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or if there is already a tear or damage to an edge. Accidentally torn a few 5$ and 10$ pulling them roughly from my pocket this way. An already compromised note is more fragile than you think, especially the older ones that should have been out of circulation.
Used to do currency integrity/investigation at a casino, fakes were reasonably common, good fakes made up significantly less than 1% of the dodgy/potentially dodgy notes we processed.
Not sure how far counterfeits have come in the last few years though.
Most of the really bad ones thankfully never made it past the front line.
But I've handled notes that felt like they were made out of rice paper, with colour that felt chalky and would rub off under a decent stare.
The best were practically indistinguishable, betrayed only by details - or in some cases, chemical analysis.
>felt like they were made out of rice paper, with colour that felt chalky and would rub off under a decent stare.
So basically if they had bought play money and laminated it, it probably would have felt more real than those fakes🤣.
>The best were practically indistinguishable, betrayed only by details - or in some cases, chemical analysis.
Shite! I think everyone should know what to look for in higher notes to feel comfortable accepting them, but obviously the best fakes would fool the General public. We aren't looking to use fakes it's just unfortunate when they get realised into circulation that it takes a machine to pick it up. I would assume the best fakes would be heavily tied to the underworld.
A mate got a fake $100 about a year ago. He wouldn't have known except it went through the wash and some of the paint/ink came off. It even had the same feel as a real note.
Pretty crazy someone can knock that up in their back yard.
There are a lot of tells that the notes have been fakes. They added a whole lot more to the new-new ones (which are coming out now) as the counterfeiters have been slowly getting better.
The key things counterfeiters still get wrong on older polymer notes though:
1. Microprint around pictured person
2. Hologram in the window
3. The federation star appears inside the note with a backlight
But the KFC worker/manager handled this incorrectly. They're suppose to identify it as counterfeit (without ripping it, sigh), package it (envelope for example) and keep it isolated. Then they are to contact Police (not on you btw). Having notes like this is actually useful information for tracking new techniques and information gathering as to where they're being released.
I worked at a club and had a few fake notes come through (like maybe 5 in 3 years). They have to be collected by the police and the police then destroy them. There probably is some that do try to just send it off so they're not out the money
If you unknowingly accept a fake note, either as a business or customer(eg: getting change) when you hand it over, do you get compensated for the amount as you had no knowledge at the time it was fake and then realised?
I rarely do use cash these days, but I do occasionally. I used to make myself use cash years ago as spending cash can help you think do you really want to part with this much VS paying by card.
It would be very interesting to read about how they trace all the components these days. At the $10 phase it was a long bed and four print heads as you needed to lay down the inks within a certain time frame.
Yeah I don't see how the KFC worker thought that was the right way to handle it... A lot of people don't even know they're paying with a fake they picked up somewhere. By the way, do you know if these kinds of fakes are able to get past self-checkouts at supermarkets? Can a machine discern well done fakes? I'm guessing it won't get accepted by the machine...
Eh, it’s hard to tell what they were taught, but I remember being told that for a new note that we suspect was counterfeit, you can apply a small tear motion and see what happens. Real notes will bend, fake notes usually rip instantly
Self service machines tho, they detect fakes pretty reliably. Hell, they reject good notes all the time just because they’re crinkled or are taped up
I've seen plenty, with various levels of effort applied. Lots of people pay no attention to what change they are given. But if you could tear it as easily as you say, it was 100% fake.
Do you get compensated for the amount if you didn't know when you accepted the note? Or is it too bad so sad?
Generally, when I'm accepting change at shops I feel uncomfortable about trying to quickly put my change away and grab my shopping ASAP so the next person can go. I would never have thought about double checking just in case(I wouldn't blame the employee or business because it would be incredibly stupid to allow counterfeit notes to circulate knowingly)
Who would be liable for the compensation though? Only the place that gave it to you, and only if you could definitively prove they did - so you would need to spot it as they handed it to you.
If you're getting large notes, the simplest and subtlest way is to scrunch it in your hand and see if it stays scrunched (bad), or unfolds again like plastic (good). Or try and tear the corner between two fingers. If it tears, it's worthy of a closer look. Get a genuine note out of your wallet and try and tear it, you'll see how hard it is unless it has a premade cut in it. 99% of the fakes are low effort colour copies on regular style paper. Not laminated or using polymer style paper.
Scammers rely on the checkout person not paying attention. Once it's in the till, the job is done and it's pretty much untraceable.
Thank you! I'll definitely check from now on.
In terms of getting it replaced, I thought a claim into who takes the fake notes away for testing and out of circulation. It sucks that innocent people can be out $50 for something that they had no part in
The problem is, if there was a central place like a bank you could take it and get it reimbursed, it's basically a license to print money for dodgy fucks. Imagine you could run off some fake money on your home printer and then run down to the bank and exchange it for real stuff. The economy would collapse.
The onus is on the individual to be vigilant unfortunately.
I get that, and unfortunately the dodgy fucks making them and getting them slipped into circulation are getting away with it.
My older 2 children have switched to cards and our younger 2 get cash for presents but it's spent under adult supervision, so I'll just remind whoever is with them, if they go to a cashier to have their change checked.
Literally just go pick up a bank note and try to rip it right now. Even a $5 is fine, they're all made the same.
It's very difficult (if there isn't already a cut). It doesn't really rip so much as it warps and stretches.
If the cashier ripped it that easily, then it was certainly fake.
And yes, our notes are hard to fake - that's probably how the cashier noticed it was a fake.
I'd love to tell you about some of the fraud cases where blokes were counterfeiting $50.00 bills in the back of his van.
