Scottish Money In England - Are People Stupid?
Discussion
OK Silly title but serious point....
I spend a lot of time in London and for the first time in ages decided to do a little bit of early christmas shopping.
My first stop was Harrods where I decided to buy a handbag for my GF. After some help picking out my item we went to pay and the assistant decided that she would need to convert the price into USD to accept my Scottish £20 notes.
Next step was Covent garden and some sweets from Cybercandy. After choosing a selection of overpriced treats I took them to the till assistant who "whispered" to the lollypop filler upper if the accept Scottish money.
After my little shopping trip we went for a steak, the chap who works with me took out his RBS bank card which was rejected by the debit card machine, The genius who was operating the device suggested it was because it was a Scottish card. Luckely I still had some of my £20s from Hbos which again he had to go and ask a manager if they could accept.
What alarms me is the fact that none of these people seemed to be uneducated or unable to read a map. Do retailers not understand they should train staff that Scotland is part of the UK?
Thankfully I returned to my hotel and collected my cards
I spend a lot of time in London and for the first time in ages decided to do a little bit of early christmas shopping.
My first stop was Harrods where I decided to buy a handbag for my GF. After some help picking out my item we went to pay and the assistant decided that she would need to convert the price into USD to accept my Scottish £20 notes.
Next step was Covent garden and some sweets from Cybercandy. After choosing a selection of overpriced treats I took them to the till assistant who "whispered" to the lollypop filler upper if the accept Scottish money.
After my little shopping trip we went for a steak, the chap who works with me took out his RBS bank card which was rejected by the debit card machine, The genius who was operating the device suggested it was because it was a Scottish card. Luckely I still had some of my £20s from Hbos which again he had to go and ask a manager if they could accept.
What alarms me is the fact that none of these people seemed to be uneducated or unable to read a map. Do retailers not understand they should train staff that Scotland is part of the UK?
Thankfully I returned to my hotel and collected my cards
The average English sales assistant/retailer rarely if never sees Scottish money.
You can't blame them if they appear a little confused when presented with something they have never seen before as payment.
I understand it makes things difficult for you, but you are more experienced in this situation so perhaps you can prevent this by arranging to have more familiar notes when in England?
You can't blame them if they appear a little confused when presented with something they have never seen before as payment.
I understand it makes things difficult for you, but you are more experienced in this situation so perhaps you can prevent this by arranging to have more familiar notes when in England?
Papa Hotel said:
I think you'll find Scottish notes are not legal tender.
Not legal tender, however they are legal currency, English notes are not legal tender in Scotland, but are legal currency, yet the acceptance of English notes in Scotland does not cause the problems that Scottish notes can in England.Isn't it their job to be familiar with all forms of acceptable payment? Gap in their training if they aren't. Low paid cashiers over here manage to deal with NI, Scottish and English notes in Sterling and many also have to deal in Euros.
Good news is that it's a lot better than it used to be. In the early nineties accepting NI notes in England often involved a phone call to their bank.
Good news is that it's a lot better than it used to be. In the early nineties accepting NI notes in England often involved a phone call to their bank.
Corpulent Tosser said:
Papa Hotel said:
I think you'll find Scottish notes are not legal tender.
Not legal tender, however they are legal currency, English notes are not legal tender in Scotland, but are legal currency, yet the acceptance of English notes in Scotland does not cause the problems that Scottish notes can in England.No one has to accept anything as payment if they don't want to.
All 'legal tender' means is that if a court orders you to pay a debt to a third party that third party can't refuse to accept your payment to leave you in contempt of court and potentially imprisoned. It also means if you're pissed off that the court has ordered you to pay the council's ridiculous parking fine, you can't turn up with a big back of penny pieces to pay the debt.
I thought English notes were legal tender in Scotland and that English notes were actually British notes, but I don't have time to check that.
All 'legal tender' means is that if a court orders you to pay a debt to a third party that third party can't refuse to accept your payment to leave you in contempt of court and potentially imprisoned. It also means if you're pissed off that the court has ordered you to pay the council's ridiculous parking fine, you can't turn up with a big back of penny pieces to pay the debt.
I thought English notes were legal tender in Scotland and that English notes were actually British notes, but I don't have time to check that.
I once had Scottish guy pay for a car with cash at the weekend so I had no way of verifying it.
I simply had to make a judgement on if I trusted him or not.
I did, and when I took the money to the bank on Monday all was fine, but I was surprised to learn that there was about three different variations of the £20's and two of the £50's because different banks in Scotland can all issue their own notes.
Which for an Englisher makes thing even more confusing!
I simply had to make a judgement on if I trusted him or not.
I did, and when I took the money to the bank on Monday all was fine, but I was surprised to learn that there was about three different variations of the £20's and two of the £50's because different banks in Scotland can all issue their own notes.
Which for an Englisher makes thing even more confusing!
Fairly certain it's a quirk that Scottish notes aren't even legal tender in Scotland, but it's a fairly meaningless distinction.
Fwiw, I have never begrudged anyone not taking them; notes are so easy to forge that why should people risk taking ones they hardly ever see, simply because they have the word "Sterling" printed on them?!
Fwiw, I have never begrudged anyone not taking them; notes are so easy to forge that why should people risk taking ones they hardly ever see, simply because they have the word "Sterling" printed on them?!
GokTweed said:
If Scotland spit the dummy out and become independant can we drop the exchange rate on them as punishment for getting their skirts in a twist?
All it would take it one counterfeiting gang to spread a rash of illegal Scottish notes around the genitalia of the English mainland, then it would be curtains for their notes in England. We'd celebrate by eating caber pie and doing that haggis toss and whatever else they do.
Corpulent Tosser said:
Is that really the point ? Or is it sales staff not being trained to recognise legal currency ?
They may have been trained, but won't have seen such a note for so long that they can't recall what it should look like. Especially if the design has changed since they had their training.Gassing Station | Finance | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff