I was handed a Scottish tenner in a Camden pub last week.

About 30 minutes later I returned to the bar and attempted to spend it…the barmaid (the very same one who had given me said note as change) gave me the type of look that you’d usually reserve for someone who’d just declared that they spend their leisure time stabbing puppies and refused to accept it!

Isn’t it incredible that in 2011 this legal tender is still treated with such suspicion outside Scotland?

Incidentally, they’re really pretty now, aren’t they? I hadn’t seen a Scottish bank note in a couple of years, I like the yellow and blue thing they have going on now.

Yup I’ve had lots of arguments with idiots who won’t accept my Scottish notes! I think Lloyds in Aberdeen is the only hole in the wall that gives out English notes! idiots .. they are nice to use for a change makes me feel like I’m on holiday 😉

Try money from NI, even more variety than Scotish, and less chance of been accepted in the mainland

RBS, BOS and Clydesdale all issue different notes.

“Legal tender” does not mean what you think it means.

(And, Scottish notes aren’t legal tender anyway)

Accepting any notes for a regular transaction is down to the retailer. Sorry.

Scottish £20s are viewed with suspicion as there are a lot of fakes apparently. I’d have proper kicked off if they refused to take a note they’d just given me though!

grum – Member
Scottish £20s are viewed with suspicion as there are a lot of fakes apparently. I’d have proper kicked off if they refused to take a note they’d just given me though!

I was about to, then I spotted the bouncer…
to say he was a heavy unit would be an understatement, he practically had his own postcode!

wimp 😀

I often get caught out. Living only a “cattle rustle” away from the border we have lots of Scottish notes doing the rounds locally.

Trying to pass them off on the M62 corridor or below can sometimes be frustrating. Now I just make sure that I give them back to the pub where they came from.

Isn’t it incredible that in 2011 this legal tender is still treated with such suspicion outside Scotland?

Scottish banknotes aren’t legal tender. Isn’t that incredible?

knowing that at some point they’ve inevitably been part of some seedy rough cut scag deal means that i always refuse to touch them.

LycraLout – Member

Isn’t it incredible that in 2011 this legal tender is still treated with such suspicion outside Scotland?

Scottish banknotes aren’t legal tender. Isn’t that incredible?

I was unaware of that. It is incredible though…am going to Google this as am interested in their actual status.

To be fair, some of them look like shit turner prize entries.

Isn’t it incredible that in 2011 this legal tender is still treated with such suspicion outside Scotland?

Is it incredible though? Seems perfectly logical to me. I’ve no idea what Scotch money is supposed to look like so I wouldn’t know a dodgyMcdodge one from the real Mckoy.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Yeah I know, Scottish not scotch. 🙂

Yup, scottish notes are not legal tender.

Try going to vietnam, where they wont accept VND or USD if there are any imperfections in the note (like a fold….)

Great fun trying to explain to someone that doesn’t speak english that you have no other money with which to pay for an evenings drinks! 🙂

I dont think they are even legal tender in Scotland

Trying to pass them off on the M62 corridor or below can sometimes be frustrating.

I tried to pay with a Scottish £20 for a couple of sweaty pizzas I had delivered from a local (East Lancs) Asian kebabbery. The driver’s response, and I quote verbatim with apologies to the swear filter, was “what the f–k is that?”

I dont think they are even legal tender in Scotland

Legal tender doesn’t apply in Scotland IIRC, so that’s likely.

All sterling notes are promissory notes and technically all have the same status.
Accepting them is accepting the promise that the “money” will be paid. Some people do not want to accept the notes they do not recognise.

With apologies for:

1) BIG post
2) Copyright liberation

http://www.siliconglen.com has a pretty thorough explanation…

All Scottish banks have the right to print their own notes. Three choose to do so: The Bank of Scotland (founded 1695), The Royal Bank of Scotland (founded 1727) and the Clydesdale Bank (owned by National Australia Bank). Only the Royal Bank prints pound notes. All the banks print 5,10,20 and 100 notes. Only the Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale Bank print 50 pound notes.

Scottish bank notes are not legal tender in Scotland. English bank notes of denomination less than 5UKP were legal tender in Scotland under Currency and Bank Notes Act 1954. Now, with the removal of BoE 1UKP notes, only coins constitute legal tender in Scotland. English bank notes are only legal tender in England, Wales, The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. In Scotland, 1 pound coins are legal tender to any amount, 20ps and 50ps are legal tender up to 10 pounds; 10p and 5ps to 5 pounds and 2p and 1p coins are legal tender to 20p (separately or in combination). 2 pounds coins and (if you can get hold of one) 5 pound coins are also legal tender to unlimited amounts, as are gold coins of the realm at face value (in Scotland at least).

Northern Irish notes are not legal tender anywhere, a situation similar to Scottish notes. Whether Scottish notes are legal tender or not does not change or alter their inherent value but it dictates their legal function. Credit cards, cheques and debit cards are not legal tender either but it doesn’t stop them being used as payment. Only a minuscule percentage of Scottish and British trading is carried out using legal tender. Just because something is not legal tender certainly doesn’t imply it’s illegal to use.

The lack of a true legal tender in Scotland does not cause a problem for Scots Law which is flexible enough to get round this apparent legal nonsense, as was demonstrated some time ago when one local authority tried to refuse a cash payment (in Scottish notes) on the grounds it wasn’t “legal tender”, but lost their case when the sheriff effectively said that they were obliged to accept anything which was commonly accepted as “money”, and that should their insistence on “legal tender” have been supported, it would have resulted in the bill being paid entirely in coins, which would have been a nonsense; stopping short of saying that the council would have been “cutting off their nose to spite their face”, but seeming to hint at it.

