Questions About Money Pens

Beady said:
You can confirm it? Don't take this the wrong way, but I've never before seen you claim expertise in this area.
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I don't have expertise in this area, but I have lunch with a secret service agent on a semi-regular basis.

I asked her if they work, and she told me, first, that they didn't, and second, outlined that the
Secret Service does not recommend them.

No link, though.... I don't usually dine on web pages....
 
Beady said:
Can you/she get something in writing? Legally, of course.
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I can try but the USSS is notoriously close-mouthed about anything that might be of procedural interest. And probably not until the next time we have lunch, which may well be January....
 
SwissSkeptic said:
I agree that it might not be the ethical thing to do, but mainly because of the potential trouble it causes to unsuspecting people whose money is tested with those pens. However, assuming that the statement "So far no counterfit bill, not even one, has ever been detected by use of a pen of this type" is correct, I don't think Randi's (or anyone else's) tampering is the reason for the failure of the pens.
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Sorry if I'm being dense, but is there any basis for believing that that statement is correct? The most I can infer from the links provided in this thread is that the pen might fail to identify some fake bills-- the ones printed on starch-free paper. What reason is there to think that no counterfeit bill has ever been identified by the pen?
 
Starthinker said:
.These pens are deterrents. What the shop keeper hopes is that Joe Blow, who just made some 20's on his HP 5500 will see the pen in use and chicken out at the last minute. It deterred him.
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I'm really not certain how much of a deterrent something can be if it has never once been used to successfully aprehend a counterfeiter. I mean, if I walk into the airport and see that they've taken out the metal detectors and lined the place with psychics and dowsers, I'm just not going to get that good deterred feeling - even if the dowser stands right over my bag with his coat hanger.

Deterrents don't deter unless they are shown to have at least some efficacy.
 
Beady said:
In fairness (a word that, given the purpose of these boards, is dismayingly absent much of the time), the advertized purpose of the pens is to indicate bills which might be suspect.

They do work, and I have never seen a claim by anyone other than debunkers that they are intended to be, or are, 100% accurate.
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OK, lets define "fair" as agreeing that the pens do detect what they were designed to detect (starch). Let's define "informed" as recognizing that 1) most counterfeit money is printed on good paper and does not contain starch, and 2) the pens do nothing to help determine any of the other clues that the bill is counterfeit.

Now look at another, similar situation. But instead of money, we are talking about baby food. Instead of counterfeiting, we are concerned about contamination. Instead of iodine pens we are looking at a test for lead content. If we are "fair," then if it passes the test, we know it doesn't contain lead. If we are "informed," we know that the test says nothing about bacterial contamination, and we know that most contamination is bacterial: Botiulism, Salmonella, etc. We might even know that there has never been a known case of lead contamination that was not a deliberate injection of lead salts for the specific purpose of triggering a positive result on the test.

Would you stake your baby's health on the lead-content test alone?
 
JamesDillon said:
Sorry if I'm being dense, but is there any basis for believing that that statement is correct? The most I can infer from the links provided in this thread is that the pen might fail to identify some fake bills-- the ones printed on starch-free paper. What reason is there to think that no counterfeit bill has ever been identified by the pen?
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Both Tobias and Dr Kitten have quoted the Secret Service -- the law-enforcement branch of the Treasury Department-- the branch of the government which is specifically charged with safeguarding our currency and tracking down counterfeiters as making the claim. Assuming that the SS actually has released that claim (and it should not be that hard to verify), that seems like fairly conclusive evidence to me.
 
Gwyn ap Nudd said:
Both Tobias and Dr Kitten have quoted the Secret Service
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I think the original source for that information was James Randi who, to my memory, claimed the Secret Service was unable to point to even one case where the pen had helped identify a counterfeit bill.
 
I can't remember when I read the news story, but wasn't there recently a case where countefeiters used a yellow marker to make a mark on the bills? The sales clerks saw the yellow stripe, concluded that the bill had recently passed a "pen check," and then accepted the bills.
 
Gwyn ap Nudd said:
Both Tobias and Dr Kitten have quoted the Secret Service -- the law-enforcement branch of the Treasury Department-- the branch of the government which is specifically charged with safeguarding our currency and tracking down counterfeiters as making the claim. Assuming that the SS actually has released that claim (and it should not be that hard to verify), that seems like fairly conclusive evidence to me.
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[Edit]: Never mind. I see what you're talking about now. Should have read more closely.
 
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Gwyn ap Nudd said:
Assuming that the SS actually has released that claim (and it should not be that hard to verify), that seems like fairly conclusive evidence to me.
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It would be, if it were verified. But it's not. So far, we have a second-hand account, from memory, of something said during a private conversation over an occasional lunch, and we have no idea why such a topic was broached in that conversation (it doesn't seem like a natural subject to discuss with a friend I see only once in a while). What's more, I haven't been able to find these pens mentioned anywhere on the Secret Service web site; I've looked in their press releases, both FAQs, and in their "Know Your Money" section.

Your turn.
 
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I couldn't find anything from the SS either, but I found this statement on the federal reserve's FAQ:

"I have seen counterfeit detection pens used to mark suspect notes. How well do they work?

Counterfeit detection pens are not always accurate and may give you false results. Rather than using these pens, consumers and cash handlers should check the note's security features to guarantee its authenticity. (...)"

This is of course not the same as saying that no such pen ever produced the desired results.
 
I have never seen such pens used in Australia. Mind you we do have really good security on our money. For example they are made of plastic, with a see though window. Maybe it is time for the rest of the world to adopt such money.
 
Beady said:
It would be, if it were verified. But it's not. So far, we have a second-hand account, from memory, of something said during a private conversation over an occasional lunch, and we have no idea why such a topic was broached in that conversation (it doesn't seem like a natural subject to discuss with a friend I see only once in a while). What's more, I haven't been able to find these pens mentioned anywhere on the Secret Service web site; I've looked in their press releases, both FAQs, and in their "Know Your Money" section.

Your turn.
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Not finding them would show that they don't concider them to be a very effective method of determining forgeries. If they where useful they would mention them as a tool for detecting forgeries

So you have provided dirrect evidence that they don't think that they are an effective enough test for forgeries to recommend.
 
Beady said:
All I have shown is that I haven't found any mention. Translating that into "direct evidence" of anything at all is nothing more than sloppiness.
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As they are informing you of how to look for counterfeits, not mentioning them is significant. It does not prove that there have been no cases where counterfeits have been caught by them, just that they are not a recomended tool by people providing you with information on how to look for counterfeits.

It would be like looking at an AMA report on how to treat back pain and seeing that it doesn't mention reflexology and saying that it doesn't show anything about their opinions of useing reflexology to treat back pain. That is wrong.
 
rjh01 said:
I have never seen such pens used in Australia. Mind you we do have really good security on our money. For example they are made of plastic, with a see though window. Maybe it is time for the rest of the world to adopt such money.
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Quite a few countries are looking at plastic money. I think most of them are watching Australia to see how well it works before commiting to it. Good luck, guinea pigs. :p
 
ponderingturtle said:
As they are informing you of how to look for counterfeits, not mentioning them is significant.
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No, it isn't. It may merely mean, among other things, that the pens haven't received formal evaluation. Not receiving a mention is not the same as being not recommended. All that not being mentioned means is that they are not mentioned.

And your example of reflexology is wrong, since it is well-known (at least here) that reflexology has failed every test.

My own analogy is a drug that is approved for use by other nations' health system but has yet to be evaluated in this country. It will not be mentioned as a current remedy, but that does not mean that it is ineffective.
 
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