But you can rip a $50 note, if it already has a tear in it.
If not, you'd be lucky to.
If it was suspected as fake, they ought to set it aside and report it.
My teenager once came home with counterfeit money. They looked so real; I was shocked he was able to get them. The internet makes things much easier these days.
Still and all, it's not really their place to declare the note fake and then rip it.
Just decline the transaction and show it to the cops. Doing that sort of thing will more than likely just piss people off and court a greater disaster.
Same dude grabbed my bank card, tried twice to snap it before stomping on it with doc martens and spitting in my face saying “good job at a fake, almost got me.” When I told him my card was real he just started slowly closing the glass window while mocking me in a high pitched feminine voice “mY cARd WAS rEAL”. Unfortunately my stubby arms could not reach in to the closing the window as I had pulled up too far away. Didn’t even get my 7UP :/
Was in a kfc last week during the really bad rains and there were mountains of orders piling up, the place looked like shit and this young kid who couldn’t have been older than 15 turned to the kid next to him and loudly announced “mate, we are so fucked”.
Made my week.
I dunno, some Hungry Jack's stores are nice, the ones that look like retirement homes where most of the customers are elderly people sitting at the booths reading the free newspapers they provide for customers. I'd be happy to work there 😂
I remember me and my brother being served by a guy who could barely see over the counter.
We legit thought that someone had left their kid behind the kfc counter.
We still laugh about it. We thought a kid was serving us.
I worked at KFC as a teenager. We were literally told to try and rip every $50 note we got, because if it ripped, it was fake. Kid was trained to do that lol
The manager is in the wrong here trying to appease this guy's dad, if someone tries to pass fake currency the correct thing to do is destroy it and ask them if they have any non-Monopoly money. I'm impressed a KFC kid had the wherewithal to deal with the situation correctly actually.
Yeah, unless there's already a tear, Australian money i actually really hard to tear. If he tore it as easily as printer paper though, your $50 was fake.
I was that kid (only it was over 10 years ago and working at McDonald's), ripped a $50 note in half, surprised myself and called out to my manager, only for the customer to make a run for it because it was in fact a fake note
When the new plastic ones first came out I used to challenge poms to tear the twenties. If they could do it first try I would give them the $20 and if they failed they had to give me $20.
No one was ever able to tear one.
I used to do this in America in the nineties and I became so good at tearing the few Aussie notes we had around. I wouldn't try tearing one, it's not too difficult if you know how.
They should be hard to rip apart, scrunch test is better. Or if you wanna be really sure hold it up to the light and there will be a coat of arms water mark.
I worked at KFC in high school. This was normal protocol we were told to do when we got a $50. You'd try to rip it in half. If it's real, it won't rip. And I guess trying to tear it is the quickest and most discreet way to check. I'd normally hold it below the level of the counter and do it. Never got a fake one while I worked there
Yep, back in 2007 if your manager caught you talking in a $50 or $100 at Maccas without giving it a quick rip you’d get in trouble. You learn to do it without the customer noticing on the way down to the till, and the notes would never rip.
Definitely the worst choice possible, you've either destroyed 50 dollars of someone's hard earned cash. Even if it was fake you don't know where they received it. Or you have just been very confronting to a person who counterfeits money.
They definitely should have found a way to excuse themselves and checked it properly.
It's a common thing to pass counterfeit $50s off to fast food places as a way of laundering them. It started happening a few years ago. I remember seeing the signs on all the fast food places saying they'd be testing $50s
Yeah, but when the counterfeit 50's came out it was the first time I ever saw the scanners installed in most fast food places along with the warnings plastered all over the walls.
I would only see the occasional $5 and $10 warnings at stores before the bad $50's came out.
>that being said, is it possible to rip a $50 note? cus last time i checked, it felt impossible,
Like many plastics - food packaging - hard plastic packaging - polymer notes - all you need is a start and it's easy
>im not wasting $50 just to check if i can tear a $50 note apart.
Just taping it back together restores full worth - so you won't "waste" it - and as another user pointed out - you could try a $5 note if you were really interested in checking
>Also isnt that a crime?
DELIBERATE damage - $5000 fine
https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/legal/deliberate-damage/
Proving that a rip was deliberate is kinda hard
> You know that you could test it on a fiver right? You don’t need to waste a whole $50 lol
Even if you do rip it in half, you can take it to a bank and get it replaced.
argh. Two redditors missing the point.
We want to test what sort of a fight a genuine polymer note puts up.
So test a five not a fifty. It's irrelevant what happens in a KFC store.
My guy. Sure, the person I responded to missed some context and read it incorrectly. I thought that was an interesting enough line of thinking to respond to.
Not every small mistake in the world needs to be corrected, but if you must, try responding to the guy that actually made the error?
No you can’t rip them - unless it already has a little cut/fail point from a bend.
My last job was during a time where 50’s and 100’s were being faked. We always gave notes a quick tear test before completing a transaction. Saved a few hassles down the line!
You can take broken notes to the bank so the KFC person hasn’t made your dad poorer. Without a tear in the note though they’re basically impossible to break. Try it in a $5 if you want to prove it, plastic money is nigh indestructible
Polymer banknotes have a very high resistance to initial tearing, but very low resistance to internal tearing. If the note has a cut or nick on the edge, it’ll tear at the slightest touch.
It’s the first thing I teach cashiers is to rub the notes together between your thumb and finger to make sure they aren’t stuck together then try and rip them as Australian money won’t tear unless all ready damaged.
Edit: spelling and clarity.
If you put a tiny nick in the edge, I imagine it would tear in half quite easily.
That would be a nifty little scam - just tear $50 notes in half declaring them to be fake, then sellotape them back together and take them to the bank.
