
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 18, 1990                   TAG: 9005180385
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Neal Thompson/New River Valley Bureau
DATELINE: PEARISBURG                                 LENGTH: Medium

THIEF FAKES OUT MACHINE

Here's a thought: If the federal government is so hard up for money, why doesn't it just do what someone did in Pearisburg?

Make photocopies of a $5 bill on thick yellow paper and run them through an automated bill changer.

That's what someone did Thursday at a Pearisburg car wash. It worked. Someone made off with 160 genuine quarters. That's $40.

Pearisburg police and federal Secret Service agents were looking Thursday for the person or persons who pulled the scam on the machine at Southern Pride Carwash on Virginia 100.

The bills didn't fool car wash owner Bill Miller. He called police as soon as he found them in his machine. The bills were obvious fakes, including only the features the machines scan.

The federal agents think it may have been the same culprit who pulled the trick elsewhere recently. In Covington last weekend, someone got away with $650 in quarters. In Indianapolis earlier this month, someone conned machines for $20,000 - that's 80,000 quarters.

"This falls pretty much in line with what the Secret Service tells us about somebody who's been traveling through the area doing this," Pearisburg Police Chief Bill Whitsett said. "It seems that this is a person who is just drifting. He needs some bucks and he goes and hits a machine."

Someone has been hitting, in addition to Indianapolis, smaller towns for small amounts, Whitsett said. He called it a "pretty sophisticated" operation.

The counterfeit bills appear to have been copied on an ordinary copying machine, using special magnetic ink on dingy yellow paper, Whitsett said.

The bills were copied only on the face side, since that is the only side a change machine reads. The fake bills didn't have a seal or a serial number, just Abe Lincoln's mug and the number 5 in the four corners.

Whitsett said there are no suspects.

"Now, we're just making all vendors in the area aware of it and telling them to be on the lookout," he said.

Whitsett had this advice for merchants with bill-changing machines: Limit the amount of change in the box. Program the machine to accept only dollar bills, not $5 bills. Call the local police or the Secret Service in Roanoke (982-6208) if a counterfeit bill turns up.

by CNB