Fake £20 note !! Given to me by the post office !!

texranger

Shevchenko01 wrote: »

Only Police and certain other public bodies, have the authority 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.

I run a retail business and wewre informed by the police (CPO) on one of his many vistist to local businesses that if a fake note is presented then the shop assistant MUST keep hold of this, issue a reciept for the note and then get the name and address of whoever handed this over, just incase it is not a fake and then either hand the note to the police of to your bank. with a single note the police do very little, so the best place to habd it over is to your bank where they will check it their and then with a more sophisticated machine, if its fake then will give you a receipt and then send the note to the BoE to be destroyed, if it is genuine then it will be returned to you so you can return this to the person who gave it to you, but out of the 4 i have siezed in the last 2 years all were 100% fake.

Hollie84

We often had these handed over in a place i worked usually by the young kids who claimed they had no idea funny how they never kicked up a fuss when we told them we had to keep it.our boss just destroyed them

texranger

Hollie84 wrote: »

We often had these handed over in a place i worked usually by the young kids who claimed they had no idea funny how they never kicked up a fuss when we told them we had to keep it.our boss just destroyed them

you will find out that if they know the note is fake they will not make a fuss, its the ones who have the note and not aware its fake will make a fuss as they have just lost £20

fluffnutter

I was passed a fake pound coin once. Right weight, right size, decent embossing. It was silver though.

Shevchenko01

texranger wrote: »

I run a retail business and wewre informed by the police (CPO) on one of his many vistist to local businesses that if a fake note is presented then the shop assistant MUST keep hold of this, issue a reciept for the note and then get the name and address of whoever handed this over, just incase it is not a fake and then either hand the note to the police of to your bank. with a single note the police do very little, so the best place to habd it over is to your bank where they will check it their and then with a more sophisticated machine, if its fake then will give you a receipt and then send the note to the BoE to be destroyed, if it is genuine then it will be returned to you so you can return this to the person who gave it to you, but out of the 4 i have siezed in the last 2 years all were 100% fake.

I have so often heard people say that their CPO siad it's okay to do...did they put it in writing? Often CPOs are civilian and not PCs and don't know the actual law.

Consider this:

- A customer is out buying baby food with their last £20;
- Shop-keeper confiscates a £20 as they believe it's fake;
- Turns out it was legit...this however takes (up to) 6 weeks for the system to work and the money returned to customer by the BoE;
- Child goes hungry for two days until mother can get more money.

Who do you think is going to get into trouble here? The mother, the BoE, Police or the shop-keeper?

Another senario:

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/BoE telling you that the £20 note is fake and you are £20 poorer!

You can of course do what you want in your shop but not without consequences.

Also, look at it from a different angle: you hand a £20 in change to a customer...they tell you its fake and ask for a real one, stating that they will keep the fake and hand it to the Police or bank. Would this wash with you? Of course not.

spike7451

Back in the days when we got paid by cheques & went to the bank to cash them,I got my wage slip & cashed it at the local Northern Bank,went to my land lady's & paid my rent to her in her shop.
The land lady scanned the £20 note's I'd given her & they were fake,so I took them back to the bank which was next door litteraly to her shop.Bank manager didn't want to know until I mentioned police,then they swapped it for real notes.
A few months later,a branch staff member was arrested & charged with running fake bank notes thru the bank,if I remember correctly,it was the manager.

vuvuzela

meer53 wrote: »

If you have a fake note, send it to your bank with a covering letter, they should credit your account with the value. The notes are then sent to the Bank of England with a claim form, the bank gets their money back and the note is destroyed.

I strongly suspect they will not credit your account. If they did then everyone would be sending them fake notes and getting real money in exchange.
They will in reality simply send you a letter thanking you for removing the fake note from circulation.

marleyboy

The same thing happened to me over 20 Years ago now, I was handed a bundle of fake notes and only realized when trying to purchase an item. It turned out the Asian run Post Office were deliberately handing out false notes to customers, they even had the nerve to take back fake notes they had knowingly handed out.

Needless to say they got caught in the end and that was the last time they ran that Post Office.

I always carry a marker pen since, just in case. I test notes I get from a Post Office nowadays, although to date have not been handed another fake since then.

HarryL

Shevchenko01 wrote: »

I don't agree...

For them to do that they:

1. Have to have accepted it in the first instance which they have not but have refused it as they will still ask for money to pay for the goods/services, and therefor is not theirs to pass/tender, and
2. Know or believe that it’s fake, and they are not qualified to know that...they can suspect but not know or even, in my honest opinion, have suffiecient grounds to believe as virtually no counter forgery system on the high street is 100% accurate and they often give false positives which lead to real notes being identified as fakes.

Also, if returning said note to shopper, the shop-keeper is not passing it "as genuine" (1a), no real grounds to believe that the shopper "shall pass or tender it as genuine" (1b) or, if he does, should call the Police straight away and have the shopper detained. Finally, I believe the shop-keeper does have "lawful authority or excuse" (2) as he is returning it to the owner.

Interesting thread. Id like to back up this statement above. If you read the rules posted by Shaun carefully you'll notice that Shevchenko is completely right in saying that the shop assistant should give the potentially fake note back. I'd also advice anyone who believes that a police officer or something in authority has told them to keep the note to be sceptical. If you got taken to court. Do you think saying, well my local PC said it was ok, would really get you off? Its in writing in an ACT OF PARLIAMENT stating pretty much that its only illegal if you don't plan on informing the person that you are giving them a fake note.

vuvuzela

marleyboy wrote: »

The same thing happened to me over 20 Years ago now, I was handed a bundle of fake notes and only realized when trying to purchase an item. It turned out the Asian run Post Office were deliberately handing out false notes to customers, they even had the nerve to take back fake notes they had knowingly handed out.

Needless to say they got caught in the end and that was the last time they ran that Post Office.

I always carry a marker pen since, just in case. I test notes I get from a Post Office nowadays, although to date have not been handed another fake since then.

Why is the race of the owner important ? If it was a white owner would you have put the 'white-run' ? I bet not.