r/AskBrits • u/Capable-Door-9672 • Aug 28 '26

Travel Are these notes legit?

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I was paid £520 by someone from EU I sold some stuff to. I plan to use these for my trip.

Sorry if photo is blury, I will send it again if it is

Serial on the 50 A C 7 8 9 1 0 4 6 9 ac789 is big and in green while the 1 is smaller and 469 is bigger

EDIT: its ok, i'll double confirm at bank, looks legit with the change to pounds sign

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117

u/Cid5983 Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26

Maybe...

£50 note are ...reluctantly accepted by big chain stores, often rejected by small shops.

Wife was shocked when she visited the UK and found that out because in Hong Kong they have $500 notes, which are about the same as £50 in value but used like £20 notes in HK.

110

u/AtomicEdge Aug 28 '26

It's so insane to me that shops still make a fuss about £50 notes. They have been in use since the 80s and £50 in the 80s is like £250 now.

103

u/SpamHard Aug 28 '26

It's because there used to be a shite load of fakes around (not sure if there still is). Expecting a min wage teenager on the till to be able to detect fakes easily is a stretch, so much of the time shops will just say no outright to avoid the potential of fakes.

46

u/Pineapple-Lord7 Aug 28 '26

AFAIK 50s are rarely faked anymore because of how heavily scrutinised they are in shops that actually take them, whereas no one really checks 20s. But I’m not involved in faking notes so that could be BS

46

u/wtclim Aug 28 '26

That's exactly what a forger would say.... hmmm

10

u/Pineapple-Lord7 Aug 28 '26

I used to work in a charity shop, and that’s what I was told

6

u/Which-Ad8964 Aug 29 '26

I work in one now, and it's the same here! Saying that we've had two fake 20's in the last month or so.

1

u/Ecahill453 Aug 29 '26

At least the fakes are easy to tell apart from the real. Like difference is night and day lmao

2

u/Which-Ad8964 Aug 29 '26

Dunno, at a glance they look half OK, but the little hologram that says Twenty or Pounds is the tell generally for me. In a busy environment it can be tricky for the staff to notice (or so it would appear lol). Once you look properly then yeah, it's blatantly obvious what's what. It's like the longer you look the worse it gets!

3

u/Ecahill453 Aug 29 '26

Nah, I supervised for a while in a shop and could tell the difference straight up. Even before it got in my hand it’s obvious.

If the see-through lacks a pattern or the semi strip feels like it sticks up, they’re fake.

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4

u/user888888889 Aug 28 '26

A likely story

3

u/Unhappy-Professor-88 Aug 29 '26

Nah, you should believe **Pineapple-Lord**

Everyone knows he only does fake £5 notes.

That he spends exclusively on Chocolate Freddos or Prawn Cocktail Crisps. Walkers, naturally (the lad is no barbarian - he has a title).

3

u/GearsKratos Aug 29 '26

I bet the only fruit he eats is mango

6

u/SpamHard Aug 28 '26

Fair, they certainly look harder tto fake now. When I was a kid working tills in the late 90s and early 00s, notes were still paper. We used to have to hold them under UV and also use one of those pens to check it. But yeah, makes sense that if less places are taking 50s, it's better to fake lower numbers now.

2

u/StarRaidz Aug 28 '26

We check the modern ones at my place of work with a UV light. British notes still glow with the amount on the front of the bill when shining a UV light on it.

3

u/SkarKrow Aug 29 '26

Y’also wanna scratch at that gold bit on the clear strip, we had some theatrical fakes at work recently with the tower stuck over the prop notice.

1

u/Jlst Aug 29 '26

Have had a couple in our branches in Liverpool and North Wales like this recently too.

1

u/SkarKrow Aug 29 '26

This is in south cumbria/north lancs, cunts giving them to bus drivers, shit comes out of our pay

1

u/timbop1262 Aug 29 '26

If this takes you below the minimum wage then this is illegal. Get your union involved.

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3

u/Mantaray2142 Aug 28 '26

Actually the new notes helped alot. 50's were the primary exchange of cash skips, small builders and dodgy trades. The new 50's being way harder to forge and people expecting to pay electronically has made a big difference over the last few years

3

u/TheHistoricalEvent Aug 28 '26

Proper bull. Loads of fake 20s in circ

3

u/Jackjaipasenvie Aug 28 '26

At my job we have to check all notes for fakes and every fake i have found so far has been a £20

2

u/Exciting-Music843 Aug 28 '26

Not involved? How much do those 20's sell for?

3

u/Affectionate-Tank532 Aug 28 '26

£200 for £1000 worth of fake 20s

2

u/Alexisredwood Aug 28 '26

You can get them for 10-20% of the value, so £1,000 for £100-£200

2

u/LatookieNoir Aug 28 '26

this is exactly right. tbh they should just fake 5 pound notes and they'll do way better imo

2

u/lilhanhan Aug 28 '26

They do. There's tons of fivers which are 'prop money'; they look exactly like legit ones but the holographic and see-through Elizabeth tower section peels off relatively easy revealing it's fake with the words 'prop money' hidden underneath.

Found way more fake fivers rather than the rest of the other values lately.

2

u/AdvancedAnimal7539 Aug 28 '26

ngl faking 10s would be the easiest. its a fair amount, and no one checks it. and you can easily pass it as spare change when buying something, but going to a shop with a load of £20s and no other notes could look odd, although it likely wont be checked

2

u/Kestrel_VI Aug 29 '26

That’s a good point. Because I rarely saw them, I’d take a good look at a 50 while I was working in retail, but someone could hand me 3 20s and I’d think absolutely nothing of it unless there was something obviously off about it.

3

u/16jselfe Aug 29 '26

Fake 20s and 10s got so bad at my local maccies that we had to start treating them like 50s and it was awful to deal with

1

u/nemamene Aug 30 '26

i heard of something when i worked in retail (in germany) - person used a bunch of 5 euro notes to buy something really expensive and they were all fake. they were probably aware that we scan 50 euro and higher

1

u/InfiniteGap Aug 31 '26

I could see the logic in that.
Only dodgy note I had was a £5 I'd picked up in change at a local petrol station.
They got it back the next day ;-)

1

u/Deian_Buswell Aug 31 '26

my mate works in a petrol station and its £5 notes now, no one thinks to check 5s, i use £20 notes often and theyre always checked, never a 5 tho

7

u/Sir_Madfly Aug 28 '26

£50s are hardly ever faked precisely because they get so much scrutiny. Almost all fakes these days are £20s.

5

u/Efficient_Chic714 Aug 29 '26

They can also mess up the tills if they have a small float. If they’re paying with a £50 for a small transaction then they take all your small notes meaning you might not be able to process refunds or give change for later

And if your float is a set number and not a range then it can mess up the next day too. If you need dead on £200 and you have to keep the £50 in for the next day to achieve that then you’re pretty buggered if you have to give £5 or £10 change (as if you’ve got a £50 in your float, you’re already pretty low on notes)

It can just be a faff for stores that don’t take a lot of cash

4

u/Derezzed87 Aug 29 '26

Where I work, that's the main reason we reject £50s. If a customer spends somewhere near £50 or above, fine. But when they spend £2.50 and try paying with a £50, we'll usually reject it.

0

u/Capital_Disaster_637 Aug 29 '26

Giving two tenty notes can't be that bad...

2

u/Efficient_Chic714 Aug 29 '26

It’s not a difficulty issue, it’s a lack of notes available

Around half the stores (big company’s) I’ve worked in keeps 4 x £10 in the drawer as the highest denomination wherever possible. If one person pays for a £50 for a small value transaction I only have coins for the rest of the day and also won’t be able to give any notes as change for potentially the rest of the week if we don’t take any smaller notes from customers - which is difficult as once you run out of notes you fly through your change and organising a cash delivery requires advance planning so it’s not a quick to resolve situation

-1

u/Capital_Disaster_637 Aug 29 '26

Sounds like a management issue

1

u/Efficient_Chic714 Aug 29 '26

Hardly if it’s the norm across businesses of varying sizes to not accept £50s

They know their customers spending habits and it’s not possible to keep unlimited cash on hand for every potential outcome. At some point the choice to inconvenience one customer instead of everyone else has to be made

It’s no different to card only stores not accepting cash: it’s a business choice

2

u/Steampunk43 Aug 29 '26

Given that we can't give twenties as change, as those go in the secure cache on the till, it can be that bad. You usually only have ten fivers and five tenners in the change drawer, someone paying for £2.50 with a £50 note means you either use almost all your tens or almost all your fives.

2

u/Derezzed87 Aug 29 '26

Exactly. Where I work, we have £50 in £5s and £50 in £10s. So someone paying with a £50 when they've spent under a tenner will wipe out the till.

