Who wants to be a millionaire?
Tennessee’s Amanda McCormick and relative Linda Johnson sure tried, and now they’re paying for it, sort of, The Smoking Gun reported Wednesday.
McCormick, 39, tried to pay for several gift cards with a counterfeit $1 million bill at the Dollar General in Knoxville-area Maryville, where she was joined by 61-year-old Johnson, according to the police report obtained by the outlet. The story was first reported by local paper The Daily Times.
McCormick claimed to have received the bill “in the mail from a church, but could not provide the church information,” the report notes.
She claimed to be using the faux money to buy items for care packages to give to the homeless and in her shopping cart were “various items,” among them gift cards to different businesses, according to the document.
Johnson reportedly told authorities she had just been tagging along to run errands and “was unaware of the money.”
Despite the incident’s “fraud by false pretenses” classification, the two were not arrested, though the bill was confiscated and put into evidence. A verbal no trespass warning was issued for the pair in relation to the store.
Whether McCormick actually believed the bill was legit is unknown.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury says it has gotten “many inquiries” about whether a $1 million bill has ever been officially produced. Though they haven’t, such bills were produced as part of an art series. While they didn’t violate U.S. law, they’re not redeemable.
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