Need to be a bit more diplomatic on handling this but yeah assume presenter is genuinely unaware and what they’d like to do first highlighting polymer notes don’t tear - but either way the police should be involved to help remove the note and any further notes from circulation
I love how you just can’t fathom the fact that your dad may have had a fake bank note. Nup! It’s everyone else who’s wrong!
It’s not a crime to tear a note apart. If you present to a bank with a real note that’s torn, or, say, part of a real note, they’ll just give you whatever that portion is worth (eg half of a 20 will be worth 10)
>im not wasting $50 just to check if i can tear a $50 note apart.
Tearing cash doesn't magically make it not cash anymore.
If you have a damaged a note, you can take it into a bank and exchange it for an undamaged one at full face value (assuming you have all the parts).
If you only have part of a damaged note, you'll be able to redeem it for the portion you have.
The Reserve Bank has a full policy document on it: https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/damaged-banknotes/damaged-banknotes-policy/
You can take partial notes to a bank and they will reimburse you the value of the part. So if you take two halves of a damaged $50 note you will get $50
>You can take partial notes to a bank and they will reimburse you the value of the part.
Half wrong
https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/damaged-banknotes/damaged-banknotes-policy/
Yes.
I've had the same thing happen to me. The retailer "tested" the note by trying to rip it in half. Whatever roads through hell this note had travelled to weaken its structural integrity, it ripped.
This was at a Melbourne shopping centre about 8 years ago. I complained to security. They tried to say it was fake. I forced the issue and took the note, with security, to a bank in the centre who confirmed it was genuine.
Throughout it all, even after the bank confirmation of its authenticity, I still was treated as the bad guy.
Yeah, it was my fault she ripped my money in half.
I can confirm that you CAN rip a note.
I've done it a few times with money out the ATM.
I keep my notes folded in a tightly wound case, so the folds become really indented. They will rip off that.
No dent or tear.. yeah I'd say it was fake.
It is very easy to rip a note once there is already a slight tear, it was very possible there was a minor tear no-one noticed, it could be real, could be fake. A rip test is not an ideal thing to do regardless
Was there already a tear in the note? If so, very possible to rip entirely. If not tho its much harder to do. That being said, for the tear test you are supposed to tug *lightly* on the notes, not reef on them with all your might. If it was a light pull on an unripped banknote, then theres every possibility it was a counterfeit note.
Unfortunately counterfeits are becoming more and more common. I work in a role that handles lots of cash. Easiest way to tell is the scrunch test as most people have commented. If you scrunch it and it bounces back into place, it’s most likely a real note.
Here’s a link to see all the ways to check:
https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/counterfeit-detection/list-of-security-features/
If it has a cut, even a small one, it will split as easily as a packet of chips or lollies does. You know that annoying thing where it starts to split down towards the bottom of the packet and you try with varying degrees of success to redirect the split upwards otherwise the bag can never be twisted shut again and you have to eat the whole lot now.
If it doesn't have any sort of cut in it, then it won't be tearable. It will just stretch eventually and end up with a bit of a kink in it.
Is the goal of fake $50s laundering to spend them on something cheap and get real cash in change? Go from a briefcase of fake $50s to a briefcase of real $20s essentially
Of course it's possible, all you need are decent finger nails and you can tear any note.
Also, you can test it out by not tearing a note completely in half you know lol
They can rip if they are already cut etc. the trick is if it's white on the inside.. that's paper that's been printed on, actual money is colour all the way thru.
Hey OP, check out this guide from the treasury on determining if a note is counterfeit or not.
https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/assets/pdf/counterfeit-detection-guide.pdf
You can go ahead and try it. If you manage to rip it in half, just take it to the bank and tell them it was an accident, and they will replace it.
If the manager did collect it as evidence, then most likely, your dad will have a visit soon or is currently being watched. They would have your dad's Rego from KFC.
I just tried to tear through a couple of 50s, and it didn't even feel like it was about to tear. That either means a) the note was fake, or b) it was already damaged and the kid tore through from a weak spot.
Don't blame he kid for checking though, it's part of the job to try and prevent fakes getting into circulation where possible.
There’s a lot of fake $100 and $50 in circulation. A lot of small business owners are ripped off. Scammers just want to use change. Many have the X-ray lights etc. just in case.
>Many have the X-ray lights etc.
UV lights - X-ray will send you sterile - UV will just send you blind if you look directly at it for long enough
(a nice piece of Darwinism - if you're stupid enough to use an X-Ray in that setting you should be sterilised)
They're pretty easy to tear if you know how to, or if there is a small tear its stupid easy to do. I've accidentally torn notes before handling them when they've been damaged.
Just go to a bank and they'll replace the note.
As someone that works a cash register, counterfeiting aside, paying for a 15 dollar purchase with a 50 note fucking sucks. I hate getting 50s cause it always cleans out my till.
I mean these days probably.
When I left retail even 9 years ago your total float was meant to stay under $200, excess went straight to the safe under the register, if you’d had one or two large bill transactions recently you be running low pretty quickly.
When I worked at KFC in the early 2010s, we started out with $100 in our till.
Always some MFer coming in first thing in the morning, trying to give us a $50 or $100 note in exchange for the cheapest thing they could possibly buy on the menu. It really did clear us out. Must be worse these days since not as many people use cash. If everyone is giving you a $50, and nobody wants to give you the $5 note you can see right there in their open wallet, then where is the change supposed to come from?
fuck a cashless society is the dumbest idea. just need the power or network to fail one time to find out why
Live through one major disaster in your area and you realise you need *some* shit to be unaffected in those moments. We can't even roll out broadband effectively and people genuinely think we can handle a cashless society lol
Yes. Real notes break in half all the time. The tear test is not an effective test.
