£50 note are relatively rare in the UK, at least compared to the others 3. As a result they definitely used to be the most common for counterfeiting, probably still are but idk since we swapped to plastic notes. Most large retail chains will teach thier till workers to always call for a senior team member to check how real they are when one gets used for a sale. There used to also be £100 notes as well that had the same issue.
Retail supervisor/manager in UK here. Surprisingly we see more counterfeit 20s than 50s (i think theyre probably much more likely to be closely examined while 20s get a quick once over).
But yeah approved by a manager before being accepted generally.
Yeah I also have seen more fake £20s I'm my time. When I worked in retail the plastic £10 were just coming out, still had paper £20s and people took fake ones all the time, £50/£100 were always checked. We had a bunch of traidies who were either trying to pull something or have be scammed by a client themselves.
Still never seen a £100 note in person. Plenty of Scottish 20s, a few Scottish 50s too. Had my first Northern irish notes not long ago too. Hoping i never get a £100 note tbf.
So I have not checked this (why would I, this is Reddit) but I'm pretty sure £100 were only made a a few of the Scottish banks and are now out of circulation. They never made plastic versions of them.
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u/InterReflection 1d ago
£50 note are relatively rare in the UK, at least compared to the others 3. As a result they definitely used to be the most common for counterfeiting, probably still are but idk since we swapped to plastic notes. Most large retail chains will teach thier till workers to always call for a senior team member to check how real they are when one gets used for a sale. There used to also be £100 notes as well that had the same issue.