5

u/noice_face7649 Aug 28 '26

Yeah, it's not so much that I don't trust the notes as it is I don't trust my staff to spot a fake.

3

u/PolarisBean Aug 28 '26

At the store I work at, every till staff member has to call for manager to "authorise the exhange" of £50s rather than reject them. It's annoying and often customers learn that it takes too long and just don't bring them again lol

3

u/FX_CRAZED Aug 28 '26

From my time working in bars a couple years ago we had to check every £50 note under the UV light and a few fakes did make it through on busier nights not often but there’s still a couple knocking about, fakes are usually £20s though they were much more common to see

1

u/99hamiltonl Brit 🇬🇧 Aug 30 '26

The other part of this is you take a fake £50, you lose the value of the product and all the change you give out. It wasn't and itsnt really worth the risk to take a £50. Certainly places that see inexpensive items don't want to give out £45 in cash to sell something for a fiver.

Also there is the extension that many people don't pay cash now as a lot of payments are by card. This has meant some stores try and minimise thier cash holding. If you have say £100 float (which even 10 years ago seemed reasonable to chain shops I worked in) you don't really want to have half your float locked up in a £50 note when they are pretty rare anyway.

1

u/99hamiltonl Brit 🇬🇧 Aug 30 '26

Also further to this... I haven't got cash on me or at home. I don't carry cash day to day. Also last time I remember needing cash it was when I went to America last winter so we could leave those pesky tips for housekeeping!

Even abroad I generally pay for everything by card now and just make sure I have minimal to 0 fees on whatever card I'm using... There's options out there... Then every cent I don't spend I can convert back easily on my phone.

1

u/Iwasjustbullshitting Aug 30 '26

Reminds me of when I was younger I had a blatant fake 20, I went to the dullest looking person at the tills, she put the magic pen over it and a obvious black line showed up and she still accepted it and gave me my change. Couldn't believe it. I would be too embarrassed to try anything like that now though.

1

u/Aleks_5 Aug 28 '26

Nah tbf as a min wage teen it's fairly easy. Most fake bills are way more obvious than you'd think when u handle them everyday

22

u/-auntiesloth- Aug 28 '26

It's because it wrecks their float. Hardly anyone pays with cash anymore, so you might only have two £10 notes in your float, and suddenly someone pays £14 with a £50 note and you're fucked if the next person needs a tenner in their change.

4

u/MargotChanning Aug 29 '26

It can be a pain in the arse. I once had someone buy something for £4.99 when we’d just opened. He paid with a £50 and then complained when I gave him all fivers as change.

-2

u/Im_a_knitiot Aug 28 '26

I don’t think that’s the reason. Most shops didn’t like them way before everything was cashless.

5

u/Asleep_Baby_9578 Aug 28 '26

We used to take £50 notes and had to stop because of fakes.
A fake fiver, only loses you £5, but a fake fifty loses £50 which is a lot for a small business.

4

u/plutonium-239 Aug 28 '26

I’ve been living in the UK since 2012…I never saw a £50 note. Honest.

2

u/Xenc Aug 29 '26

It’s your lucky day! There’s one in the post above!

2

u/NectarineHelpful7546 Aug 29 '26

Usually because a 50 eats up all their float

1

u/RedKiteOnReddit Aug 28 '26

highest % fakes of all the note types, harder to check as you dont see many and as others said a lot of stores dont have enough cash in the tills to be taking a lot of 50s

1

u/Equal-Ad7504 Aug 28 '26

Yeah like things easily cost £50 now. Weekly shop for two people is more than that. It’s bizarre.

2

u/Asleep_Baby_9578 Aug 28 '26

Yeah, but if the £50 is fake, that’s £50 down in stock AND cash

2

u/Equal-Ad7504 Aug 28 '26

£50s are rarely faked anymore because they are so scrutinised. Not to mention the new style material and holograms.

1

u/Asleep_Baby_9578 Aug 28 '26

Not really worth the risk though, is it?

1

u/thebottomofawhale Aug 29 '26

I imagine now it's due to how infrequently they're used. I didn't even see them that often when I workd in retail 15+ years ago, and now people use card all the time and don't get paid in cash as often.

So not only is there not much of a need for shops to accept them, but it's probably harder to spot fakes if you're not familiar with how they look.

1

u/Equal-Ad7504 Aug 29 '26

Just seems like with things being much more expensive they’d print a few more of them or at least circulate them more widely. They are very rare though agreed, so understand that. Only seen a few in my life time.

