1000 dolar question?

Question

Heres the question that im debating with a college.

A person comes in and purchase a $200.00 pen and pays with a 1,000.00 bill (lets say it exists). But you dont have change. So u go to your neighbor and get change. You give the pen and change to the customer and he leaves. Your neighbor comes to you and says "hey this 1,000.00 bill is fake", assuming you pay your neighbor back. How much money have you lost in this transaction?

Answer

$400. You took got change for $1000. Giving the pen owner $200 for the pen, leaving you $800 left, you must give the neighbour back all, since you already gave $200 away  you must take an additional $200 from your pocket. So in total you spent $400 dollars.

However if you look at it you only lost $200 because you spent the other $200 on the pen you wanted... So either way really.

1000 dolar question?

Answers (1)