26 Degrees in the Shade . . .

Handling Cash and Spotting Fake Cash in Your Spanish Bar

Cash

A bar restaurant handles a lot of cash, which obviously brings with it many advantages, but there are some disadvantages as well.

Firstly you have to be careful when taking cash home at night (a topic already covered in this blog). Secondly you need to protect the cash in the till from any light fingered employees, (I will be talking further about this in a future topic).

Spotting Counterfeit Cash

How do you quickly spot counterfeit Euro bank notes and what to do if one is offered to you?

I’ll start with an anecdote. Years ago when I had had little experience in the bar business I allowed a customer to run-up a large bar tab. He kept stalling me when I asked him to settle it and then one day when outside, I saw him getting out of his car and told him that I wanted him to settle on the spot, as I needed the money for something. He pulled out his wallet and said, “I only have American dollars and will have to get them exchanged before I can pay you.”

I thought quickly and said “Well then, give me what you owe me in dollars and I’ll get them changed”. I was very pleased when he handed over 400 USD. I took them straight to a bureau de change in Puerto Banus. When I got to the Bureau, I put the 400 USD on the counter and asked for them to be changed for Spanish Pesetas. The woman behind the glass screen said. “These are forged.” I grabbed them back really quickly, as she would have been within her rights to confiscate them.

A few days latter I saw the customer and explained to him my story with much discretion and he apologized for what had happened and exchanged them for peseta bank notes, so I finally got my money without losing a customer.

Well obviously there are always a few counterfeit bank notes in circulation and although it’s very rare for us to be offered one at our bar, (West-Marbella is an upmarket area), here are a few tips to help you from being dealt a sucker-punch and ending up with a counterfeit note in your till.

• Don’t allow young people to work on your till, (anyone waiting to pass a fake note will often seek out a young inexperienced person).
• Always feel for the raised ink with your thumb used on all Euro notes (see red arrows in picture.) If the note does not have this raised ink rectangular like shape then it is a fake.
• There are many electronic devices made now. I recommend that if you buy one, you should pass notes of 20€ and above through. These machines never fail to detect a fake note.

SpeedyBill

An automatic bank note counterfeit detector is shown in the photo. Visit the Speedy Bill web site.

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 9:15 pm and is filed under Business. Find similar posts by selecting and of the following tags: tips and tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.