For tourists: You can spend Scottish notes in England and they are exactly equivalent to their English counterpart on a one for one commission free basis. If changing Sterling abroad, do not accept an inferior rate for changing Scottish notes than is being offered for English notes as the two are equivalent. You are very unlikely to encounter problems spending Scottish money in England, I did it for many years and was never refused.

The definition of legal tender is something which is acceptable as payment of a debt. If you pay using legal tender, the other person has no recourse to chase you for payment. As part of the Skye Road Bridge tolls protest, people have paid in small coins using the greatest number of small denomination coins which constituted legal tender. Using entirely 1ps for instance would not have been legal tender and could have been refused. (This definition is a simplification, see the Currency section of “Halsbury’s Laws of England” for a full legal definition.)

Britain came off the Gold Standard more than 60 years ago. The Scottish banks are allowed to issue a relatively small amount without backing, and the remainder of their issue has to be backed by Bank of England notes to the same value. So the BofE goes bust, the others go with it.

I was handed a Scottish tenner in a Camden pub last week.

I can’t be the only one who read that as ‘Scottish terrier’.

Dave

Had this happen in London once. My reposnse was to start necking the pint and show her my otherwise empty wallet.

She called over her supervisor who looked at her as if she was a dog turd on his shoe and said ‘of course we accept money you daft bint’

Helped he was Glaswegian I think.

Anyway argue the point and try and neck the pint in the meantime.

Anyway argue the point and try and neck the pint in the meantime.

But then you’d be drinking it without the means to pay and that would probably be theft or similar

Isn`t all the Scottish money handed out by our English colonialist neighbours anyway ?

I thought this thread was going to be about the North Sea oil and gas revenues Scotland generates being used to fund Tory second homes 😉

Disappointed of Edinburgh

Clydesdale ones are the hardest to shift, because they’re not a proper bank- haven’t even been bailed out or anything.

Not accepting one they just gave to you?? *rolls eyes*

Best way I found to get rid of them easily is spend them in Tesco self serve checkouts 🙂

Disappointed of Edinburgh

Take solace, some small comfort, from the fact that You Are Not Alone.

I had fun once in an offie with an Isle of Man or Channel Islands pound coin. Several other customers telling the dipstick it was fine, but he was too ignorant to know it.

Apparently you can pay for stuff with sovereigns.

They are worth a pound. Just a pound, as currency. 😯

I have been told there are pubs in Caymden which accept Euros. I think Decathlon stores in the UK do as well.

Caymden is a well poncey place to drink though. Lots of stewdents though which tends to keep a place lively and interesting.

I was handed a Scottish tenner in a Camden pub last week. About 30 minutes later I returned to the bar and attempted to spend it…the barmaid………refused to accept it!

Haha ……. I bet she was pissing herself when she told her mates about it ! 😀

Isn’t it incredible that in 2011 this legal tender is still treated with such suspicion outside Scotland?

Maybe we should be asking, in 2011 isn’t it incredible that currency is issued by anyone other than the Central Bank?

No wonder people treat it with suspicion if there are 3 different issuers of notes in Scotland, plus more elsewhere in the UK, most of which you would have never seen or only come across every few years outside the region in which they are issued.

Maybe we should be asking, in 2011 isn’t it incredible that currency is issued by anyone other than the Central Bank?

I concur.

I concur.

The Bank of England is still the Central Bank for the UK, you can keep your Euros. 😉

I’d look more favourably on the Euro if they’d called it something less crap. You can’t even pluralise it properly, it’s one Euro and many Euro. It’s like spending sheep.

I bet she was pissing herself when she told her mates about it

She probably took it by mistake, realised she needed someone daft enough for her to be able to offload it onto and siged with relief when she saw a likely candidate

I was unaware of that. It is incredible though…am going to Google this as am interested in their actual status.

So it’s incredible that some places don’t take bits of paper which aren’t legal tender? Really? Isn’t the world just full of incredible things? Like pens, they’re brilliant.

She probably took it by mistake, realised she needed someone daft enough for her to be able to offload it onto and siged with relief when she saw a likely candidate

to be honest, I would have refused to pay, walked out and left the drinks sitting on the bar, if she was the one who gave me the note in the first place. In that situation, it’s kind of implicit that they accept them if they’re handing them out. That’s just dishonest.

In general though, I wouldn’t accept them myself for just that reason. Nobody wants them.

when i used to work for a top highstreet retailer (in the 1990’s) you could pay for goods in whatever currency you liked so long as it wasnt fake/madeup/printed at home. dollars, francs, marks were all accepted.

The Bank of England was founded by William Paterson from Lochmaben.
The banks with Scottish names are barely any more Scottish than the Bank of England.
The Clydesdale Bank is Australian owned etc.
Legal tender is not the same as legal currency.
Legal tender is to do with amount tendered, less to do with the type of note.

http://www.scotbanks.org.uk/legal_position.php

BigButSlimmerBloke – Member

I bet she was pissing herself when she told her mates about it

She probably took it by mistake, realised she needed someone daft enough for her to be able to offload it onto and siged with relief when she saw a likely candidate

I was unaware of that. It is incredible though…am going to Google this as am interested in their actual status.

So it’s incredible that some places don’t take bits of paper which aren’t legal tender? Really? Isn’t the world just full of incredible things? Like pens, they’re brilliant.

Get back to the IT helpdesk, you cock.

🙄

just reading that definition of legal tender, it says that if you pay in legal tender no change can be demanded.

So if i bought something in england eg for £3.50 and paid with an english (legal tender) 5 pound note, could i be refused change (theoretically) 😕

bravohotel8er – Member

Get back to the IT helpdesk, you cock.

And hopefully when he’s done that, he’ll come back and wind you up some more.

I do love it when sensitive little souls get easily wound up 😀