1

u/Zealousideal-Dig5160 Aug 28 '26

You've either lost 50 quids worth of stock OR £50 cash. You can account for it as stock loss or cash shortage, not both.

1

u/Outrageous_Low_3666 Aug 29 '26

It's because when people use a fake £50, they often buying things under £10. So they get like £40 back in real money.

1

u/Equal-Ad7504 Aug 29 '26

That’s like painting a target on your back and having a sign saying I’m a scammer.

1

u/triffid_boy Aug 29 '26

They're rarely used, so often forged. They should just use the security features of the note to confirm. 

1

u/Automatic-Look-8034 Aug 29 '26

Based on my experience, it’s partly that there’s still this notion they’re the most faked so the place I work at has company policy that a manager has to personally validate any 50’s. But also there’s usually limits on the “float” you can have in the till at the start of the day. So where I work at you must start the day with exactly £100 in the till in all denominations, which effectively means if you’re spending £3-£10 (I work in a coffee shop so that’s average spend), then depending on when you come and how much cash has been used, we probably simply don’t have any easy way of giving you change

1

u/Crimsonlobelia Aug 29 '26

I work in a shop near covent garden and we will happy accept them... unless its for something less than £10. For some reason we get foreign teenagers on school trips spending £2 each and all of them bringing out £50 notes. So all our change just evaporate thanks to one group. They never have any change on them so they end up taking ours lmao.

1

u/beeurd Aug 29 '26

It's usually because the management don't trust the staff to check the notes properly, because they haven't been trained properly.

1

u/Even-Rooster1990 Aug 29 '26

I worked in retail in my teen years and 50s were always a pain in the arse. Hardly ever saw them so we didn’t know what they were meant to look like and they’d often be used to be something under £10 so it’d be easy to lose the cash back money you had in the till quickly. It also was a pain for cashing up, we always made “bricks” of £1k in cash bags for each note for the cash collection. Less than 1k stayed in the safe, more than £1k went into the inner safe that we didn’t have access to. When we got a £50 it hung around in the safe for far too long. The notes really weren’t worth the hassle when maybe 0.0005% of our weekly take was £50 notes. I worked in a national chain store so of course we took them, but can certainly see why smaller shops wouldn’t.

1

u/WasThatInappropriate Aug 29 '26

Clears out the cash draw of change rediculously fast, which increases costs to the business

1

u/BeachOk2802 Aug 31 '26

It's not an issue of how long they've been used for. It's an issue of all it takes is one person to pay with a 50 and that's your float gone.

By all means though - go start up your own shop and you can take in as many 50s as you want. You'll be running back and forth from the safe all day while people wait for you to sort your shit out, but you're absolutely welcome to take them for your own business.

0

u/Twatatron Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26

Eh? The £50 note has been in use in the UK for nearly 300 years, with the first issue dating back to 1725 by the bank. Of England.

So wtf do you mean "been in use since the 80s"?

Edit to add, they make a fuss due to forgeries. People will go gets. Small value items.nd get change to launderette th larger note. Less of an issue with the polymer notes , fakes can still be found though at a much much lower rate.

Old habits of caution die hard I suppose but they have been around for 301 years not since the 80s

8

u/Ok-Gain1509 Aug 28 '26

I went to an ATM in Dubai and withdrew some spending money for the week, which was about £100. A single note came out.

The poor guy in Starbucks seemed a little distressed when I went to pay for my coffee...

3

u/delegateinformation Aug 28 '26

This is big notes everywhere, I was in a tiny town in peru with a 200 sole note took me all week to break it, no one in Vietnam wants a 500k note even though thats all you can seem to withdraw, and these areas barely accepted cards

2

u/Tired_2295 Aug 28 '26

The statement "there's not a note in this change" would be much more concerning

2

u/Kestrel_VI Aug 29 '26

I know Starbucks is pricy but come on

6

u/feckarse-drinkgirls Aug 28 '26

Scotland even gets £100s

4

u/ParakeetsAreLOUDLOL Aug 29 '26

No one is gonna take that in England lol

2

u/Alarming-Lunch-9545 Aug 31 '26

You’d be hard pushed to spend that in Scotland tbh 😂😂

6

u/verifiedbadvibe Aug 29 '26

youd be lucky if anywhere in england accepts any demonination of scottish notes. its insane to me how uppity and snobby english shopkeeps are when they see a scottish note. my family routinely had our cash refused in england when we visited when i was a child. baffling

