Tuesday, April 16, 2013

The Bank That Gave Out Forgeries

It's the time-honoured whinge: the banks are ripping us off...
How would you feel then, if your bank gave you forged notes??!!
The Remuera branch of one of New Zealand's biggest banks, the ANZ, recently gave a customer fake Canadian currency to take on holiday.
The woman only found this out when she got all the way to Canada...where a restaurant refused to take one of her $100 notes. Worried, she went to a Canadian bank where the remaining $220 was confiscated as counterfeit. The bank said it had never seen such a professional forgery.
Banks use high-speed note-processing machines to authenticate bank notes. However, the ANZ can't explain how these fakes slipped through, and is urgently reviewing its security systems. Oh yea, it's also apologised to the customer and refunded her money.
WHOSE world???
Counterfeit US, Oz, UK and Euro notes are less likely to slip into bank systems because they're more recognisable. The Bank of Canada says the number of counterfeit Canadian notes has decreased in recent years. In 2012, about 45K counterfeit notes with a value of $1.5m were picked up. That's a plummet from 550K+ fake notes in 2004.
Should you face such a situation, hold on to the note if possible, and return it to the issuing bank. If - as in this case - the note is seized, get a receipt proving the loss and take it back to a NZ bank for a refund.
Then tell the media...so we can all laugh at the banks that normally laugh 'all the way to the bank' at our expense!

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