Counterfeit money checks all the time

Every since I have been in Taiwan, cash clerks have been doing counterfeit money checks on cash I hand over.

Usually, it’s the 1000s or the 500s and they use various methods, such as:

  1. Looking down the silver strip
  2. Holding it up to light to see a watermark
  3. Putting some sort of clear plastic thing over a part of the note
  4. Using a special marker pen
  5. Putting it through a money counter for the check
  6. Scratching some part of the note with a fingernail.

Lately, I have had a few clerks checking each of my 100s :astonished: which seems over the top to me.

This got me thinking, how bad is the whole counterfeit money scene in Taiwan? Has anyone here ever been caught out with any counterfeit TW dollars here?
The way all my money is getting checked, it seems like there is so much counterfeit money around, but I’ve never experienced any yet myself, or heard of any of my friends mention it.

We got a few counterfeit 100s at my school a few months back.

It is absolutely rampant in China and the Rmb100s look kinda like NT$100s. I’d heard about it from time to time in Taiwan but have copped at least Rmb1,000 in dodgy bills in China out of ATMs.

HG

[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]It is absolutely rampant in China and the Rmb100s look kinda like NT$100s. I’d heard about it from time to time in Taiwan but have copped at least Rmb1,000 in dodgy bills in China out of ATMs.

HG[/quote]
Geez what a hassle. You’d think ATMs would be safe…

[quote=“Truant”]Every since I have been in Taiwan, cash clerks have been doing counterfeit money checks on cash I hand over.

Usually, it’s the 1000s or the 500s and they use various methods, such as:

  1. Looking down the silver strip
  2. Holding it up to light to see a watermark
  3. Putting some sort of clear plastic thing over a part of the note
  4. Using a special marker pen
  5. Putting it through a money counter for the check
  6. Scratching some part of the note with a fingernail.

Lately, I have had a few clerks checking each of my 100s :astonished: which seems over the top to me.

This got me thinking, how bad is the whole counterfeit money scene in Taiwan? Has anyone here ever been caught out with any counterfeit TW dollars here?
The way all my money is getting checked, it seems like there is so much counterfeit money around, but I’ve never experienced any yet myself, or heard of any of my friends mention it.[/quote]

Its because you look like a criminal. Long sloping cranial lobes, no rounded ends to your ears, that knuckle duster you always wear…

Just take the change, and slowly lift it to the light and check it. Once in a while refuse a 100 and demand a diffferent note.

Its fairly common.

Its fairly common.[/quote]

A while back Chinatrust got a bunch of counterfeit US100 dollar bills that even fooled those money counters. Apprantly they came from China or something. By the way if it passes the money counter then you’re safe because if it passes and it turns out to be counterfeit the company who rents you the money counter has to reimburse you. Which is why they are popular in businesses that deals more than 10,000NT a day.

DONT even think about making counterfeit money by the way… it is a capital crime here.

Over the years, as I’m always paid in cash, I’ve picked up plenty of fakes, 10 or 11 fake 1000s. However, I haven’t had that problem for a long time. The quality of the fakes was pretty poor, but they simply don’t have to be that great to get passed into circulation.

I had a fake 500 NT$ bill soem 12 years ago … it looke dwashed out and I thought it’s been in the laundry and took it to the Bank of Taiwan near the presidential building … the guy looked funny at me and cut the bill in half and that was it …

I noticed they usually do it at Watsons, probably they are trained like that. You can make them really uncomfortable if you check the change they give you in the same way :slight_smile: My girlfriend hates when I do that but strangely its ok when they waste my time by doing it (as usually she’s never on my side, sniff sniff). I mean its ok if they check the bills of the locals but why the nice foreigners? Why would someone really like to fake their monopoly money, and if you did, every sane person wouldn’t try to fake the big bills.

Similiar case one, when I want to visit a friend in Taichung I have to get a keyclip to get upstairs at the “security” and leave my ID at the entrance door. I have to call him before (on his cellphone!) and pass the security guard my phone with him on it (could be anyone actually). He’s been shouting at them “your job is to stop the taiwanese, let the foreigner go!”. Besides, yeah, I’ll rob the place by passing by the front door and asking for a elevator keycard…

Similiar case two, at the bank they check if my signature is 100% the same if I withdraw money at the counter. Usually its not cause I didn’t care about the signature style when signing all the chinese papers which I don’t understand when opening the account. So I have to make a new signature, which I have to copy from what they show me on their little screen… so secure.

In Taiwan there is a lot of security by obscurity. It probably ends with the “fake helmets” they are wearing here…

PS. This is not a rant. I love this country and monopoly and their security by obscurity.

In the US I’ve never seen anyone check banknotes for counterfeiting…except in Chinatown.

Hmmmm… :ponder:

According to the US treasury you would have about a 1 in 10,000 chance of receiving a dud bank bill.

Somone mentioned the quality iof the fakes earlier. In China the quality I’ve been hit with has ranged from absolute crap - feel it and you knew immediately, to feeling not quite right but passing a blue light test.

The first time it happened I passed a Rmb100 to a taxi driver at night and he handed it straight back and demanded HK dollars! Another time I copped 4x Rmb100 notes from an ATM in Zhuhai (where I’d drawn Rmb800) that were fairly good. Still no one would have them - including the frigging bank I;d just drawn them out of! - until I stumbled into a bar in Guangzhou, where I said I could only stay if I could use the fake notes. They tested them and reckoned they passed the blue light so were happy to accept them. Erhm, and I got rather smashed.

In China everyone is wary of fake notes and will spend quite sometime checking them. More often than not they’ll err on the side of caution and refuse good money.

In Taiwan it’s always been the poor bastards getting oodles of cash payments that I’ve heard copping it. Quite a few horror stories also, as it seems when you get one you often get several. If that is you, then I’d reckon a blue light thingee is a very cheap and wise investment.

HG

The thing about US dollars I find is that whenever I get a pile of them from the bank to go travelling with, there is usually a few oddball notes that have different artwork on them or are an orangey/green istead of cream/green.

I would have thought that the USD would be one of the most popular currencies to counterfeit, so it surprises me the US treasury allows ‘special issue’ notes at all.

they check the money like crazy in South America as well. I got a fake 10$ us bill in Equador once. I took it to a bank because a shopkeeper refused it. The bank told me to spend it somewhere and act stupid. So I did.

I’ve had a lot of fake RMB too but never any TWD. During our last trip to China my colleague got x4 fake RMB100 bills. I have mostly gotten fake notes from taxi drivers, but that is usually smaller denominations. They seem to prey especially at night when the cab is dark so you won’t notice the fake notes.

In China I like to pull money from the HSBC ATM as they dispence new notes. Although often people don’t want to take these because they think those are fake too… They look too new and have sequential numbers :unamused:

Actually, I think I got a fake Rmb100 from the HSBC ATM just before you exit the customs buiklding on the China side at Lo Wu. Alternatively, the taxi drive may have pulled a swifty - taking a good note and swapping it with a bad one. It did cross my mind at the time.

HG

I havn’t come across any fake notes yet in Taiwan. there are quite a few in the UK though, but are usually easy to see.

In Taiwan, quite a bit of technology has gone into the new notes to stop them from being forged.

Picking up the goods you have just bought and holding them up against the light is funny, but confuses them. I don’t think they quite get the humour.