Warren County woman says she was fooled by counterfeit $20 bills

WARREN COUNTY, Ohio (WXIX) - A Deerfield Township woman who says she was duped by counterfeit money is now warning others about the amount of fake cash circulating in the community.

Jodi Ellis is a frequent shopper at Bath and Body Works. She was there Thursday returning an order.

She got $73 back in various denominations, put the money in her wallet and left.

It was not until Ellis stopped at a nearby Kroger that she noticed a problem.

“The self-checkout kept putting out, spitting back out the money to us, and so I called one of the workers over, and she marked it with a counterfeit pen, and it turned black,” Ellis recalled.

Turns out the $20 bills she’d received were fake.

Ellis says she returned to Bath and Body Works where she recouped the return money in real bills. She also called the Warren County Sheriff’s Office to report what happened.

“They went through their drawers here, found more fake counterfeit twenties,” she said.

Sergeant John Smith confirms they confiscated some counterfeit bills. He says it’s not unusual though it’s been weeks since they last dealt with a similar issue.

In Ellis’ case, the money seemed like the real deal to her at first, but, “The more you felt it, the more it felt like paper instead of money,” she said. “And there was no scent of money or anything, and all three had [bills] had the same serial number.”

Ellis says she could have done a better job of examining the money. Now she hopes others can take away from her experience and pay that extra amount of attention.

FOX19 NOW reached out to the store for comment but did not hear back.

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