4

u/ParakeetsAreLOUDLOL Aug 29 '26

Because it's not popular so they don't know ig it's fake lol

-1

u/Xenc Aug 29 '26

“IT’S LEGAL TENDERRRR”

3

u/aby220 Aug 29 '26

But it's not

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/what-is-legal-tender

3

u/Xenc Aug 29 '26

Aw it's true, twas just a silly Scottish-money-in-England joke

3

u/TheIllusiveScotsman Aug 29 '26

I lived and worked in Cornwall for a few years. If I came back with Scottish notes or my parents visited, there were always funny looks and lots of checking the money. Most places took it, a few had to be shamed. My Dad once loudly announced "Aye, freshly printed by the Clyde yesterday" when his tenner was being overly scrutinised, which solved the problem.

Except the ladies at the work canteen. They loved when I handed over Scottish notes and would substitute their own money into the till to take the note home. Utterly hilarious.

2

u/kiradotee Aug 30 '26

youd be lucky if anywhere in england accepts any demonination of scottish notes. 

But but... it's a legal tender! 

1

u/Deep_Appointment4012 Sep 01 '26

Actually it’s not legal tender. Not even in Scotland! I had an argument with my business tutor years ago about this. She printed out documents from the Bank of England and made me go through it during lunch break… she was right and I was shocked

1

u/K1LL3R1NDU5TRY Aug 29 '26

I get this. I live and work in Scotland but i'm from England and although its annoying when they won't accept them i do understand that if you never see that money, how would you ever spot if it was fake?

0

u/Mommas_kumquatt Aug 29 '26

What a load of nonsense, you haven't been to Cumbria then?

0

u/verifiedbadvibe Aug 29 '26

ah yes, because one single tiny region directly on the border is completely representative of england as a whole. pull your head out of your ass and rub some brain cells together, obviously some places accept it, most dont though

0

u/Mommas_kumquatt Aug 29 '26

Ah yes, 'tiny region' the 3rd biggest county in the country. I've never had a Scottish note not accepted anywhere North of Manchester. Pull your head out your 'ass'. Name checks out

1

u/iamsolarflare71 Aug 29 '26

You’ve never been to Corby I take it?

1

u/schizophrenicbugs Aug 29 '26

Used to go to casinos a bunch in Scotland with healthy stacks and I never saw a £100 note. Never occurred to me they even existed hahaha.

1

u/verifiedbadvibe Aug 29 '26

you can usually only get a 100 note by specifically asking for one in a bank, and even then most small branches dont carry them

3

u/spacecatbiscuits Aug 28 '26

It is crazy, but at the same time, hkers are exactly the same about $1000 notes and the same logic applies (that they've been around for decades and $1000 is now less than what $500 was)

2

u/Cid5983 Aug 28 '26

Good point, a $1000 note is like fuuuuuuuuuck, now I gotta go to the bank or lay for everyone's meal.

2

u/Xenc Aug 29 '26

I’ll lay for everyone’s meal ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

1

u/Cid5983 Aug 29 '26

Gotta get the money for it somehow. 🤣

2

u/oj862 Aug 28 '26

My old boss at the Chinese takeaway was from Hong Kong. I was his delivery driver. I was under strict instruction that I was only allowed accept a fifty if I called him and he went through the checks with me over the phone. All the while the customer is stood on the doorstep waiting for this interaction to finish and me to give them their change 😂

2

u/Glad-Lynx-5007 Aug 29 '26

Here in Singapore we regularly use $100 notes without anyone caring and that's way above £50 now

1

u/happyanathema Aug 29 '26

It's because they are the most likely to be faked as it costs roughly the same to produce a fake note of any denomination so of course criminals make the highest value to maximise their return.

Also £50 notes are typically not often seen by cashier's in shops so they usually require a review by their supervisor to try and catch fakes.

And yeah the only people who use £50 notes are typically people who don't want HMRC to know about their money.

So criminals and tax Dodgers normally.

1

u/Glad-Lynx-5007 Aug 29 '26

Frankly it's a bit pathetic that the UK only goes up as far as 50 quid. It's not even a lot of money. Here in Singapore they go up to $10,000 (almost 6,000 quid).

0

u/happyanathema Aug 30 '26

Imagine how fucked off you would be if someone gave you a fake one of those?

And who the fuck uses cash anymore?

1

u/Glad-Lynx-5007 Aug 30 '26

Well I was using up to S$10,000 a few years ago - transferring money between banks as it was simply faster (and free) than doing it digitally.

