De Soto — City Administrator Pat Guilfoyle is warning merchants to be wary of counterfeit $50 bills through a story that illustrates the good side of human nature.
Guilfoyle said a De Soto resident paid the monthly water bill Tuesday with a phony $50 bill.
City Financial Officer Bonnie Bennett said she noticed later the bill looked odd.
"The edges looked like they had been wet and been moldy," she said. "The color wasn't right. It was darker in spots."
It was a new style of bill with a 2004 date, Bennett said. But she couldn't tell if it had a confirmation bar because it was so dirty.
A trip to Great American Bank in De Soto for an ink test confirmed the bill was phony.
The city called the Johnson County Sheriff's Office to report the counterfeit bill, although it was not thought the man who passed it knew it was phony.
"Would you go pay your water bill with a counterfeit bill if you knew they had your address?" Bennett said. "You'd use it a gas station or someplace."
Later that day when Bennett collected a $50 bill from a traffic offender, she said she would have to check it carefully because of the earlier counterfeit.
Hearing that someone was going to be asked to make good on a water bill because of the phony $50, the traffic offender gave Bennett a $50 bill to pay that person's water bill. "He said he didn't want the water customer to have a bad day," Bennett said.
"He said, 'I believe somebody took advantage of that poor guy,'" Bennett said. "He said, 'I believe in the greater good,' so he paid it."
Guilfoyle said the benefactor wanted to remain anonymous, even to the water customer.
"Not very many of us are in such a giving mood when we are forced to pay traffic tickets," Guilfoyle said.
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