Germans reject Euro notes from other countries

Is this true?

There is a report that Germans are rejecting notes printed in Spain and Italy etc..

You can tell the origin of notes by the numbers.

Is this the beginning of the end of the Euro?

No.

where did you get this information?? link to report etc???

Every time I get one of the non-German banknotes I burn them. Because it's not proper money.

Todays Daily Telegraph.

Support for euro in doubt as Germans reject Latin bloc notes
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 1:26am BST 13/06/2008

Notes printed in Berlin have more currency for bank customers who fear a 'value crisis'

Ordinary Germans have begun to reject euro bank notes with serial numbers from Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal, raising concerns that public support for monetary union may be waning in the eurozone's anchor country.

The Telegraph!

I suppose the Mail is running something similar as well?

I thought we'd already had April 1st? A load of bollocks from the Torygraph.

Poland don´t have the Euro yet...so I would definitely be rejecting any such notes

EDIT: JN changed his comment though it said Poland at the beginning

Link ( I hope ) to full story.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtm...3/cneuro113.xml

Sounds like an anecdote blown up into a country-wide phenomenon. The bullshit aspect aside, it makes absolutely no sense. The Euro will rise and fall on currency markets for citizens of every country in equal measure. A letter on the serial number indicating its print origin makes no difference on the value or exchange rate. Sure the euro doesn't work for everyone in equal measure. Countries with high inflation need higher interest rates and those with high unemployment need lower, but common monetary policy is one of the trade-offs each country signed on to when joining the euro.

In the US there used to be 12 different letters on the currency. B=New York Fed, L=San francisco Fed, A=Boston, etc.
Some would discount paper from the west coast, but that was just for laughs.

Please send me all of your Euro Banknotes with a non-German serial number. I'll dispose of them for you, free of charge.

depressingly this is the stock in trade for Telegraph and Daily Mail misreporting on the European issue. They just make up stories safe in the knowledge that it just confirms the prejudices of the majority of their readers and they probably won't be caught out on it.

I second BTC.

What absolute rubbish - I have never even seen anyone check any note or coin to see where it comes from when paying. Now UK citizens will get all worked up over absolutely nothing. I feel sorry for the d*ckhead that walks into a bank and requests specifically German Euros when exchanging cash.

Fictional journalism like this should be rewarded with a fine.

And their story isn't quite correct in that the "X" inthe serial number means it was printed in Germany but not nessarily by the Bundesdurckeri in Berlin. A lot of them are printed in Munich.

I thought it was near Tegernsee not Munich?

Unfortunately the Telegraph is otherwise an extremely good newspaper with very high standards of journalism. Slotting stories like this in about Europe is a very insidious and cynical form of black propaganda. I wish to god they could be prosecuted for it too.

No it is in Munich. That is paper production near Tegernsee.

I am seriously worried about the future of the pound, a Scottish guy I work with just told me that people in Swindon were refusing to take his pounds because it wasn't English money.

SERIOUSLY: that is nothing new. many retailers in England have refused point blank to accept Scottish or Northern Irish notes for years and years despite them being legal currency in England (retailers must accept them, but cannot issue them as change). I remember having to get as much scottish notes changed for english notes as possible when crossing the border as it was next to useless for buying anything in Durham where I was studying in the 80s.

Maybe this kind of currency nationalism is just familiar to Torygraph readers so they have a sense of familiarity with this fictitious euro stody.

What absolute bollocks and the only thing I could find on IPOS was "International Psycho-Oncology Society" - didn't know they did surveys...

I think it's to distract the populace from the recent decline in value of the pound. As in "hey look, their currency is crap too because bla bla bla".

the "IPOS" poll was previously announced in the Telegraph. There is of course no such polling oprganisation but it sounds enough like IPSOS-Mori to look plausible. A quick search of IPSOS-Mori shows they have never conducted such a poll as far as I can see though.

I've just sent a message to Das Handelsblatt asking them where this reference in the Telegraph came from because I could couldn't find it on their homepage.

Are you sure about that?


I thought that everybody must accept Scottish notes as I lived in Scotland but travelled to England regularly. Somebody did show me that it's not the case though. Not time to chase that up now though...

Here it is:
http://www.handelsblatt.com/news/Default.a...&_b=1441679

quick translation: "We are talking about a small minority, you'd have to call them exotic. Banker's report that ever now and again a client comes along with an unusual request - that the cash they are getting paid out are all notes with the German marking"

Hardly equates to what the Telegraph are reporting.

It really is shoddy journalism à la Whisper Down the Lane.

Retailers in England and Wales are NOT obliged to take Scottish (or Northern Irish) issued Sterling banknotes.
A decline to take them is due to the fact that they have to go into the bankig system and can't be given out again and also staff not being sure what they are.

People still look at the coins to see where they came from, but much less the notes and I don't beleive there is a widespread notion to only accept German issued notes.

I asked the Handelsblatt if they had ever run an article about this because I couldn't find anything on their website and received an answer over the weekend:


Telegraph bullshit shocker

A retailer is not obliged to take any money if they feel like it, they can simply refuse to serve you.

actually Scottish and Northern Irish bank notes are NOT legal tender in England. Or Scotland for that matter. Or anywhere in the UK. This is because they are nothing more than promissory notes and therefore not officially legal tender. Retailers are not obliged to accept ANY notes, let alone Scottish promissory notes. My Commerzbank branch here in Munich even has a different (worse) exchange rate for Scottish notes.

Lots of Telegraph and Daily Mail reading expats dependent on UK income will soon be hot footing it
back from Spain and France to the UK because the pound has taken a hiding from the Euro.
The good news for some in the UK is that this will increase demand in UK housing market..
Germany's housing market sails serenely on with none of this US / UK nonsense...
The Euro has been a brilliant success at separating mainland Europe from the excesses of Reagonomics
as "enjoyed" by the US/UK.

Except they did run an article, as posted above: http://www.handelsblatt.com/news/Default.a...&_b=1441679

Now, the Telegraph embellished this, but they did write about a very small number of folks who do care about where the bills were printed.

Stop the Anti Telegraph press. Only yesterday in the supermarket (where I went to steal some grocery dividers) two separate customers made the checkout person check that the Euro notes she was giving as change were printed in Germany. At the time, I put it down to German eccentricity. I should have know there would be a 'logic' in the madness.
Still, those customers could be victims of a media driven hysteria.

Thank goodness for the Telegraph! I'm going to check my wallet now, sort out my notes, and save the non-German ones for buying straight bananas, chocolate-flavoured vegetable fat based food products and sawdust sausages, cor blimey guv!

Also it has been reported that some Germans insist on using only Ein & Null for all their electronic transfers, instead of dodgy uno & cero

I would be surprised if there were a point when 59% of Germans DIDN'T have doubts about the Euro. It's not nicknamed the Teuro for nothing...

Nicknames have a grain of truth in them sometimes; but the increases in the cost of living in Germany have not really been down to the introduction of the Euro.

They're Magic Control Wands. Magic. Control. Wands.