Update: is the new quid on the block set to cause trouble?

The reason magazines date their issues strangely is often because some news is embargoed, eg new model motorhome, only for release in March – so March issue comes out at the end of January

I think that explanation will only apply on the first of April, Bacchanalia.

An opportunity for invention of a till side scanner

I always wondered if the Japanese coins with holes were made by the Polo Mint.

I was told by a newsagent that the month shown on a magazine indicates when it is to be REMOVED from the shelves. i.e. the February-dated edition goes on sale in January, then is removed in February to make way for the next edition.

No !! They simply pass them out to customers, if they find forged coins in their tills they are not going to take the loss. Let their customers take the loss.

I needed a good chuckle 🙂 Sadly, most folk are either completely unaware or, if they notice it, quietly attept to pass it off. Bit like a fiscal ‘Pass the Parcel’ game 🙂

Tips are really important to service industry people, so I suspect we’ll need cash for a long while yet. And there’s always the black market to consider, without which we’d never get that job done as cheaply as we want…

Sorry, but I don’t like the new £1 coin at all. It’s clunky and unaesthetic. Think it’s the worst coin the RM has produced . Have had better chocolate coins, tastier too.

John I know you are putting the official Indian government+ UK media point of view about all those rich business men diddling the State but why has the other point of view not been put but covered up ? The vast majority of the Indian population are “dirt poor ” as the saying goes , NONE of them can afford credit cards , you are talking 100, of millions of people and the monetary value of the withdrawn cash in UK terms is approx $7.3 for the lower value( 500 R) , who does that hurt ? Do you honestly believe that those Indian millionaires use small denominations for transactions ? All the publicity says its the rich that are “doing ” the Indian taxation authorities , so why are they not removing the very high values ? because thats what business men use for their transactions.

Perhaps a few more cases of outages for terminals and details stolen at post of sale may make notes and coin more attractive.

It may be something to do with the media but there does seem to be very little mention of all the cases around the world where POS terminals have been a vector for crime. I would hate to suggest conspiracy but anyone who followed the Daily Telegraph and its relationship with HSBC and the Barclay Brothers would find plenty of proof that some sections of the media at least are very careful of nurturing their relationships with the big advertisers.

This actually has been true for a long-time where details of bank staff or system frauds were very briefly covered, if at all , by the press.

Duncan – I have no knowledge of the official Indian government line. My knowledge is formed from multiple sources over time. I was not aware of any cover-up of the impact of the banknote withdrawal on the majority of the population – I have read about the consequences in many publications. The 500 Rupee notes were exchangeable for new issues and the 1,000 Rupee notes were exchangeable for new 2,000 Rupee notes. As I said previously, the transition was chaotic but nobody with small quantities of notes should have lost any money as a result of the changeover. So far as I am aware there are millions of credit and debit cards in use in India. In terms of which banknotes to withdraw, my personal view is that the Indian government knew where to strike for the maximum effect and it seems to have had the intended result. No doubt there will be further action in due course against the big hoarders – the recent measure appears to have flushed out a lot of them already since, contrary to what you say, it does seem that the 1,000 Rupee note was the banknote of choice for illegal holdings being both very common and easily converted. I think this is very much a ‘one step at a time’ policy. When Mr Big turns up at his bank with a wad of very high value notes which he has not been able to convert into smaller denominations I expect he will soon have his collar felt by the authorities [one of the outcomes has been a considerable reduction in the amount of legal tender cash in circulation so unofficial conversion is now more difficult].

I was in Burma in 1985 when the Burmese government “demonetised” the 20,50, and 100 Kyat notes. This was announced over Burma TV at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon. The 20 and 50 Kyat notes were very rarely used, but the 100K note was the backbone of the black market, which was how most of the Burmese managed to exist.
The notes had to be handed in to banks, one deposit per household, and they were replaced at a later date with a 75 K note, the reason being that with the 25K note, this would make 100K!
A Burmese friend told me that his brother, who was heavily involved in the black market, had about 100,000 K mainly in 100K notes. When the exchange was eventually made, it wasn’t one for one for all, up to 5,000K it was 1 for 1, up to 15,000 lots of questions, and over that, you have too much money!
A couple of years later all notes above 10 K were again “demonetised” and replaced with 45 and 90 K notes, the Burmese president at the time being very superstitious and 9 was his lucky number. This led to riots and many deaths round about 1989.
I doubt that this will happen in India, but as usual the poor will bear the brunt.
Regards, Jim Hawkins.

