Fake Note

Recently, while reading the newspaper, I came across the following headline "What to do if ATMs spew out fake notes for you". I was alarmed. Do even ATMs spew out fake notes?

While on the subject of fake notes, I remember a very simple teaser a friend asked me a few years ago. It was a simple question and I had answered immediately (it is an altogether different matter that my answer was wrong, but I had answered almost immediately).

This is what my friend told me: A customer goes to a shop and buys an expensive pen worth Rs 200. The customer hands over a Rs 500 note to the shop-keeper. However, the shop-keeper does not have change and, so, goes to the neighbouring shop to get the change.

He comes back with the change, hands over the pen to the customer and also Rs 300 in change. The customer walks away with the pen and the money. There were a few more customers after that, and the shop-keeper now had enough change. But it proved to be a lean day thereafter and there were no more customers to cater. The shop-keeper dozed off.

After some time he woke up on being rudely shaken. He found standing before him the neighbouring shop-keeper.

"Hey, the Rs 500 you gave me is a fake," the neighbour told him.

The poor shop-keeper had to take back the counterfeit note and hand over five crisp 100-rupee notes to the neighbour. The question is: How much loss did the shop-keeper suffer?

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