Local Businesses Refuse to Accept 100 and 50 Dollar Bills

I saw a sign in Chicken Salad Chick today that forced me to ask "Is This Real Life?" The sign was plain and simple:

It's pretty shameful that local business have to take these steps. Who could blame them? If they get a counterfeit bill, it's their loss at the end of the day. A small business can't survive like that. Some of the bills, I was told, are counterfeited so that the test pens that we have all seen can't even detect it.

I spoke with a few employees at Chicken Salad Chick and they mentioned a few other business that they knew stopped taking 50's and 100 dollar bills due to the increase in counterfeit activity.

I also spoke with a bank teller in Northport and was told they see some bills from time to time that get rejected from the bill counter. So apparently it is possible for a counterfeit bill to circulate from a person to a business back to a person may times before ending up in a bank.  Is there not a way for us, as customers, to check our change?  I can see where it would be easy to end up with a fake bill and it stinks for the small business owner and customer alike.

Have you ever come across a fake bill? Have you seen stores that wont take certain denominations of money?