Hiram Businesses Get Timely Safety Tips

Employees and owners of several Hiram businesses were schooled in safety and counterfeit cash Tuesday.

The Hiram Police Department hosted a holiday crime prevention seminar to interested businesses. The class was held just three days before the day after Thanksgiving, which is unofficially the start of the Christmas shopping season and one of the biggest shopping days of the year.

Lt. Brian Acree presented attendees with tips from the Hiram Police Department, ranging from ensuring that security equipment and cameras are in working order; training employees to be alert of their surroundings; and being on the look out for suspicious people, vehicles and other situations that could occur inside or outside a business.

“If you see something, you should say something. That’s our motto here,” Acree said. “It’s easy to pick up that phone and call, and we’ll be right there.”

Another piece of advice offered by Acree was that businesses offer to have an employee walk elderly customers to their car—a “simple gesture” that would help those customers feel safe while shopping at the store as well as an added safety measure. “Even if they decline [the escort], at least they knew that you were concerned,” he said.

A copy of the PowerPoint presentation Acree gave to those in attendance is attached to this article.

The majority of Tuesday’s presentation time was given to Chuck Bloodworth, Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service, who talked with those in attendance about counterfeit money. He shared during his presentation tips on how to spot fake cash.

“Everybody should be on the lookout for it, especially this time of year. We see a rise in counterfeit currency in stores—the higher volume, the more amount of people coming in, the criminals use that as an opportunity to be able to pass counterfeit currency,” Bloodworth said. “To be more vigilant with the amount of money that they’re taking in is always a good thing for business owners.”

The first step in combating counterfeit money, Bloodworth said, is to know the security features utilized in U.S. currency. Those features include watermarks, security threads, portrait microprinting, color-shifting ink and more. Details on each bill’s specific security features can be found in a document attached to this article.

“Knowing the security features of genuine currency is the best deterrent for taking in counterfeit currency,” Bloodworth said.

While retailers may arm their cashiers with pens that can detect some counterfeit currency, Bloodworth warned that the pens can only good for one purpose—testing to see if the paper a bill is printed on is the genuine material used for currency. Businesses, he said, would be well served by spending a few dollars to get handheld UV lights that can illuminate a bill’s security thread—the threads under UV lighting glow different colors based on the bill’s denomination—while relatively inexpensive machines on the market can even help authenticate a bill based on the amount of magnetic material in the ink.

More information on U.S. currency and how to spot fake bills can be found at the U.S. Secret Service’s Know Your Money page.