OCEAN BEACH, Calif. (KGTV) - The Secret Service confiscated several items from an Ocean Beach comic store after a man tried to use a fake $100 bill at the business.
Tuesday afternoon, a Secret Service agent seized several matchbox cars, surveillance footage and the counterfeit bill from Galactic Comics on Newport Avenue.
Owner David Draize spotted the bogus bill Friday night when a customer tried to use it to buy a Batman figurine.
Draize said the agent told him it was a higher quality bill.
"It was made on an ink jet printer, with a magnifying glass you can actually see tiny little dots which would be indicative that it was actually made on a high resolution at home printer," said Draize.
Draize said the agent also told him he was surprised the crook would try to scam a comic book store because it's not as busy and there's more time to inspect bills.
"He said the most common place he would probably want to go to would be a mom and pop liquor store," said Draize.
The comic store is the second Ocean Beach area business targeted by a counterfeit crook in the last week.
A woman used a fake $100 bill to pay markers at Paper Tales in Point Loma last Wednesday.
An employee discovered the money was fake when she went to the bank.
"I'm like oh, please, please don't say it's counterfeit please and she's like yeah, she ran it through the different machines and she's like, it's counterfeit, and I'm like great," said Cinthia Shipman.
Shipman said the store employees may change the way they do business to try to avoid getting scammed.
"Number one, it's gonna stop us from taking $100 bills, we probably won't even take $50's, just because we can't risk it. We're a small business it could break it," said Shipman clearly frustrated.
"Get a life, go do something productive versus damaging the community and small businesses when you do that you hurt not just the store, but so many other things, peoples' incomes," said Shipman.
The Secret Service isn't commenting on either incident and won't say if there is an active investigation underway. A spokesman said, however, getting counterfeit cash is rare.
