was spotted returning to a store on Sunday, arrested and taken to jail.
Camden Ducharme, 36, now faces charges of first-degree forgery and third-degree theft.
But he's not the only alleged scammer out there.
Over in Florida, WTSP reports in the past two weeks, at least six different troops in the Girl Scout Gulfcoast Florida council say they’ve been paid with the phony money.
The Manatee County troops alone lost about $650 because of counterfeit money.
The troops, who’d been selling outside a Publix and Walmart on State Road 64 and a Publix on State Road 70, say they didn’t realize what had happened until they went to deposit the money at the bank and were told they were short the totals they expected to have based on sales.
To make matters worse, in some cases, the cookie crooks apparently tried to milk their profits by not only getting the cookies with the fake cash but paying with big bills to also get change.
Police there fear the amount of money lost will grow in the coming days and weeks as more scouts turn in their earnings only for the bank to determine the bills are fake.
Back in Oregon, Wells Fargo Bank responded to the fake money by donating counterfeit money detector pens for the whole troop. Ava plans to make a training video to help other Girl Scouts.
"That's one of our Girl Scout mottos," said Ava. "To make the world a better place."
How do I determine if a banknote is genuine? What should I do if I think I have a counterfeit note?
Credit: https://www.federalreserve.gov/
The best way to determine whether a note is genuine is to rely on the security features, such as the watermark and security thread. Counterfeit detection pens are not always accurate and may give you false results. To learn about these and other security features in genuine Federal Reserve notes, visit the U.S. Currency Education Program website.
It is important to know what the security features are in genuine currency, because if you end up with a counterfeit note, you will lose that money. A counterfeit note cannot be exchanged for a genuine one, and it is illegal to knowingly pass counterfeit currency.
If you live in the United States and you think you've received a counterfeit note, immediately notify the local police. Try to remember the physical characteristics of the person who passed the suspect counterfeit, and if possible write down the person's license plate number and vehicle description. Store the suspect counterfeit apart from genuine currency and release it as soon as possible to law enforcement authorities.
If you live outside the United States and want to report counterfeit currency, you should notify the U.S. Secret Service field office in your region. The Law Enforcement section of our currency education website, www.uscurrency.gov, offers contact information for U.S. Secret Service field offices around the world.
On the web: Know your money (PDF)
(KGW in Portland contributed to this report.)
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