Friday, August 01, 2014

A moral quandry?


I took the bus to work this morning, as I do most mornings. I paid the station agent at the local bus stop. This time, he wouldn´t let me through the turnstyle.

I gave him more than the R$2.70 fare. He normally gives me change after I pass through the turnstyle. Maybe he was going to change things up and give me my change first.

Then he pulls a R$20 bill out of his box and tells me that the last time I passed through his station, I paid with at a false R$20 bill. He claims that he suspected it being a false bill when I paid but accepted it anyway. When he clocked out that night, the accounting office (or whatever office he does to at the end of the day) wouldn´t accept the bill.

He said he held on to the bill until the next time I came through the station, which was this morning. He wanted me to give him a real R$20 bill in exchange for the false one that I allegedly gave him.

My coworker jumped in at this point and told him that I don´t owe him anything, that I bear no responsibility once he accepted my payment the last time, and that I am not responsible because someone else gave me a fake bill. 

I stand behind the first two points my coworker made (until someone explains otherwise in the comments section), but kind of disagree with the third one.

False bills are fairly common in South America. When paying with any moderately valued bill, it is common for someone to hold it up to light to see if it is real or not. In Ecuador, they would do this with $5 bills.

I´ve never spend much time trying to see whether or not a bill is real or fake because I assume that any bill I get is going to be real. And whether or not it is real or fake, someone will likely accept it as payment. I haven´t had any experiences of someone rejecting a bill as fake. (I have had money changes refuse a bill because it was bent or folded, but not because they are fraudulent)

Once I passed through the turnstyle this morning, I wondered if I did the right thing.

I don´t know that I was the one who gave him the bill. Maybe he has pulled this trick before on other people? Maybe he was given a fake R$20 from someone else and he was trying to pass it off on me?

Maybe he was being sincere and I was cheating him out of R$20? Did he accept the responsbility and possibility of it being fake once he accepted my money? 

Many questions. Very few answers. Something to think about. Or not.