london 7.12am 10C tuesday 2016
i did not know there will be a new £ coin design coming out in mar 2017 and i live here. this daily mail article warns retailers to be ready for it. funny why i have not heard of it before. i would have thought it important as it will affect everyone. usually they warn everyone of it years in advance, but maybe they dont want the forgers to make lots more while they can, or get rid of their stock of forged coins. there must be a lucrative business in some country somewhere to make forged £ coins.
still, i think it is long overdue this replacement of the old £ coin. its been in use since 1983 and is prone to forgery.
even ones that looks dodgy are accepted by businesses. the machines accept them, even if it rejects them initially, but try rubbing them against the machines and put them back in the slot and after a bit of hesitation, the machine will accept it.
i have only once seen a coin i put in repeatedly rejected, and when i call the attendant, she simply went off to a cashier to exchange it for another coin.actually she came back with two 50p coins. i guess the businesses find it too much of a hassle to tell shoppers they have a fake £ coin and to give it up and get nothing back. i can just imagine the scenes of anger that will be triggered if they do that. haha.
i have a feeling the businesses just give it as change to another customer. they dont bank it i think. if they do, the bank will just confiscate any fakes. i have never seen any cashier looking closely at £ coins to make sure they are genuine. so i guess they just recirculate it as change and no one is the wiser. they will soon find out how many are fakes once all the old £ coins are removed from circulation in autumn 2017.
so now all that will be solved with the new coin. looks quite a nice design too with lots of security features.
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