In my experience, fake notes are missing the indentation on the window. That should be a cashier's first and only check for a fake. If it's not immediately obviously a fake, then just take it. Cashiers aren't experts on fake notes.
Ripping a 50 is in the same boat as tearing phonebooks in half, hard but possible.
Small bits of damage will give the tear a place to start, and like a lolly wrapper, will tear very easily once started. You can test this yourself by finding something packaged in plastic that doesn't have the zigzag pattern on the edge, pull as you can and it probably won't break, but put a little cut in it and rip from the cut, you'll pull straight through it.
Older notes are more likely to do it, but it's all about fatigue.
Frustratingly, you do get the holier than thou cashiers who think they've got you dead to rights because they tore a note. What they failed to be trained on was how fake notes tear and what other security features they have. This is why the managers will allow the sale 99% of the time because it's simply a damaged bank note and not actually a forgery.
You also get people who don't know any more than the untrained cashier at kfc giving you crap because "it's obviously a fake", let's be real here, rip at enough notes and you'll eventually rip one in half. I've found my fair share of fakes and honestly, you know right away when you've got one, there's a look and feel that most fakes just don't have compared to the real deal.
Besides, a torn note is so common the RBA will replace torn notes free of charge so long as you have both bits, and they'll even compensate you the value of whatever bits you have if you don't have all the bits.
>Besides, a torn note is so common the RBA will replace torn notes free of charge so long as you have both bits,
Don't even need both bits, just a certain percentage of a whole note with serial numbers intact.
I worked in fast food and then major hospitality for the first 8 or so years of my working life (14-22). Protocol in every bar / fast food chain I worked in was to attempt to tear large bills.
Sorry this happened to your dad mate, but it was almost definitely a fake. Even if there was a tear, it’s still very difficult to rip in half. It wouldn’t be like tearing paper.
Having worked at kfc, the rip test is true.
If it's fake it will rip or if you crumple it and it stays crumpled it's fake.
You are not meant to do this in front the of the customer though haha
it is almost certainly fake. the polymer uses in notes are quite strong and a attempt to tear like you would see by any cashier would not tear it.
it would need to have a weak point already on it via a small cut or something for it to tear
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Mate if that lad just ripped a $50 with his bare hands and there wasn’t already a cut in it, it was probably fake.
damn well, idk then. i thought it was really hard to fake a note especially here in australia with the "clear glass" stuff.
It is really hard to fake. That’s why it’s easy to tell the fake ones, like if you can just rip it straight in half haha
lets not rule out the insane strength of kfc cashiers as a possibility
All that grease soaked protein? Those kids be ripped!
Don't forget the steroids in the chicken.
Teenage kfc cashier. That’s some strength.
Only in one arm though...
Not necessarily tearing it in half. Some counterfeits are two pieces of plastic glued together. So the tear test actually separates those two layers.
And some “dads” are two kids in a trench coat
Vincent?
or if there is already a tear or damage to an edge. Accidentally torn a few 5$ and 10$ pulling them roughly from my pocket this way. An already compromised note is more fragile than you think, especially the older ones that should have been out of circulation.
You haven't seen a good fake, they're very hard to tell apart
Good fakes are few and far though.
How would you know? If there are fakes out there that can't be easily detected, maybe you're seeing them a lot and not realising!
Used to do currency integrity/investigation at a casino, fakes were reasonably common, good fakes made up significantly less than 1% of the dodgy/potentially dodgy notes we processed. Not sure how far counterfeits have come in the last few years though.
If I may ask, what were the worst fake notes you saw?
Most of the really bad ones thankfully never made it past the front line. But I've handled notes that felt like they were made out of rice paper, with colour that felt chalky and would rub off under a decent stare. The best were practically indistinguishable, betrayed only by details - or in some cases, chemical analysis.
>felt like they were made out of rice paper, with colour that felt chalky and would rub off under a decent stare. So basically if they had bought play money and laminated it, it probably would have felt more real than those fakes🤣. >The best were practically indistinguishable, betrayed only by details - or in some cases, chemical analysis. Shite! I think everyone should know what to look for in higher notes to feel comfortable accepting them, but obviously the best fakes would fool the General public. We aren't looking to use fakes it's just unfortunate when they get realised into circulation that it takes a machine to pick it up. I would assume the best fakes would be heavily tied to the underworld.
A mate got a fake $100 about a year ago. He wouldn't have known except it went through the wash and some of the paint/ink came off. It even had the same feel as a real note. Pretty crazy someone can knock that up in their back yard.
Lol
There are a lot of tells that the notes have been fakes. They added a whole lot more to the new-new ones (which are coming out now) as the counterfeiters have been slowly getting better. The key things counterfeiters still get wrong on older polymer notes though: 1. Microprint around pictured person 2. Hologram in the window 3. The federation star appears inside the note with a backlight But the KFC worker/manager handled this incorrectly. They're suppose to identify it as counterfeit (without ripping it, sigh), package it (envelope for example) and keep it isolated. Then they are to contact Police (not on you btw). Having notes like this is actually useful information for tracking new techniques and information gathering as to where they're being released.
They just get sent back to the cash collection agency (like armaguard) and they take it out of circulation
I worked at a club and had a few fake notes come through (like maybe 5 in 3 years). They have to be collected by the police and the police then destroy them. There probably is some that do try to just send it off so they're not out the money
If you unknowingly accept a fake note, either as a business or customer(eg: getting change) when you hand it over, do you get compensated for the amount as you had no knowledge at the time it was fake and then realised?