I think some of the responsibility has to be borne by the rather lax security protocols employed. Experience has shown that only the ‘dual device’ approach is pretty secure, and using only a single device is prone to all sorts of issues. But the question has to be ‘Is the mobile ‘phone cash withdrawal system inherently any less secure than a man and his bank card?’. I suspect the answer is no, since ATM fraud is widespread, anyway. And when Ug went to his secret cache of lizard teeth to find Og had pinched them, he probably thought ‘Ug need better security’… Not a lot’s changed, really.

Ian – I think the article indicates the Bank was responsible for the type of security employed. I find it hard to believe that the average customer is in a position to dispute the security protocols of their Bank and will assume everything is hunky-dory.

Manifestly Banks are failing on a significant way in the area. And we are not even considering the other ways that do not involve bank cash machines.

And how much coverage has this case had in the UK where Barclays are introducing a variant? The only thing to pop-up:
http://uk.reportnews.eu/stolen-passwords-fuel-cardless-atm-fraud/

Hardly mainstream. Given Which?’s stated mission perhaps we need to have a specialist area where these reports and the UK banks new ideas are given a critical eye.

I just do not see how the average consumer can be expected to handle all the possibilities of new technologies and new apps. We know for fact that Banks lied about the security of the 4 number PIN so why relax our guard now?

I was saying it was almost certainly the bank’s fault, Patrick, but I need to pick you up on the 4 x digit secure code. That code is perfectly adequate for security – there were no lies told – but the ATM has to be set to swallow the card after 3 unsuccessful attempts.

All this palaver about complex security passwords and codes is something of a smokescreen: most fraud and theft in shops is committed by shop staff and always has been, and it’s pretty obvious that the same situation will exist in banks. And many, many cases of so-called ‘hacking’ are nothing of the sort: they’re very often down to social engineering, where well-meaning employees attempting to be helpful to someone they assume to be genuine give out crucial information.

It’s never going to be any different. It never has been in human history. There’s a superb sequence in Life of Brian which exemplifies that beautifully (the walk to the crucifixion) and I’m pretty sure that the Pyramids were flogged several times over to the Phoenicians.

The inadequacy of the PIN was established by academics in the last decade and the research was legally blocked by a South African bank.

The idea that the criminal fraternity could not have done what the researchers proved was possible seems insupportable.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/02/21/how_to_get_an_atm/
https://www.rt.com/usa/354657-chip-pin-cards-blackhat/

If you read the original research you will see it almost certainly requires a bank insider to do it, a fact mentioned by the researchers themselves. And crooked bank insiders have much more lucrative pickings than simply going after an ATM pin .The other attempt requires duplicate machinery to be placed on the ATM, so nothing new there, then.

Of course researchers will always find flaws: they’ve been doing it for years simply because code is basically flawed, and always has been since machine code was first devised. But most scams are nothing to do with elaborate equipment and complex mathematical algorithms. They’re about opportunity and ease of pickings. If you wanted to eliminate all known risks you’d never use anything with a processor. And posting in a forum? God forbid.

I remember a ticket machine for a private car park that rejected some 10p and 5p coins. I checked the rejected coins with a magnet and found they were all the newer steel coins. That was long after these were introduced. I have had £1 coins rejected by machines but they seem to be accepted at the second attempt.

This why I never have more than 29 pound coins on me.

Very good. I’m afraid that the book that would explain why this approach is not valid is priced at £30.

Your poor pockets John.

Unless you carry them in 🎒💼👝👜👛💼💰🐷

Yes, it’s deeply worrying if someone drops a pound in my hat as they walk past.

I also liked the 3d bit with Thrift on the back (changed to the portcullis when the Queen ascended the throne). It bought a bag of chips in my youth, now they cost a quid, just as you say. But we do earn a lot more! That is what I find difficult to understand about inflation; we demand more pay, so we feel better off, prices go up, so it buys about the same. The problem is we lose our sense of what things are worth. I think a pound for a bag of chips is extortionate, but then petrol was 3/9d a gallon.

The new £1 is thinner, lighter, but around 1mm bigger across the widest point. After they cease to be legal tender in October they can still be deposited in your bank. The mint are making 1.5 billion and the date is the date of production; as I imagine they made some last year the one in the intro is probably not a forgery!

Ah, you mean the new 3d bits. I’ve still got some of the silver ones, though I’m not old enough to remember them being in use.

At the local fish & chip shop, a bag of chips costs £2 and haddock & chips is priced at £6.80.

