‘Tis the season to be passing funny money

Thursday, Dec. 10, 1998 | 3:49 a.m.

He fanned them to make sure he had three and noticed they looked fuzzy or blurry, like they had gone through the wash.

"The more I looked, the more I realized they didn't look or feel right," Mick said. "I realized they were a fairly decent color copy done on good paper.

"But there were no colored fibers in the paper, no embedded strip and they were the wrong texture.

"The last thing I noticed probably should have been the first - they all had the same serial number," Mick said.

"I had to tell the woman they were no good. She was taken aback," he said.

She paid for the purchase with other money.

Mick said he suspects many sales people do the same as he does - check $20 and large bills but worry too little about singles and fives.

In Reno, Washoe County District Attorney Dick Gammick and Secret Service Special Agent George Mitchell held a news conference on Wednesday to report a sevenfold increase in counterfeit bills across northern Nevada.

"Right now is probably the most activity we've seen in a long time, Chris Fox, cash vault manager for U.S. Bank in Reno, told the news conference.

And Mitchell said that it behooves people to take a look at the bills they receive in change to avoid being victimized.

Along with the possibility of being accused of passing bad bills, the holder gets stiffed with the loss.

"Whoever last possessed it loses it," Mitchell said.