The Case of the Fake 20

It all started when my mom came home from shopping at the Central Market. We asked her how it went and she said that it was great and that the lady at a fruit stand that she went to was very nice. My mom told us that the lady told her to watch out for people who can cheat you. She gave my mom a free lemon and helped her pack her bags. My mom also said that the lady accidentally gave her an extra 20 Euro bill when she got her change. When my mom noticed the mistake she returned the extra 20 Euro bill.

Central Market, Florence

When my mom told me what happened I thought there was something fishy going on. Why would the lady talk about people cheating others with money and then give my mom extra money as if she was trying to show that she is not a cheat? I said to my mom, "What if she was cheating you? She tells you to be careful of cheats and then gives you an extra 20 Euros as if trying to hide that she is cheating you?" My mom told me that she doubted it because the women seemed very nice and she had a fair price.

L'ortolano, the fruit stand

It was time for lunch so we left our house to go get some sandwiches. We had to wait in line for a long time because it is very popular place. When we got our sandwiches my mom gave the man the 20 Euro bill. We left to eat our sandwiches outside the store when suddenly the store owner came out. He came up to us and showed that the bill was a fake!!! He showed us the bill and then compared it to his 20. Our bill was a bit shorter and the numbers were a bit crooked. Another difference was when you shine a light at the security thread (a shiny strip on a bill) the fake bill shined in a different way. We were shocked. Then we thought back to where we got the bill. We realized that my mom got it from the fruit stand. I was right all along!

Fake bill (top) and real bill (bottom)

Now we were not sure what to do. Should we go back to the market or should we bring it to the police? I thought it also would be cool to keep it as a souvenir.  We decide that the next day we would go back to the fruit stand and ask for a new 20.  

We were trying to look for the other ways that she was very suspicious. Here's a list of ways:

1. The lady gave my mom a free lemon to seem nice.

2. Gave my mom two 20s to pretend that she was not cheating my mom.

3.She told my mom to be careful of cheats when she seemed suspicious.

What happened in the end:

The next day we went back to the Central Market and went to the fruit stand. My dad took a picture of the store in case we needed to threaten to write a negative review on a website called Tripadvisor. It's a site that tells tourists which places are recommended or not. We went up to the stand and the lady was not there. But a man who had worked there the day before was there. The man who worked at the store asked us what we needed. My mom explained about the fake bill and asked for a new one.  The man said, "Oh, yes" like he already knew about this or that it was no surprise. He went into the cash register and took out a different 20. He took the fake and put it back into the cash register with the other bills.

We return to the scene of the crime

We left and started walking away from the market and realized that he was probably going to give the fake to someone else.  He put the bill back with the other 20s and also acted like he knew about the fake.  We were already pretty far from the market, so we didn't know if we should go back to tell him to rip it up.  It took some decision making, but in the end we thought it was best to go back. We felt like it was the right thing to make sure someone else did not get cheated like we did. We walked all the way back to the fruit stand. I could tell the man was wondering why we came back.  We told him to rip up the fake bill.  He said that he already did and that we can go. We asked him to show us the ripped bill but he didn't. We looked in the garbage for a ripped up bill but we didn't see one. We decided we should give up and go. Then we left the market for the final time. Now we are careful to check all the bills we get and I encourage you to do so too!