Counterfeiter?

The store that gave me problems...

One thing that is very convenient as an American tourist traveling in Ecuador is the currency; they use the US dollar here. We were warned before leaving that change is hard to come by and that it would be difficult to use anything larger than a ten dollar bill. Before leaving for Ecuador, I went to the bank and requested $400 dollars in fives and tens. Because of this, I didn't think I would have any problems with money. I was wrong.

Coming to Ecuador not knowing any Spanish was very difficult, so I was looking forward to starting school and learning the language. However, because I had so many irregular verbs thrown at me during the first week, I was extremely overwhelmed and felt like I wasn't learning anything. I decided it would be a good idea to buy some notecards so I could make flashcards of the irregular verb conjugations. I stopped in the office supply store that I pass on my way home from school. I picked up a pack of notecards and a stapler. The cashier rang up my order, and the total came to $2.41. I handed her a five dollar bill. She looked at it, then asked me if I had exact change. I didn't, so she pulled out one of those special markers that cashiers in the US use to check the validity of bills usually higher than $20. She used the marker twice to check my five dollar bill. She obviously wasn't satisfied with what she was seeing and called the manager over. The manager took my money and went upstairs. Meanwhile, the cashier helped the man that was in line behind me. He bought two pencils and paid using a $20 bill with no problem. Seeing that made me even more frustrated than I already was; I wondered if this problem I was having had to do with the fact that I'm a foreigner. After forcing me to stand there awkwardly for ten minutes, the manager returns with my money. Guess what.... it was real. I was upset no one apologized to me, but relieved to finally get out of there. A couple weeks after this incident, I went shopping for some souvenirs for my family. A ten dollar bill I tried paying with was rejected because of a tiny rip. This caused me to look back at what happened in the office supply store. In both instances, there were problems with the appearance of my money. Thinking about it, I think I finally realized what the problem might have been. The five dollar bill I was trying to pay with was old and grungy.  In America, using a bill like this is rarely a problem. Here, however, people seem to be afraid the money won't be accepted anywhere else and they will be stuck with money that is useless.  The solution seems simple: if everyone accepted older bills, there wouldn't be a problem!  This example, however, does show how counterfeiting is a problem in Ecuador. And while it is convenient they use the US dollar here, the issues dealing with the legitimacy of the money are not.