Retaining fake money

gordikin

The till operator is the first line of defence...they rightfully pass any doubts about dodgy money onwards and upwards...who wants to finish their shift with a till full of dodgy notes?

ajuk

arcon5 wrote: »

Your going to have some interesting encounters with customers, thats for sure .

Yeah I hope it means I get put on a checkout less, then I'll stop doing it.

Sorry I couldn't resist posting a link to this.
http://youtu.be/IBdSl7yeIiw

Aquatronixjenny

There are loads of fake pound coins in circulation at the moment. I have been handed 3 of them in the past week in change from shops... in fact, if I get handed them by a shop do I have to retain them to hand to the police (and then ask for a genuine one too?)

I used to work in Iceland in Aldershot and we had a machine in there for the savings stamps. When it got emptied on a Saturday evening about 80% of the coins were fake so I'm well trained to spotting a dodgy one.

Shevchenko01

I know this is a little old but having been involved in something similar recently, I've decided to put in my penny's worth...

The Police along with certain other public bodies are allowed to confiscate property that they believe to be illegal, counterfeit or those that come under certain other groups. The reason that they are able to do that is they are given various powers of seizure.
This is important...powers of seizure granted under statute.
A shop keeper/till operator has no such powers – no more than any other member of the public. That said, there are some powers under common-law that they could exercise which would effectively mean arresting the person presenting the note.

There are two options for the shop-keeper to choose from here:

1. Accept the note in payment – they do what they need to with it, i.e., hand it in to the Police, a bank, etc.
2. Refuses it and asks for different form of payment.

They cannot do both – accept (or rather seize it) and refuse the goods. They have no power of seizure.

If they did seize it, what then? This is open to so much abuse and would make a great scam. Here’s the scenario:

1. You attempt to buy goods with a genuine £20 note.
2. Shop-keeper says it’s fake and seizes it, issuing a receipt with the serial number.
3. Shop-keeper makes a good quality copy of said £20 note and submits that to the Police, keeping the original.
4. You get a letter from the Police/Bank of England telling you that the £20 note is fake and you are £20 poorer!

My question to the manager of a well-known high street burger-bar was “under what act of Parliament do you claim your powers to seize my property?” Of course, he couldn’t answer it. As it was, my £20 had been washed in my trousers and showed up as fake under their scanner.
My bank confirmed it was fine.

texranger

ajuk wrote: »

No he was right. Basically I know my employer gets annoyed at my ability to spot fake pound coins, but if I start retaining them I wanted to know that they couldn't touch me for it, so then I won't get put on a checkout.

their are millions of fake pound coins in circulation and i can guarantee you have had them passed to you from your banks.

regarding fake notes as a retailer you must retain them and not pass them on, give the customer a receipt for the note and if you want take down their name and address incase the note is genuine.

you then can pass that onto your bank or the police, but you will get better service from your bank in relation to this

i know as a shopkeeper you can do this as i was told by the crime prevention officer when he did his rounds to speak to shopkeepers in my local town.

bris

The bank I get my change from don't even hide the fact they give out fake pound coins in sealed bags, the fake ones start to turn black and are easy to spot. When I asked about one in a sealed bag once they just said they only worry about the paper notes and don't care about the coins.
Looks like they have just added them to the circulation on the sly, saves the government making the I suppose.

texranger

bris wrote: »

The bank I get my change from don't even hide the fact they give out fake pound coins in sealed bags, the fake ones start to turn black and are easy to spot. When I asked about one in a sealed bag once they just said they only worry about the paper notes and don't care about the coins.
Looks like they have just added them to the circulation on the sly, saves the government making the I suppose.

dom littlewood did a programme on this last year and it wold cost banks thousands to remove all fake pound coins, so they dont bother.

another way to tell a fake pound coin is when you place it on its edge and look at both sites, both imprinted images should be the same way up

unholyangel

I saw that same episode

I think they said fake coins account for at least 2% of all pound coins currently in circulation.

texranger

unholyangel wrote: »

I saw that same episode

I think they said fake coins account for at least 2% of all pound coins currently in circulation.

yup and they did an experiment of getting £100 of pound coins each from the 5 major banks and all contained fake coins.

i think it was natwest that had £46 of the £100 fake

unholyangel

texranger wrote: »

yup and they did an experiment of getting £100 of pound coins each from the 5 major banks and all contained fake coins.

i think it was natwest that had £46 of the £100 fake

Was it £100? I thought it was £1000 :X Cant say i remember who placed where though or even what banks were tested Just remember there was a few of them and they used the machines that test for loads of things like weight, density or stuff like that (tbh cant remember exactly what the machines tested for either hehe)