Tell me please , expressions of money take singular or plural verbs ?

Question

It is worth mentioning that Jordan has witnessed four major corruption cases since 1990 in which hundreds of millions of dollars WERE/WAS embezzled.
Independent statistics have shown that 148 billion dollars HAS/HAVE been stolen.
I studied in Grammer that expressions of money take singular verbs, but it seems unnatural. Then again I am not a native speaker of English, so what is the correct form ?

Answer 1

Hundreds of millions of dollars WERE embezzled.
148 billion dollars HAS been stolen.

The first one is plural because of the way the sentence is constructed. It is not any specific monetary amount, just a general hundreds of... so hundreds would take a plural verb. It could just as well say that hundreds of millions of feathers were stolen.

The second is singular because the 148 billion dollars is one collective unit.

Other examples:
Ten dollars is missing from my piggy bank.
$300 dollars is on the table.
Forty dollars was the amount I was short.

Hundreds of one dollar bills were in my wallet.
Millions of dollars were stolen.
Hundreds of pennies were minted.

Answer 2

Ah, but you could say, "100 dollars was stolen from my purse," where the "$100" is thought of as a single sum of money. To say, "100 dollars WERE stolen . . ." would imply 100 $1 bills - to my English mind, anyway.

Answer 3

You are assuming everything is third person. You really need to learn irregular verbs like this in complete conjugations. I am, You (singular) are, He/She/It is, We are, You (plural) are, They are I was, You (s) were, He/She/It was, We were, You (pl) were, They were I have, You (s) have, He/She/It has, We have, You (pl) have, They have Regular verbs generally go like this. I answer, You (s) answer, He/She/It answers, We answer, You (pl) answer, They answer

Answer 4

hundreds of millions of dollars WERE embezzled
148 billion dollars HAVE been stolen

the NOUNS MILLIONS AND DOLLARS ARE PLURAL

Singular examples " one dollar was embezzled "
" one dollar has been stolen "