Shops refusing to take £50 notes

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PhillyDee said:
Its simply becasue they are so few of them about, and they are the most forged.
How do you know yours is legit if you don't handle them every day?
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I've worked with cash over two years, trust me, fake notes are painfully obvious.
£50's are easy to check too, check the feel, embossing, watermark, foiling and maybe the painted triangle.

Also note, £50 notes don't have holographs or uv ink. Microlettering is the most reliable way to check them.
 
Only twice have I ever had a £50 note whilst at work, both times the guy has tried to scam me by actually saying he had the right change after paying with a £50 note for a £3 dvd,

Both times I closed the till rapidly and said "oh well, I have already put it through" and each time the person went nuts as they said they really needed that £50 for something, one of them even threatened to come round and get it back himself as I was running the store on my own,

Needless to say whenever anyone pays with a £50 note I am extra cautious and count the change to the penny and refuse to deviate from the sale at any point
 
Businesses are there to make money, so isn't it their loss? A UV checker costs nothing, so they're pretty stupid for not having one available.

Money is money, so if they don't want it then goodbye, you've just lost a customer!
 
Clydesdale bank (or it might be the Bank of Scotland) issued updated £50 notes a year or two ago. Those ones are green in colour (I may be wrong here, I've just suddenly completely forgotten...) and have all the security measures that modern notes have.

As far as I'm aware, though, the management reserve the right to refuse to accept any notes.
 
i used to do newark antiques fair and all the cockneys go large with the 50 pound notes weird :p

when ive had them i get rid of them as quick as possible as to save on the hassle ala this thread. or just say ill have 20 or tenners :D
 
vintage-x said:
I once had a guy pay for a £2.50 drink with a £50. I gave him the change in large notes.
He asked me for change but I said I didnt have anything less then what I gave him (really I couldnt be bothered messing about with loads of change)
It turns out that the guy is a known scammer who pays with a £50 note and then when he asks for change trys to confuse you and can end up with an extra £10 or so.

The guy had scammed a couple of places before he tried with us and the other places had just started phoneing everyone about the scam.
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I know people try this in my area with 20s paying for items under £1 normally.

No-One said:
I was in Tesco a while back queuing to pay when the couple in front handed over a £50 note to pay for their 40 odd quids worth of shopping. We had to stand there for a few minutes while the cashier called over the manager to double check that the note was authentic. No idea if this was company policy or what
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Probably company policy. It is where I work, very annoying as sometimes it takes a while for the manager to come over and the customer's look says "Do you think I'm a fraudster?".

We also have to mark every single note (yes including dirty £5 notes) with a special pen. Far too many customers say how they 'printed it this morning' as a joke. Really, never heard that one before...
 
Apparently the new 50 note will come out this winter, what do they do with the old ones? They can't just bin em?
 
Thorpy said:
Apparently the new 50 note will come out this winter, what do they do with the old ones? They can't just bin em?
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that;s what they do when they change the £20's etc.

You have so long to get them changed then after that they have to be taken to certain banks to be changed.
 
Antar Bolaeisk said:
With regards to the op, if a shop refused to take my money I'd leave whatever goods I'd gathered at the cash desk, walk away and spend it elsewhere. Money is money regardless of what form it takes (so long as it's legal tender for the respective country).

I do hate it though when people buy tickets at the box office with €100 notes though, cleans out the float instantly first thing in the morning :(
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Surely the second part of that should have some effect on your behaviour in the first bit? Some places wont want to take a £50 if it leaves them with no float and they can't give change to any further customers.

Personally, if I end up with a £50 in pay/presents/whatever, I put it in the bank. They have no issues accepting it, and then I can either pay for things on my card or go withdraw £20s. I'd always rather have a stock of £5 and £10 notes than big denominations. Carrying around big notes is only cool if you can afford to hand them over without waiting around for the change, otherwise you're going to run in to hassles with people not wanting them :p
 
I see them quite a lot in my work and also see a few £100 notes per month. I'd be a bit arsey if someone bought something for £1 with a £50 note at the start of the day. Mid afternoon is fine though as the till is absolutely full of 20s and 10s!

I got hassle buying £1.50 worth of stuff with a £20 in the west end of Glasgow. I blame the ATM for not giving me 2 tenners :@
 
Only time I've ever seen a £100 note is in Scotland. Since it's Scotland and Northern Ireland that do £100 notes I'm not surprised.

Scottish notes get funny looks sometimes in England and no one at all seems to want them in their change, some places refuse to take them. A £100 Scottish note I'd say would almost guarantee a check from a manager (in England) even at a large business if it was offered for payment.
 
simulatorman said:
You wouldn’t have had that many. ;)
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One advantage of working in a bingo club is the large amount of cash of all denominations. A customer once asked me to change £200 in £1 coins to "tens". So I gave her £200 in 10ps. Just for a laugh.

We accept £50 notes, but they get checked 6 ways from Sunday.

It isn't a matter of a dodgy customer, either. Many fake notes are passed innocently by people who don't know how to spot a fake and have had one or two passed on to them.

Suprisingly, the most common fake money we see is £1 coins. Stacks of those. It seems pointless, as they never go in any machines and anyone with any knowledge can immediately spot that they're fake. The gold colour scratches off, they are often the wrong colour anyway, the weight is usually wrong (so they sound wrong when dropped)...obvious fakes.

The worst time we had was when someone made a batch of fake £20s that were accepted by the model of change machine used in many of our clubs. Insert fake £20, get 20 real £1 coins, repeat.
 
G-MAN2004 said:
Businesses are there to make money, so isn't it their loss? A UV checker costs nothing, so they're pretty stupid for not having one available.

Money is money, so if they don't want it then goodbye, you've just lost a customer!
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As has been said the £50 notes from BoE aren't UV watermarked. Although in general it's a fair point, for the amount a UV checking device costs it hardly seems not worth having one for most businesses that deal in cash.

meghatronic said:
Rich people don't carry cash.

Heck, I'm not rich and I don't.
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You not being rich and not carrying cash doesn't really prove the assertion that rich people don't prove cash although it's useful to know so that none of us mug you for your wallet. :p
 
apatia77 said:
I've never been refused £50 note but then I would never use a £50 note for anything below £10 value.

On one occasion someone tried to pay me using £100 note, I was like WTF (at that time I never even knew they existed and would never ever accept one) for a £10 payment. I know this guy was genuine and was not trying to scam me as I later found out.
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What the hell is a £100 note? ...to google
 
Euros come in 500, 200 and 100, I've used 200 and 100 notes without any problem whilst abroad, it seems the UK is just stuck behind the times.
 
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