Retailers and businesses are much busier than normal over Christmas and often employ temporary staff, so there is an increased risk of counterfeit banknotes being passed, says the Bank of England. To help protect your business, the Bank reminds you to ensure all banknotes being passed in transactions are checked and to ensure all staff know what to do if they suspect a banknote is counterfeit.
While counterfeit notes account for a tiny fraction of one per cent of notes in circulation, they do exist, and can be costly and embarrassing for a shop and customers. Checking notes can help to protect you from inadvertently accepting counterfeit notes, and to protect your customers from receiving counterfeit notes in their change.
Counterfeit notes are produced by organised criminal gangs who directly target retailers and businesses; you become an easier target if you accept a counterfeit banknote. The most common method of passing counterfeits is by purchasing a low value item with a high value note, so that criminals get away with the item and genuine cash from the till. Other techniques include putting counterfeit notes amongst genuine notes, and customers purchasing an item with counterfeit notes then returning for a cash refund. If these notes are accepted they could result in a direct loss to you – counterfeits have no value.
Counterfeit banknotes are worthless, and it is illegal to knowingly pass them. Typically banks will deduct the face value from deposited takings, but there are also other potential impacts on businesses. The most damaging could be reputational loss if counterfeit notes are inadvertently passed to customers either as change or to suppliers to pay for stock. Neither would be very happy to discover that the source of their counterfeit note was your business.
The Bank of England encourages every business to making counterfeit detection a standard part of their loss prevention practices, a good starting point is to make sure you have a company policy regarding what to do if counterfeit notes are discovered. Once a counterfeit note is suspected or discovered it is your responsibility to notify the police. This is because it is a criminal offence to knowingly hold or pass on a note that you know or suspect to be counterfeit (the Forgery & Counterfeit Act 1981 is the relevant legislation).
There are steps you can take to protect yourself and your customers. Manual checks can quickly and easily be made using the security features on banknotes whenever notes are being passed in a transaction. Don’t rely on checking just one security feature, but check a few such as:
-The feel of the paper and the raised print
-The watermark
-The holograms
-The metallic thread
-The motion thread on the £50 note, pictured.
To help with checking the Bank of England provide details on their website, with free educational materials, including a Banknote App (available for both Apple and Android), booklet, posters, film, computer based training course and deterrent stickers. Details are available at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Pages/educational.aspx
There are also tools available to help check your banknotes such as counterfeit detector pens and ultra-violet (UV) lamps, more details on these can be found in the ‘Take a Closer Look’ booklet. Further help is also available by using counterfeit note checking machines. The Bank of England has a list of machines that have passed the Bank’s counterfeit checking test on their website: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Pages/retailers/framework.aspx.