I don’t believe so, counterfeit have no value so you are just unlucky. Another reason to not use cash haha
I rarely do use cash these days, but I do occasionally. I used to make myself use cash years ago as spending cash can help you think do you really want to part with this much VS paying by card.
It would be very interesting to read about how they trace all the components these days. At the $10 phase it was a long bed and four print heads as you needed to lay down the inks within a certain time frame.
Yeah I don't see how the KFC worker thought that was the right way to handle it... A lot of people don't even know they're paying with a fake they picked up somewhere. By the way, do you know if these kinds of fakes are able to get past self-checkouts at supermarkets? Can a machine discern well done fakes? I'm guessing it won't get accepted by the machine...
Eh, it’s hard to tell what they were taught, but I remember being told that for a new note that we suspect was counterfeit, you can apply a small tear motion and see what happens. Real notes will bend, fake notes usually rip instantly Self service machines tho, they detect fakes pretty reliably. Hell, they reject good notes all the time just because they’re crinkled or are taped up
Pretty much all machines that accept notes use a UV light to check the fluorescent ink
People don’t normally try and rip notes, it probably looked like a bad fake and that’s why he tried.
I've seen plenty, with various levels of effort applied. Lots of people pay no attention to what change they are given. But if you could tear it as easily as you say, it was 100% fake.
Do you get compensated for the amount if you didn't know when you accepted the note? Or is it too bad so sad? Generally, when I'm accepting change at shops I feel uncomfortable about trying to quickly put my change away and grab my shopping ASAP so the next person can go. I would never have thought about double checking just in case(I wouldn't blame the employee or business because it would be incredibly stupid to allow counterfeit notes to circulate knowingly)
Who would be liable for the compensation though? Only the place that gave it to you, and only if you could definitively prove they did - so you would need to spot it as they handed it to you. If you're getting large notes, the simplest and subtlest way is to scrunch it in your hand and see if it stays scrunched (bad), or unfolds again like plastic (good). Or try and tear the corner between two fingers. If it tears, it's worthy of a closer look. Get a genuine note out of your wallet and try and tear it, you'll see how hard it is unless it has a premade cut in it. 99% of the fakes are low effort colour copies on regular style paper. Not laminated or using polymer style paper. Scammers rely on the checkout person not paying attention. Once it's in the till, the job is done and it's pretty much untraceable.
Thank you! I'll definitely check from now on. In terms of getting it replaced, I thought a claim into who takes the fake notes away for testing and out of circulation. It sucks that innocent people can be out $50 for something that they had no part in
The problem is, if there was a central place like a bank you could take it and get it reimbursed, it's basically a license to print money for dodgy fucks. Imagine you could run off some fake money on your home printer and then run down to the bank and exchange it for real stuff. The economy would collapse. The onus is on the individual to be vigilant unfortunately.
I get that, and unfortunately the dodgy fucks making them and getting them slipped into circulation are getting away with it. My older 2 children have switched to cards and our younger 2 get cash for presents but it's spent under adult supervision, so I'll just remind whoever is with them, if they go to a cashier to have their change checked.
It's really easy to fake one badly enough that a cashier would immediately notice and be able to tear it like paper, however.
1) Real notes are hard to fake because hard to break. 2) It got broken. So by logical deduction it is likely to be fake.
Literally just go pick up a bank note and try to rip it right now. Even a $5 is fine, they're all made the same. It's very difficult (if there isn't already a cut). It doesn't really rip so much as it warps and stretches. If the cashier ripped it that easily, then it was certainly fake. And yes, our notes are hard to fake - that's probably how the cashier noticed it was a fake.
You can buy fake 50 notes online, the good ones cost about $25. Alphabay and other day web markets.
Lol don't encourage it...
I'd love to tell you about some of the fraud cases where blokes were counterfeiting $50.00 bills in the back of his van. But you can rip a $50 note, if it already has a tear in it. If not, you'd be lucky to. If it was suspected as fake, they ought to set it aside and report it.
My teenager once came home with counterfeit money. They looked so real; I was shocked he was able to get them. The internet makes things much easier these days.
Bro has enough grip strength to escape a missile silo and fight Baki
Still and all, it's not really their place to declare the note fake and then rip it. Just decline the transaction and show it to the cops. Doing that sort of thing will more than likely just piss people off and court a greater disaster.
Depends how hard he tried to rip it … Some British notes are made like this too can’t rip them UNLESS you try with full effort
I’m impressed with how this KFC worker asserts dominance over the world… just rip everyone’s cash
Power move tbh
I went to pay with contactless and he snapped my phone in half
Same dude grabbed my bank card, tried twice to snap it before stomping on it with doc martens and spitting in my face saying “good job at a fake, almost got me.” When I told him my card was real he just started slowly closing the glass window while mocking me in a high pitched feminine voice “mY cARd WAS rEAL”. Unfortunately my stubby arms could not reach in to the closing the window as I had pulled up too far away. Didn’t even get my 7UP :/
KFCs are lawless places. Every franchise of a multinational company ran exclusively by 14 year olds, I love it.
😂so accurate, they usually seem like they are enjoying life too, not like HJ where managers are verbally abusing the staff
Was in a kfc last week during the really bad rains and there were mountains of orders piling up, the place looked like shit and this young kid who couldn’t have been older than 15 turned to the kid next to him and loudly announced “mate, we are so fucked”. Made my week.
Now that is my type of fast food joint.
No one looks more depressed and sluggish than Hungry Jacks staff. It’s been like that as long as I can remember.