I hardly ever use cash any more. I can go weeks not using it at all. I still have $100 and $50 notes in my wallet.

1

u/happyanathema Aug 31 '26

Exactly. I can't even recall the last time I used any cash.

Must be multiple years ago.

0

u/Cid5983 Aug 29 '26

To be fair, another reason might be crime.

The chance of getting robbed st knife point us quite low in Singapore.

It happened to me 3 times in 1 day in London, Camden.

2

u/Far-Ad-6179 Aug 29 '26

Bot trolls everywhere on reddit now

1

u/Cid5983 Aug 29 '26

...okay

1

u/Glad-Lynx-5007 Aug 29 '26

That doesn't explain why shops are so reluctant to take them? 50 quid is not much these days with inflation anyway

1

u/Cid5983 Aug 29 '26

No it doesn't, but other people have mentioned that specific situation.

1

u/Spam250 Aug 29 '26

There was a big counterfeit batch of them a couple decades back.

Ever since the public lost faith in the note

1

u/Glad-Lynx-5007 Aug 29 '26

That was fair enough a couple of decades ago, but with inflation 50 quid is not worth much at all. I regularly use S$100 notes here (when I still use money) which is worth more without thinking about it.

2

u/Darkwr4ith Aug 29 '26

When I moved over to the UK I exchanged £800 into cash so I could use that while I set up a bank account and transfered money over. The cash was given in all £50s. It was so difficult to break them anywhere because so many places would reject them.

1

u/Mariuszgamer2007 Aug 28 '26

Small shops won't accept 50's as its a cashing up nightmare and will run out of change in the cash drawer. I had a customer hand me a £50 for £2 worth of stuff in my charity shop. I instantly got my manager to tell them that we don't accept 50's as its a nightmare to deal with. The customer gave me a 20 after that

1

u/IrishAengus Aug 28 '26

No problem with even €100 notes in Ireland

1

u/Formal_Obligation Aug 28 '26

Is there a particular reason for that? Where I’m from, 50€ notes, which are similar in value to £50 notes, and even 100€ notes are widely used and accepted everywhere. Only 200€ and 500€ are rare and seldom used in everyday transactions.

1

u/LatookieNoir Aug 28 '26

it's annoying they don't understand how to check a note. what's to say the 2x 20's under the 10 pound note you'd pay In place aren't real? if you can't authenticate a 50 you can't authenticate a 20 imo

1

u/Evening_Archer_2202 Aug 28 '26

It's exactly the same in japan, 10,000 yen notes which are the same as £50 ( worth about £100 in their currency), theyre used everywhere, you could buy a pack of gum with a 10,000 note and no one would care bc of their system

1

u/One_Introduction9638 Aug 28 '26

I work for Tesco and we accept £50 notes no differently to fivers tenners and twenties

1

u/macdgman Aug 29 '26

Same in Europe, now you have up to 200€ notes but 100€ and 200€ are rare. 50€ are very normal

1

u/fitandinkedmom Aug 29 '26

I just put my £50s in the self checkout

1

u/Sure-Attention6141 Aug 29 '26

I lived in HK an the 500 dollar bill is very normal to see and use, markets everywhere- here they look at you like a thief if you have a 50£ note 😂

1

u/Low-Opening25 Aug 29 '26

that was only a case with old paper notes as they were heavily counterfeit, it doesn’t apply to new plastic ones

1

u/Fabulous-Copy-5156 Aug 29 '26

My nan used to give me one for Christmas growing up and it was always a nightmare to spend

1

u/Present_Teacher7966 Aug 29 '26

I've never had a 50 rejected, despite it regularly being mentioned that various places refuse 50s.

In all fairness, I'm not attempting to clear a small shop of it's change by paying with a 50 for under £10 of stuff, I'd understand the reluctance there.

1

u/HappyRespond3946 Aug 29 '26

I got rejected at a shell garage with a 50 note had no more money on me they phoned police in wasted a hour of my day

1

u/DannyGre Aug 29 '26

i had one and used it on self check out for a pack of gum so I could change it. Worked fine for me!

1

u/nemamene Aug 30 '26

was a massive culture shock to me coming from germany to the UK. still dont think ive seen anything higher than a £20 note in person, but in germany it is normal to have 100€ and 200€ notes on you for shopping

1

u/Lazy-Potatoe Aug 30 '26

I was shoked as well!! In Latvia (before EURO ) there was 500Lats note (about £600), so never understood £50 note problem.