Got change for a million dollar bill?

I first saw this story this morning on Yahoo! News.

This picture ran with the CNBC story today about the unidentified man who walked into a Pittsburgh grocery and tried to make a purchase with a million dollar bill. I can't say with certainty that this is a copy of the bill in question, but Jill King Greenwood's story about the incident in today's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review did say the bill contained a likeness of Grover Cleveland.

I can, however, say that this unidentified man (he had no ID on him when he was arrested) is not the first to try and pass a million dollar bill. Here is a link to an archived story on The Smoking Gun about a Georgia woman who tried to make $1,671.55 purchase at a Wal-Mart by presenting a similar bill. The cashier turned the woman over to her manager instead of forking over $998,328.45 in change.

The would-be millionaire in Pittsburgh didn't even try and make a purchase. According to Ms. Greenwood's story, he simply asked for change. (Don't you just hate it when you don't have change for the parking meter?) The CNBC account of this story says that the clerk became "suspicious" when presented with the bill.

Maybe this 'John Doe' might have fared better if, instead of asking for change, he'd asked for a million quick picks in the next lottery drawing....