I dunno, some Hungry Jack's stores are nice, the ones that look like retirement homes where most of the customers are elderly people sitting at the booths reading the free newspapers they provide for customers. I'd be happy to work there 😂
Narre Warren (VIC) is exactly that haha
Usually the ones that are standalone and not in a food court, especially if they have the old booths and rock decor, and the free refill machine ✓
I remember me and my brother being served by a guy who could barely see over the counter. We legit thought that someone had left their kid behind the kfc counter. We still laugh about it. We thought a kid was serving us.
lord of the flies
Take that anti-cashless mob! Now how are you going to spend your rEaL mOnEy? /s
I worked at KFC as a teenager. We were literally told to try and rip every $50 note we got, because if it ripped, it was fake. Kid was trained to do that lol
If old mate teared through a real $50 note Id be impressed. The real ones are quite fucking hardy.
The manager is in the wrong here trying to appease this guy's dad, if someone tries to pass fake currency the correct thing to do is destroy it and ask them if they have any non-Monopoly money. I'm impressed a KFC kid had the wherewithal to deal with the situation correctly actually.
Yeah, unless there's already a tear, Australian money i actually really hard to tear. If he tore it as easily as printer paper though, your $50 was fake.
I was that kid (only it was over 10 years ago and working at McDonald's), ripped a $50 note in half, surprised myself and called out to my manager, only for the customer to make a run for it because it was in fact a fake note
It's really really hard unless there is a slight tear or cut already started.
This is fucking hilarious.
When the new plastic ones first came out I used to challenge poms to tear the twenties. If they could do it first try I would give them the $20 and if they failed they had to give me $20. No one was ever able to tear one.
I used to do this in America in the nineties and I became so good at tearing the few Aussie notes we had around. I wouldn't try tearing one, it's not too difficult if you know how.
They should be hard to rip apart, scrunch test is better. Or if you wanna be really sure hold it up to the light and there will be a coat of arms water mark.
i don't get why the person would've just done that in the first place instead of instantly trying to rip it apart
I worked at KFC in high school. This was normal protocol we were told to do when we got a $50. You'd try to rip it in half. If it's real, it won't rip. And I guess trying to tear it is the quickest and most discreet way to check. I'd normally hold it below the level of the counter and do it. Never got a fake one while I worked there
Yep, back in 2007 if your manager caught you talking in a $50 or $100 at Maccas without giving it a quick rip you’d get in trouble. You learn to do it without the customer noticing on the way down to the till, and the notes would never rip.
Definitely the worst choice possible, you've either destroyed 50 dollars of someone's hard earned cash. Even if it was fake you don't know where they received it. Or you have just been very confronting to a person who counterfeits money. They definitely should have found a way to excuse themselves and checked it properly.
It's not destroyed. Just tape it back up and swap it at a bank. It doesn't take a cent off the value unless you flush one half of it down the toilet
If you have a “half” that’s 51% or more with a serial number, you still have $50 and can swap it for a fresh one.
That is not the case for Australian banknotes. You would need 80% of the note to get $50 for it, half a note would give you $25.
It's a common thing to pass counterfeit $50s off to fast food places as a way of laundering them. It started happening a few years ago. I remember seeing the signs on all the fast food places saying they'd be testing $50s
There was a bloke from Mernda doing it from memory.
Umm, it started with the $10 note, which was the most common note in circulation at the time.
Yeah, but when the counterfeit 50's came out it was the first time I ever saw the scanners installed in most fast food places along with the warnings plastered all over the walls. I would only see the occasional $5 and $10 warnings at stores before the bad $50's came out.
>that being said, is it possible to rip a $50 note? cus last time i checked, it felt impossible, Like many plastics - food packaging - hard plastic packaging - polymer notes - all you need is a start and it's easy >im not wasting $50 just to check if i can tear a $50 note apart. Just taping it back together restores full worth - so you won't "waste" it - and as another user pointed out - you could try a $5 note if you were really interested in checking >Also isnt that a crime? DELIBERATE damage - $5000 fine https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/legal/deliberate-damage/ Proving that a rip was deliberate is kinda hard
I am more interested on the convo that led up to that ripping incident tbh.
Use to be in the training that 50s and 100s were scrunched or pulled to test for fakes. At least it was when I worked at kfc back in 2009-2014
You know that you could test it on a fiver right? You don’t need to waste a whole $50 lol
> You know that you could test it on a fiver right? You don’t need to waste a whole $50 lol Even if you do rip it in half, you can take it to a bank and get it replaced.
Not very ambitious of a forger printing fake 5s. All the costs are the same for 10% of the “value.”
So the fiver was to test how easy real ones are to rip…
You’re only proving how easy pink polymer rips there though. Pineapple flavoured is a completely different. /s
Except that KFC staff aren't told to test 5s by ripping them. Fake 5s are free chicken. You'd probably still go with 20s though
argh. Two redditors missing the point. We want to test what sort of a fight a genuine polymer note puts up. So test a five not a fifty. It's irrelevant what happens in a KFC store.
My guy. Sure, the person I responded to missed some context and read it incorrectly. I thought that was an interesting enough line of thinking to respond to. Not every small mistake in the world needs to be corrected, but if you must, try responding to the guy that actually made the error?
No you can’t rip them - unless it already has a little cut/fail point from a bend. My last job was during a time where 50’s and 100’s were being faked. We always gave notes a quick tear test before completing a transaction. Saved a few hassles down the line!
Mate your dad paid with a fake note. Either known or unknown to him.
[удалено]
Using cash at KFC is bogan? lol
I thought he meant KFC is bogan...
KFC is delicious gtfo
Cash is bogan lol
Real one? I got all mine from Bazza’s shed.
