I take $100 out of an ATM in $20 bills. The ATM has recorded those serial numbers. I immediately get mugged. I identify the mugger to the police. The money is seized. The twenty dollar bills are identified as those I withdrew from the ATM. The mugger gets tried, convicted, goes to jail or gets counseling (liberals) and I get my $20 bills back.
What if you got your cash from the grocery store in change instead of a bank? Do you have the serial numbers then?
I mean if you think using a bank is preferable, be my guest...
...and to take that further, say once you got home, you decided to go out to McDonald's... while you're there, a police officer has spotted your car (with its identification number/license plate), has been looking for you as you had received stolen money with the change you got at the grocery store... they meet up with you inside McDonald's, and confiscate the $ from you as stolen property, and if you're a jerk about it (and judging from this thread, I'm pretty sure you would be), you find yourself in cuffs in the back of a police car, maybe with a bruise or two, charged with receiving stolen currency and resisting arrest (since you might end up fighting the arrest, as you don't feel you did anything wrong collecting your change, and you in fact didn't do anything wrong)... so on top of that, then you're still owed monies from the store, for the change that you ended up not being able to keep... but hey, you were in possession of stolen monies, so you're a thief, and who's gonna believe a known thief when he claims to have not received his proper change, anyways?
=squeak=