Skeptics Stack Exchange
Skeptics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [currency]

object with a widely-recognized value accepted as payment for goods and services.

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Is it illegal to refuse US currency for a purchase?

I hear this claim every now and then. That US currency is legal tender and that it is illegal to not accept it. The most recent example of this was on an old episode of 30 Rock: The head and the hair. I was not able to find a clip online, however I…
Joshxtothe4
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Does normal paper currency contain enough narcotics residue to attract a drug-sniffing dog?

It seems pretty well established that paper currency (e.g. in the US) is commonly contaminated with trace amounts of cocaine or other illegal narcotics. (See Snopes for instance, though I'm happy to have this assumption challenged.) Is this…
Nate Eldredge
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Does a customer have the legal right to receive change in whatever denomination they want if the cashier can cover it?

I am a cashier at a gas station in California and I recently had a customer put me in this situation. They prepaid for $50 in gas with a fifty dollar bill and filled their car. They had $19 in change. When the customer came in for their change, I…
Ed Peterson
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Has anyone been charged with defacing money?

In many countries it is illegal to deface or destroy money, but has this law ever been enforced? (note: I'm not asking about counterfeiting) Have there been any notable cases of people being charged or jailed in the past 50 years? One thing that…
going
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Is it possible to identify where Euro banknotes are from?

Some websites claim that you can know which country printed an euro banknote, by looking at the serial number. Is that technique fool-proof ?
Manu
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Did France flood Guinea with counterfeit currency to destabilize it?

I've read in several Pan-Africanist and conspiracy theory sources (e.g. here and here) that France during the Fifth Republic smuggled in counterfeit Guinean Franc into Guinea in order to destabilize its economy after it gained independence. I…
Zudios
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Is the US $20 bill the most counterfeited?

In a comment on "Is it illegal to refuse US currency for a purchase?", @Dan Neely said I don't think the main reason many businesses ban $50/100 bills is that they'd deplete their ability to make change for future customers. Minimizing losses from…
warren
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Can a Cuban taxi driver make a doctor's monthly salary in just one hour?

A recent video by the Guardian, 'It's not fair': why Havana's taxi drviers vastly out-earn doctors looks at the difference between public sector workers and the privately employed in Cuba. The video says that the private industry (and tourism in…
waltzfordebs
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Is the Satoshi Nakamoto outed by Newsweek the creator of Bitcoin?

Earlier today, Newsweek outed a 64-year-old Japanese-American engineer Satoshi Nakamoto as THE Satoshi Nakamoto who invented Bitcoin. But the article provides little more than circumstantial evidence to prove the point. Now Nakamoto is denying it.…
samthebrand
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Did switching to a common currency cause prices to go up in European countries?

Many consumers in the European Union are afraid of switching to Euros since it (reportedly) means increased prices on most products. For example: In order to address consumers' concerns about price increases and abusive practices during the…
JonathanReez
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Can governments destroy the value of Bitcoin, if they wanted to?

Note that this is a question about Bitcoin that is separate from my other question, which had asked whether Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan, claims that the governments from around the world can -- and will -- crush…
D.Hutchinson
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Does Germany use the Euro to exploit the US and the EU?

Trump's advisor Peter Navarro claims that Germany exploits the US and the EU by maintaining the Euro at an all time low. The Guardian for example says: Germany “continues to exploit other countries in the EU as well as the US with an ‘implicit…
Quora Feans
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Can Currency Notes be tracked with GPS?

There is this news about Currency Note Tracking with GPS using something called nano-GPS chips? Is this possible to track currency notes using GPS? Can Currency Notes be used as a reflector for GPS? And GPS positioning works by calculating position…
CrownedEagle
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