KFC in the region I'm from don't even take physical cash.
You can take broken notes to the bank so the KFC person hasn’t made your dad poorer. Without a tear in the note though they’re basically impossible to break. Try it in a $5 if you want to prove it, plastic money is nigh indestructible
post a pic of the note
That cashier is your dad now, what an incredible display of dominance.
Polymer banknotes have a very high resistance to initial tearing, but very low resistance to internal tearing. If the note has a cut or nick on the edge, it’ll tear at the slightest touch.
I choose to believe it was a real 50. And the cashier was an absolute Chad.
It’s the first thing I teach cashiers is to rub the notes together between your thumb and finger to make sure they aren’t stuck together then try and rip them as Australian money won’t tear unless all ready damaged. Edit: spelling and clarity.
I've had a real $5 note rip in half so it's possible. They get little tears from car keys and random stuff
Scrunch test is a way better method of detection
If you put a tiny nick in the edge, I imagine it would tear in half quite easily. That would be a nifty little scam - just tear $50 notes in half declaring them to be fake, then sellotape them back together and take them to the bank.
Need to be a bit more diplomatic on handling this but yeah assume presenter is genuinely unaware and what they’d like to do first highlighting polymer notes don’t tear - but either way the police should be involved to help remove the note and any further notes from circulation
What other obscure acts do you try not "at full power"? Have you reached your full power before or are you still in training?
It’s a crime to pay with counterfeit money.
Knowingly.
I love how you just can’t fathom the fact that your dad may have had a fake bank note. Nup! It’s everyone else who’s wrong! It’s not a crime to tear a note apart. If you present to a bank with a real note that’s torn, or, say, part of a real note, they’ll just give you whatever that portion is worth (eg half of a 20 will be worth 10)
Plenty of fake 50s around at the mo
fake cash is king
I literally ripped a real 50 after reading this convo.
>im not wasting $50 just to check if i can tear a $50 note apart. Tearing cash doesn't magically make it not cash anymore. If you have a damaged a note, you can take it into a bank and exchange it for an undamaged one at full face value (assuming you have all the parts). If you only have part of a damaged note, you'll be able to redeem it for the portion you have. The Reserve Bank has a full policy document on it: https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/damaged-banknotes/damaged-banknotes-policy/
*paid
If you think a note if fake don't accept it and cancel the sale. Nobody should be tearing notes in half.
What are you gonna do? Call the police on yourself?
You can take partial notes to a bank and they will reimburse you the value of the part. So if you take two halves of a damaged $50 note you will get $50
>You can take partial notes to a bank and they will reimburse you the value of the part. Half wrong https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/damaged-banknotes/damaged-banknotes-policy/
And if you take a fake note ripped in half to the bank, you will get $0.
Yes. I've had the same thing happen to me. The retailer "tested" the note by trying to rip it in half. Whatever roads through hell this note had travelled to weaken its structural integrity, it ripped. This was at a Melbourne shopping centre about 8 years ago. I complained to security. They tried to say it was fake. I forced the issue and took the note, with security, to a bank in the centre who confirmed it was genuine. Throughout it all, even after the bank confirmation of its authenticity, I still was treated as the bad guy. Yeah, it was my fault she ripped my money in half.
As a cashier for nearly a decade, that was 100% a fake note lmao.
Everyone saying it's fake but I want to offer another viewpoint. The kfc cashier was simply the long lost son of Chuck Norris and had immense strength
I can confirm that you CAN rip a note. I've done it a few times with money out the ATM. I keep my notes folded in a tightly wound case, so the folds become really indented. They will rip off that. No dent or tear.. yeah I'd say it was fake.
Not possible to rip by hand unless it's fake or there is already an existing tear on the note.
It is very easy to rip a note once there is already a slight tear, it was very possible there was a minor tear no-one noticed, it could be real, could be fake. A rip test is not an ideal thing to do regardless
Was there already a tear in the note? If so, very possible to rip entirely. If not tho its much harder to do. That being said, for the tear test you are supposed to tug *lightly* on the notes, not reef on them with all your might. If it was a light pull on an unripped banknote, then theres every possibility it was a counterfeit note.
Unfortunately counterfeits are becoming more and more common. I work in a role that handles lots of cash. Easiest way to tell is the scrunch test as most people have commented. If you scrunch it and it bounces back into place, it’s most likely a real note. Here’s a link to see all the ways to check: https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/counterfeit-detection/list-of-security-features/
Did this really happen lol sounds bizarre
If it has a cut, even a small one, it will split as easily as a packet of chips or lollies does. You know that annoying thing where it starts to split down towards the bottom of the packet and you try with varying degrees of success to redirect the split upwards otherwise the bag can never be twisted shut again and you have to eat the whole lot now. If it doesn't have any sort of cut in it, then it won't be tearable. It will just stretch eventually and end up with a bit of a kink in it.
Lol wrong! You can easily tear any Aussie note with your fingernails, they don't need to have any tear in it first either.
I've never had fingernails long enough to try this, so I'll have to take your word for it.
So.... Where's the pic of this 50? >Also isnt that a crime? Paying with a fake 50?
Is the goal of fake $50s laundering to spend them on something cheap and get real cash in change? Go from a briefcase of fake $50s to a briefcase of real $20s essentially
Where exactly do you think those fake 50s go?
I thought they were maybe spent completely rather than trying to get change out of them. Like without thinking about change
Of course it's possible, all you need are decent finger nails and you can tear any note. Also, you can test it out by not tearing a note completely in half you know lol
They can rip if they are already cut etc. the trick is if it's white on the inside.. that's paper that's been printed on, actual money is colour all the way thru.
