Most everybody who rides the subway isn't happy with how much it costs or how those costs keep rising. 

On top of that, straphangers are almost traditionally fed up with the state of disrepair in the subway, and let us not forget the crowding.

Fed up or not, who would have thought that a wild amount of people have bought MetroCards with fake money, amounting to $70,000 over the last three years?

It makes sense. New Yorkers are a crafty breed and many of us aren't above skimming, scamming, or robbing Peter to pay Paul, so to speak. 

Especially in an instance where there are literally millions of people per day swiping through the turn styles, and nobody's really looking that closely.

Not even station agents! More than 3,300 counterfeit bills were used to buy subway rides since 2012, and many of those bills were handed to station agents who are undoubtedly easier to scam than a machine designed to reject fakes.

While station agents are required to check potentially counterfeit bills with a pen that determines bank notes' authenticity and cross reference serial numbers to double check, counterfeiters have managed to outsmart the pens. 

Couple that with the rush most station agents are put in by needing to accommodate so many riders, and they just don't have the time to look at the serial number on every bill they're handed. But it's more than the MTA being scammed. 

Apparently the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is spending more in disciplinary action in the form of hearings than the amount of money lost in transactions with counterfeits, which ultimately costs the rider; that's money they should be spending on fixing the subway.

With $22,559 worth of MetroCards bought with counterfeit money just in 2015, what's being done? Counterfeit detection machines called the Fraud Fighter CT-550 have been installed in two stations in the Bronx and Queens as part of a pilot program.

Once enough data has been accumulated to prove the machines' efficacy, it's likely they'll be installed all over NYC to apprehend those handing fake bills to the station agents. That way, agents will be off the hook which is particularly good because they're now at risk of having their pay docked.

Really, station agents are New Yorkers like the rest of us. We may not like feeling as though they're always ignoring us-- especially when we can't hear a word they're saying, but that doesn't mean it's OK to take money out of their pockets. 

Check out You Can Now Shop for the Holidays... in the NYC Subway.

[via AM New York] [Feature Image Courtesy New York Daily News]