Girl Scouts in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, were cheated out of proceeds from cookie sales after someone used counterfeit money to pay.

Reports came in from two Girl Scout booths that counterfeit bills were used as payment, the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office posted Sunday on X.

Sunday marked the final day of National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend. Although the scouting troops sell cookies from January into April, the annual weekend signifies a period of wide cookie availability online and at local events, Girl Scouts of the USA said on its website last week.

The sellers say the culprit was a man who used a fake $20 bill, then received $10 in real cash as change.

“I didn’t know it was fake because I don’t think I thought about it. And then my mom picked it up. She was like, ‘Oh, this is fake,’” Molly Smith, 13, who was selling the cookies outside the GameStop in California, Maryland, told WTOP-FM. 

More reports came in Monday from other troops about being paid in fake bills.

“It’s pretty despicable that you’re going to do this to a bunch of girls who were only making around 20% off of each box of cookies that we sell,” Gloria Dempsey, leader of Molly’s Girl Scout Troop 10005, told WTOP.

To check for counterfeits, the Federal Reserve’s Currency Education Program recommends using ultraviolet and regular light.

Legitimate banknotes $5 and up have interwoven security threads, faint watermark images to the right of the portrait, and microprinted words and phrases such as “USA” and “E pluribus unum.”

All banknotes use embedded red and blue fibers. Bills $10 and up use color-shifting ink to help numbers in the lower right corner of bills change color.

Bills for $100 also have a three-dimensional security ribbon that shows bells and the number 100 when you tilt them in certain directions.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.