Article in the Ottawa Citizen

There is an article about CMT in the Ottawa Citizen today. Unfortunately you can't get it online, but here is the Headline:

Money tracker website pays only in personal interest

I will try and get the text for everyone later today.

i can get part of it… OK, Mike …. spit it out the rest!!!

Money tracker website pays only in personal interest
Paper bills are always slipping through Mike Tetrault's hands, but at least he can track the whereabouts of his currency through a popular website.

false alarm. sigh….. it's a nice article about whereswilly. i bought the electronic edition and am pasting the article text. the original article has a picture in it. i have printed that and also have the article as a Word document if anyone is really interested.

Money tracker website pays only in personal interest
WheresWilly.com follows whereabouts of currency bills
BY TONY LOFARO

Paper bills are always slipping through Mike Tetrault’s hands, but at least he can track the whereabouts of his currency through a popular website.
The 27-year-old Ottawa hightech employee is one of a growing number of followers of the WheresWilly.com website, which allows registered members to track their bills after they’re in circulation. Since becoming a member a year ago, he has entered the serial numbers of more than 1,300 bills and has had a 30-per-cent success rate in tracking his bills.
“It’s an interesting hobby anyway,” said Mr. Tetrault, who added he has often wondered where his paper bills go after using them in retail purchases.
“It’s a practical way of finding out where bills travel to. You usually get pretty good results.”
Here’s how it works: he marks a paper bill with an identifiable message and enters its serial number on the website.
After he spends the bill somewhere, he waits for someone to pick it up and enter the serial number on the website to indicate where it has gone.
He said he mostly uses fivedollar bills because they travel farther than other denominations, although other paper bills can be used. Since he started he has entered 1,352 bills — worth $11,080 — on the website and he has received multiple hits on some of the bills.
The website was created in 2001 by Hank Eskin, who named it after prime minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, whose face appears on the five-dollar bill. The total number of bills entered into the website so far is 1,267,985, representing a dollar value of $16,013,305, according to Mr. Tetrault’s statistics.
The website has 83,676 registered users across the country and in Ottawa there are about a dozen regular users, plus countless others who just visit the website.
He said most merchants are co-operative about cashing a paper bill with strange markings and he’s had few problems. He said a marked bill is still legal tender as long as it has not been physically altered or destroyed.
Mr. Tetrault said the fascinating thing about the exercise is the ability to learn where his bills end up. The farthest one of his bills travelled was to California, he said.
“It was a five-dollar bill that I spent on my vacation in P.E.I. Someone picked it up there and the bill travelled in 20 days to Citrus Heights, California.”
He said the only explanation he received for the distance travelled was that a tourist used the five-dollar bill on the ferry from P.E.I. to Nova Scotia.
“That was my farthest hit, but I’ve had other hits in New Jersey and Vancouver, but most of them tend to be from Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.”
He said some of the people who receive his bills post their e-mail address on the website and he’s communicated with users across Canada.
“I always make it a point of sending an e-mail thanking them.”
He said the website has become popular with users and members are in nearly every Canadian city. He said there’s an informal “Willy gathering” next month in Toronto, where website followers will tell about their experiences, exchange funny stories and trade bills. NICKI CORRIGALL, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN Mike Tetrault is a member of the WheresWilly club through which people track their paper currency by putting an identifiable stamp on the bill and registering its serial number on a website to see where it ends up after they spend it. 

Misleading headline…D'OH!!

Sorry for getting excited to quickly…Not that that happens often anymore ;-)

Sorry for getting excited to quickly…Not that that happens often anymore ;-)

lolol join the rest of the MALE cmters!!

Awww. Bummer. What a chance for some good press and it's the "other" site.