There's a lot of truth to the saying, "If something seems too good to be true, it probably is."
Sure, every now and then that lotto ticket will hit — hey, somebody's gotta win it, right? — but more often than not, a three smudges into an eight and gets your hopes way too high.
However, what follows below isn't a case of an ink problem. This is one of those things where someone really should have known better.
According to The Smoking Gun, Amanda McCormick, 39, and her relative, Linda Johnson, 61, had their modest shopping spree stopped by an employee who recognized that the U.S. very sensibly does not issue $1 million bills.
According to a police report obtained by The Smoking Gun, McCormick claimed that she had received the oversized bill "in the mail from a church," and had set about using the funds to "purchase items for care packages for homeless individuals."
McCormick reportedly had a cart loaded down with items including gift cards for various businesses.
She told deputies that she was merely along for the ride to run some errands that day, according to The Smoking Gun. No word on whether the packed shopping cart aroused any suspicions, of course.
The sheriff's office classified the incident as "fraud by false pretenses," but rather than arresting McCormick and Johnson, the authorities issued a verbal no-trespass warning for the Dollar General, effectively banning them from the store.
The sheriff's office also took the funny money into evidence.
The U.S. Treasury has never issued a legit $1 million bill — the largest denomination ever produced was a $100,000 bill issued for a short time in the 1930s — but some have been produced by others as art pieces or for novelty purposes.
In 2004, a woman in Georgia was arrested for trying to pay for $1,675 worth of merchandise at Walmart with a $1 million bill, NBC News reported.
h/t: The Smoking Gun
