For the truly paranoid:

[Theophylact]

Your money's gonna rat you out (maybe).

(It probably isn't an RFID tag, but it probably is an authentication device of some kind.)

[Toadman]

Interesting that ignition in a microwave starts at the right eye.

[whitebeard21]

Theo this is an urban legend or practical joke. This link debunks it.

I was going to try it if I could talk my son into suplying the bills.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/letters/

[no1_vern]

Whitebeard got to it before I did.

[zen]

Whatreallyhappened.com is the biggest load of crap I have ever seen.

[vass0922]

couldn't find anything true or false from snopes.

although did read some other interesting articles regarding currency

[samwichse]

Um, one little problem:

The detectors in that truckstop were for magnetic tags. ie tags that can only be shown as present (until they're demagnetized). RFID tags are made to show actual information in radio frequencies (hence the RF).

And the reason they're all burned through in the same place is they were all bundled together.

I don't need snopes.com to tell me this is bunk, pure and simple.

Sam

[whitebeard21]

Sam since you are up on the process can you give us an idea why magnetic strips are contained in the bills? It cant be for counting because a stack would give conflicting totals.
The only scenario I can come up with is to track a bill from cradle to grave so to speak. It would have to be logged everytime it enters a bank, but then it would have to pass through a reader with a persons acct. # to really track it. I have not seen anything that looks like a reader when I make deposits, has anyone else?

I though it was just another feature to make counterfeiting more difficult. I wouldn't doubt that there are devices that can detect the strip in the bills to check for authenticity, but I seriously doubt that individual bills are actually being tracked, at least not yet.

[jman01pa]

Agreed Fingers.

Bills have security threads primarily as a counterfeit measure. I am confident that in certain conditions, scanners are set up to detect large amount of bills being moved from one location to another. Other than that, there is no logical way or reason to track money individuals hold at any given time.

Since I rarely carry more than a single 20 on me at any given time, I have no fears or reasons to be paranoid.