Protecting yourself against counterfeit bank notes

I ran across an interesting article in the Financial Post the other day talking about retailers who refuse to accept certain denominations of Canadian currency. Another recent story discusses counterfeit $100.00 bills being passed in Toronto stores back in April.

Many of you are probably familiar with stores which have signs posted indicating that they refuse to accept $50.00 bills or $100.00 bills. It seems to be part of the landscape nowadays that some retailers  refuse to accept certain forms of Canadian currency, usually the larger denominations.

Legally, there is nothing in the Currency Act which obligates a store owner to accept all bank notes. What’s more, the Act does allow a retailer to refuse to accept payment in coins for purchases of a certain amount. For example, you can only use up to 25 pennies to pay a dollar, or pay $5.00 with nickels, etc.

As a retailer, you should be aware that the Bank of Canada has training which enables your staff to properly read the security features embedded in bank notes, so that they can detect when they are presented with notes which are counterfeit.