The pound in your pocket – may be fake

Given how little it buys, you would hardly think it worthwhile forging a pound coin. Yet the Royal Mint says that the number of counterfeit pound coins has doubled in just five years. It reckons that over 35 million currently in circulation are counterfeit. That’s something like one in every 40. So, whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re probably handling counterfeit coins every week.

There’s a case currently being heard resulting from the discovery of a coin-making factory on a Kentish farm, where £8,000 of coins had been made up, with another 14,000 discs ready to be pressed. But that operation is clearly small beer and, as nobody appears to be responsible for removing fake pound coins from circulation, the problem will only get worse.

It isn’t just coins, of course. Although the Bank of England admitted to taking only £13.7 million in fake banknotes out of circulation last year, that was double the previous year and is expected to be sharply higher this year. Recently, police in places as far apart as Suffolk and Tayside have announced the discovery of substantial quantities of counterfeit £20 notes in their areas.

The run-up to Christmas is the most common time for counterfeit money to be passed off, both in the UK and the United States, where the volume of counterfeit money in circulation is also rising sharply. Stores are more crowded, shoppers and retailers are under greater pressure and it’s easier to miss something.

Sadly, it isn’t only illegal to make counterfeit money. It is also a crime also to use it. If you realise you’ve got a fishy note or coin, you’re stuffed. If you turn a note in, you’ll get a receipt but you’ll only get your money back if it turns out to be genuine. If it’s counterfeit, you’ve lost out. So it pays to be vigilant.

Both the Bank of England and the Royal Mint have explanations of how to spot fake money on their websites. Much of it seems to require you to have expert knowledge of every design change since decimal money was introduced. Essentially, though, fake pound coins are likely to look a bit fuzzy, perhaps a slightly odd colour, the ribbed edge may be uneven and the two sides might not both be vertical; if one side’s at an angle to the other, it’s a phoney. If a coin is rejected by a machine, it may not be that the machine is having a bad day, but that you’re trying to feed it with something bogus. As for banknotes, as well as the design, it’s down to the watermark, the security strip, the feel of the paper and whether the colours are sharp, not blurred.

Bank of England tips on spotting fake banknote

Royal Mint advice on how to spot a counterfeit pound coin