Is that for a large portion or regular? Eat in or take-away? A large haddock & large chips to take out is around £5.75 here, but there is no consistent definition of “large”. My money-saving tip is to only have it once a week and have cod on the other days.

That would be for regular chips, sir. Small and large portions are £1.70 and £2.30. It’s amazing what information is online these days.

Cod and Haddock is around the same price at our chippy, and we slightly prefer haddock. We also find it is cooked to order, so you don’t have to take a fish that might have been kept warm for some time. Portions are much bigger than the 1/3d days, and we usually share a bag of chips.

Silver thrupenny bits were so small, they’d drop through the seam in your trouser pocket if your Mum didn’t keep them sown up from the wear and rear that took place with a pocket full of old pennies.

Perhaps you don’t remember the problems that occurred during decimalisation in 1971 when just some of the coinage changed and none of the notes. That involved a change in denominations and values, though, so much more complex.

I expect the authorities do these things in stages to keep a rolling production process through the Royal Mint and the banknote printers. It takes over a year to produce enough coinage to launch a new issue of just one coin denomination and the metal has to be paid for and production staff paid a long time before the old stock is returned. I should think the coin-operated vending machine industry prefers to change their machines one step at a time as well; the coin validation mechanism is very sensitive so if one coin denomination is rejected it’s not the end of the world but if every coin is rejected it could be catastrophic. The Showmen’s Guild might have some opinions on the matter as well since, so far as I know, you can’t use a contactless card on the waltzers and dodgems.

So what’s the answer then, William? We can’t just let the pounds in our pockets and the wads in our wallets become increasingly adulterated. I think the new £1 coin will outwit the counterfeiters for quite a while.

I expect Prince Charles pops into a photo booth every few weeks on the off-chance that a new image will soon be required. That’ll fox the forgers for a bit.

Pay me £50m and I’ll tell ya. But making things that don’t should up to microscopic analysis won’t help the little old man or woman in the street that struggles to see that level of detail so it’s all a waste of time and money putting it there. And yes I do have an idea but it so out of the box it probably won’t work.

William you have an idea that can overcome the new inbuilt computerized anti-forging put there by the British Mint /Treasury Dept. If true do you know they would pay you £1000,s for the information ? In the US the Government there actually advertise for hackers to try to break their codes and say how they did it. and if successful some have been payed $100,000 and that includes companies like Google etc.

I presume most people only bought one or two tokens and have made plenty of use of them. It’s just normal obsolescence – they can either use a new pound coin or invest in a new token. I am not sure I understand why people bought tokens when most have a pound in their pocket or purse. Perhaps the supermarkets won’t convert their trolleys but will sell old-style tokens at £2 each!

I’ve never shopped in a supermarket with trolley locks. The local Morrison’s has them but does not use them. I know people who have metal discs to unlock trolleys, on their keyrings, so I assume that the system is not very sophisticated.

Indeed – the supermarkets could hold a “token amnesty” and exchange old for new.

I am perplexed over what routines people have involving pound coins that they cannot adapt to over six months. The older people are the more they have had to do this throughout their lives – including when the pound note was replaced by a coin – so for them it’s a doddle. Younger people might have to carry marbles around with them to help them remember about the new coinage, but what if they lose their marbles?

Or they will try to put the new coins into the Morrison supermarket trolley,s I go to once a week John –the trolleys are free . Your right ,as if thats the only worry in the world.

The Kent Live piece is an excellent example of the media merrily misleading. They start the piece by saying

“It was hailed as the bank note it was impossible to counterfeit.”

which was never claimed. And we wonder why people are giving Trump the ammunition he loves.

The similarity is remarkable despite the fact that the 20p coins are seven-sided instead of twelve-sided, thinner, smaller in diameter, made of one metal rather than two-coloured, have ribbed edges, and have a different design. The £1 coin also has One Pound stamped on it in large letters which should help a bit with recognition when all other discriminators deceive.

At one time I used to put coins that I found in my back pocket to give to charity. That was until one of them destroyed the plastic impeller on the drain pump of my washing machine because I had not checked the pocket.

I have a Science Museum coin sorter that was a Christmas present from a neighbour years ago. It seemed a pointless present at the time but has proved very useful for sorting out what is put in the donations bucket at charity events. I had only seen one of the new pound coins but on my last outing, most of them were shiny new pound coins, which the machine managed to sort out successfully.

I have just realised that there is an old £5 paper note that I found in a kitchen cupboard when I moved house last year. I don’t have contact details for the previous occupants so the £5 and a £10 note are still here.