Counterfeit Money

[PollyWaffle]

How common is it to come across fake money in China?

Yesterday I went to the shop to buy stuff, & the lady takes a quick look at my 50, hands it back & sez it's fake. After she explained why, & let me compare it, yep, it is a really good fake!

I traced the 50 back to a taxi driver in Beijing, who insisted on me giving him a hundred "because I have a 50", he sed. I took this taxi a very long way because I was tired, lazy & feeling decadent, the entire fare was 53 kuai. I had the 50 in change but whilst I fumbled around for the 3 kuai, mr. 弄虚作假 came up with his brilliant suggestion & even sed 'don't worry about the 3 kuai'. I smelled a rat but am pretty blonde sometimes.

Anyway, I don't care, it's only $7 & a cool souvenir.

[Bob Dylan Thomas]

Well, i got into a huge pickle in September when i was on my way from Tianjin to Beijing where i had to get a train to HK, and the only cash i had was a 100kuai note. I went to buy the 7kuai ticket to Beijing, and the ticket salesman noticed a TINY fragment of the 100kuai note was torn off the corner of the note (the tear was about the size of a brown lentil), and refused to take it, leaving me with effectively no money, and only 3 hours to get to Beijing train station! The note wasn't even a fake.

[this anecdote now gets a bit long-winded, so stop reading here if you've got something important to do]

so i tried something which, had i been chinese, would have been a disgrace: i begged 7kuai from the nice people in the train queue, which they were fighting to give me (what a wonderful bunch!). then in Beijing i found an old Taiwanese 1kuai coin in the bottom of my bag, which the ticket women on the bus to the West station didn't notice wasn't legal tender in China, so i made it in time for my train... and then i tried every little store in the West station with my 100kuai note, and eventually managed to persuade one of them to take it.

So, the moral of the story: check every note you get to see if it has even a tiny bit ripped off. my one came out of a Bank of China cash machine, so even they aren't guaranteed. And, if you try and try and try, someone somewhere will not notice and accept the note. polly i'm sure if you try every day someone will take it eventually (though would that be immoral?)

[roddy]

I think I've only had a problem with fake money once, and that was way back in 1998 with a fake 50 in Shanghai. Quite often I've had notes I've been dubious about, but they've always been accepted.

It seems to be the old style 50Y notes that are the most counterfeited - taxi-drivers always give them a particularly thorough going over.

Roddy

[seagate]

so i tried something which, had i been chinese, would have been a disgrace: i begged 7kuai from the nice people in the train queue, which they were fighting to give me (what a wonderful bunch!).

This is interesting. It reminds me of the experience of a friend of mine, a Chinese student in America. He once got lost in some rural area, so he went to a local store for help. He told me later: Those rural Americans were really super nice! They were surrounding me and fighting to give me directions!

Yes, generally people, whether they are Chinese, Americans or people of any other countries, tend to be nice and generous to foreigners. But one bad thing in China is, nowdays in cities there are more and more professional beggars that are controlled by their underground boss. Those generous people that initially gave beggars money finally found they're cheated and their generousity was fooled. This is too bad. Now more and more people say: I do want to help, but I more hate to be cheated.

[cutty]

Yes, you must pay attention on the bills. I have seen many stories about getting a fake one. I do look for the Chairman's head watermark on each bill in front of the ATM everytime when I was in China last month. If you are living in China, you really should get a debit card from bank.