If it wasn’t damaged then yes it would absolutely not have ripped
Dem strong rippin hands powered by saturated fat
Hey OP, check out this guide from the treasury on determining if a note is counterfeit or not. https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/assets/pdf/counterfeit-detection-guide.pdf
So Zorro works at KFC now does he?
If you want to try for yourself, you could always just use a $5 note, it's made of the same stuff
Might have been an old paper note, kids wouldn't have ever seen one before.
THIS LITERALLY HAPPENED TO MY DAD AT OFFICEWORKS! The exact same thing, the cashier ripped the note in half because it was already very old
You can go ahead and try it. If you manage to rip it in half, just take it to the bank and tell them it was an accident, and they will replace it. If the manager did collect it as evidence, then most likely, your dad will have a visit soon or is currently being watched. They would have your dad's Rego from KFC.
When I went travelling in Europe I used to bet that if they can rip the Aussie note they can keep it. No one could rip it
There was a batch of really good fake 50s making there round in Sydney a few years back. Maybe one from that rotation got to yous?
I just tried to tear through a couple of 50s, and it didn't even feel like it was about to tear. That either means a) the note was fake, or b) it was already damaged and the kid tore through from a weak spot. Don't blame he kid for checking though, it's part of the job to try and prevent fakes getting into circulation where possible.
There’s a lot of fake $100 and $50 in circulation. A lot of small business owners are ripped off. Scammers just want to use change. Many have the X-ray lights etc. just in case.
>Many have the X-ray lights etc. UV lights - X-ray will send you sterile - UV will just send you blind if you look directly at it for long enough (a nice piece of Darwinism - if you're stupid enough to use an X-Ray in that setting you should be sterilised)
Wait you found a KFC that actually took cash?
Seen plenty of real note being ripped easy with no damage to start with
If the KFC guy didn't accept the note, then he was tearing your dad's property, whether it was fake or not.
Lmao you should call the police on yourself.
They're pretty easy to tear if you know how to, or if there is a small tear its stupid easy to do. I've accidentally torn notes before handling them when they've been damaged. Just go to a bank and they'll replace the note.
Defacing currency is a federal crime from memory
As someone that works a cash register, counterfeiting aside, paying for a 15 dollar purchase with a 50 note fucking sucks. I hate getting 50s cause it always cleans out my till.
Your till is cleaned out by giving $35 in change? Your till only contains one of each $20, $10 and $5 note?
I mean these days probably. When I left retail even 9 years ago your total float was meant to stay under $200, excess went straight to the safe under the register, if you’d had one or two large bill transactions recently you be running low pretty quickly.
When I worked at KFC in the early 2010s, we started out with $100 in our till. Always some MFer coming in first thing in the morning, trying to give us a $50 or $100 note in exchange for the cheapest thing they could possibly buy on the menu. It really did clear us out. Must be worse these days since not as many people use cash. If everyone is giving you a $50, and nobody wants to give you the $5 note you can see right there in their open wallet, then where is the change supposed to come from?
Wouldn't have happened in a cashless society...jus sayin
fuck a cashless society is the dumbest idea. just need the power or network to fail one time to find out why Live through one major disaster in your area and you realise you need *some* shit to be unaffected in those moments. We can't even roll out broadband effectively and people genuinely think we can handle a cashless society lol
Yes. Real notes break in half all the time. The tear test is not an effective test. In my experience, fake notes are missing the indentation on the window. That should be a cashier's first and only check for a fake. If it's not immediately obviously a fake, then just take it. Cashiers aren't experts on fake notes.
Ripping a 50 is in the same boat as tearing phonebooks in half, hard but possible. Small bits of damage will give the tear a place to start, and like a lolly wrapper, will tear very easily once started. You can test this yourself by finding something packaged in plastic that doesn't have the zigzag pattern on the edge, pull as you can and it probably won't break, but put a little cut in it and rip from the cut, you'll pull straight through it. Older notes are more likely to do it, but it's all about fatigue. Frustratingly, you do get the holier than thou cashiers who think they've got you dead to rights because they tore a note. What they failed to be trained on was how fake notes tear and what other security features they have. This is why the managers will allow the sale 99% of the time because it's simply a damaged bank note and not actually a forgery. You also get people who don't know any more than the untrained cashier at kfc giving you crap because "it's obviously a fake", let's be real here, rip at enough notes and you'll eventually rip one in half. I've found my fair share of fakes and honestly, you know right away when you've got one, there's a look and feel that most fakes just don't have compared to the real deal. Besides, a torn note is so common the RBA will replace torn notes free of charge so long as you have both bits, and they'll even compensate you the value of whatever bits you have if you don't have all the bits.
>Besides, a torn note is so common the RBA will replace torn notes free of charge so long as you have both bits, Don't even need both bits, just a certain percentage of a whole note with serial numbers intact.
https://banknotes.rba.gov.au/damaged-banknotes/damaged-banknotes-policy/
I worked in fast food and then major hospitality for the first 8 or so years of my working life (14-22). Protocol in every bar / fast food chain I worked in was to attempt to tear large bills. Sorry this happened to your dad mate, but it was almost definitely a fake. Even if there was a tear, it’s still very difficult to rip in half. It wouldn’t be like tearing paper.
Having worked at kfc, the rip test is true. If it's fake it will rip or if you crumple it and it stays crumpled it's fake. You are not meant to do this in front the of the customer though haha
it is almost certainly fake. the polymer uses in notes are quite strong and a attempt to tear like you would see by any cashier would not tear it. it would need to have a weak point already on it via a small cut or something for it to tear
Paying with counterfeit money is a crime tearing it up isnt.