Dodgy Cash

I would have recorded the serial number or made a black & white copy of the note and then taken it to another bank branch to verify its authenticity.

If it was fake I would then report it to the Police and advise where the note came from, get a (crime?) reference number from the Police and then advise the bank which issued you with the note.

Most copiers will refuse to make copies of bank notes.

They must incorporate some really clever electronics, then.

They look for an arrangement of circles on the note. English notes have them round the bottom middle of the note. Most notes have them somewhere.

Exactly the same happened to me recently. I took the note back to the bank whose ATM it had come out of, and they confirmed that it wasn't a forgery and replaced it. Took all of a minute.

Rubbish! Tran

Take it back to the bank and get a replacement. Then pop next door to the Samaritans and get a life. Tran

That was the response that I got from my foreign colleagues.

Until they tried it. (though it doesn't work for all notes, some don't have the 'magic' marks)

tim

"Jonathan Bryce" wrote

I just tried it with a HP copier/printer, and it successfully copied a 5, a 10 and a 20 note, all three both front and back - no problem.

I also photocopied a 50 note a number of years ago... ;-)

Mine does them nicely in colour and b/w. However I think you are referring to some of the newer colour laser copiers - they have some sort of inbuilt restriction.

I should point out that like a lot of people - when faced with a sticker telling them not to photocopy bank notes they start with their travelcard, company photo-id and then a bank note or two. Just to check the quality of course.

I've always found the colour match not to be up to the standard reqired for a counterfeit :-(

tim

The EURion Constellation:

Also, another anti-copying device is what looks like fine concentric etching; it actually produces interference patterns when scanned/photocopied: (page 3)

More information in Ross Anderson's book "Security Engineering".

Best Regards, Alex.

Are you sure that the copier cannot pick up some shades/colours (sorry, no idea about the correct technical term)?

Axel

That may be the case for some copiers, but most mid range copiers these days are pretty good.

Rubbish!

My photocopier didn't have a problem making copies of a ten pound note. Does this mean my photocopier is better or worse than most?

I'm sure most photocopiers will copy a bank note.

Is it an old analogue one? Colour digital ones almost certainly won't, especially if they are reasonably recent.

And the hologram doesn't copy too well either :-)

Hmmm... I just made a photocopy of a cheque (not I hasten to add for any fraudulent reasons) but none of the background came out... a shame as I was going to frame it. HP OfficeJet 6310.

Axel