That theory is wrong. I work in a cash centre and low denomination (£5/£10) have very low forgery rates (the low denomination paper notes already had low rates and polymer have extremely low rates of forgeries). £50s are fairly common although not as much as people suspect, but by a huge majority £20 notes are the biggest forgeries in circulation. I would say more than 80% of forgeries are £20 notes. The forgers are not interested in printing small notes and £50s are a bit too obvious as they come under suspicion everywhere, so they go all out on £20s.
Also Scottish/N.Irish notes are quite commonly forged. In England people accepting cash know that Scottish/N.Irish money is legal currency and they risk angering customers by rejecting or even questioning it, but it may as well be Monopoly money if you’re not sure what all the notes look like (and there are a lot of different ones issued by different banks, very confusing). There are some really horrific Scottish forgeries (think Bottom) which make it through because many people don’t know what Scottish notes are meant to look like.
We use expensive machines to find forgeries but I would say the main ways to cover yourself without making your buyer feel offended is to count through the notes and inspect any that feel different. Forgeries almost always feel glossy or too smooth. If you find one that doesn’t feel right - check the queens head against the light. The image should fade in and out as you turn it against the light, whereas fakes usually have a static image where the forgers have just sandwiched an image between the paper.
There are also dozens of other security features built in and someone has already kindly posted the BoE guides. They are very exhaustive though and 99% of the time you can just feel that it’s not right.
Faster Payments carry exactly the same risk as handing over cash. Once a transfer is made, it cannot be undone. Even in fraud cases it is very difficult to recover the funds - this is made via a request to the receiving bank but relies on the honesty of the recipient as to whether they return the funds or not. It is not illegal for them to keep the funds.
Yeah I know someone who was substantially overpaid a few months ago. He’s just put the cash to one side, but they don’t seem to have realised yet. Or haven’t asked for it back anyway!
‘Legal tender’ is a much abused term and has a much narrow definition than many people realise.
Pennies, for example. If I sell you a 10p postcard and you give me a pile of pennies, that’s legal tender. If you buy three of them and give me three piles of pennies? Not legal tender any more.
The Bank of England probably explain it all better than I could.
It’s worth people reading the first couple of paragraphs of that link, becaus legal tender also has a very limited use case – it does not mean a shop is required to accept it for a transaction.
I used to work in a shop and used to get plenty of people try to give me fake £50 notes. In all cases the feel of the paper was a give away, much more reliable than the marker pens (which always dry out anyway).
The BoE source that @Chapuys posted above is also really helpful. Just familiarise yourself with the basics, but the first step is to feel every note and see if it feels legit.
Your employer can’t just take back the cash… they have to ask you for it back then both parties have to agree to terms of giving it back. They can’t be seen as to leave you in financial hardship
Even in case of fraud? A lot of scam stories rely on people receiving a Faster Payment and then the fraudster calls them and asks the money to be “sent back” (to a different account actually) as it was a “mistake”.
The sending account was actually compromised and the payment is reversed eventually, but the second payment to “send back” the money was legitimate and can’t be reversed, so the victim is out of pocket.
My concern is that the person wanting to pay via Faster Payments would do exactly that, pay from a compromised account, grab the goods but the payment will reverse once the legitimate owner of the account catches on.
Sorry to point out as everyone else is but ‘retaining wrongful credit’ comes under the Theft Act 1968 so makes it illegal.
A person is guilty of this offence if
a wrongful credit has been made to an account kept by him or in respect of which he has any right or interest;
he knows or believes that the credit is wrongful; and he dishonestly fails to take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to secure that the credit is cancelled."
Back in 1988, a payment of around £170 appeared in my Halifax savings account.
I popped in and asked them about it. They said not to worry, it was all ok.
Not satisfied with this, I worried, and requested a copy of the cheque that had been paid in. A couple of weeks later a photocopy of the front and back of the cheque arrived in the post.
The account number written on the reverse was written is messy handwriting and the last teo digits has been misread by Halifax who credited the money to my account.
Someone was probably wondering where their mortgage payment had gone.
I went into the branch and advised Halifax of their error and asked them to move the money to the correct account. Not so much as a thank you from them for my honesty and diligence. They wanted to leave the money in my account.
