3 Ways To Distinguish Fake Chinese RMB

It slipped my mind in Shanghai that I could have been dealt counterfeit Renminbi (RMB), but that’s exactly what happened. It didn’t happen at a currency exchange booth (I withdrew from an airport ATM) but as change given back to me at a popular restaurant. I found out my $50 bill was fake after giving it to a taxi driver who then chased me down after I left his car.

So how do you tell real from fake? I did my research and will use the $100 bill above as an example. The other notes, $50, $20, $10, $5, and $1 are the pretty much same as the $100 but different colors. The prominent counterfeit notes are $100 and $50.

Real of Fake?
1. Look for the watermark on the bill. The watermark is located on the white section on the left side of the bill (right above the “DE2370|388″ mark). You should be able to see the face of Mao Zedong distinctly. On a fake note his face will barely be noticeable. It will look faded.

2. Brush Mao’s hair. Use a fingernail and run it through the strands on his head. You will feel the hair on a real bill, but not on a fake bill.

3. Whatever the bill amount is, look for that number in the oval area on the top right (under the red “100″ mark). You need to tilt the bill horizontally and slowly to make it out. If you can’t make it out, it’s fake.

Hope this can help those who plan on traveling to China. I was lucky it only happened to one of my $50 bills. There was one case I read where $1000 USD was exchanged for all counterfeit, and the men not knowing they had fake notes were sent to prison for trying to use them. Don’t know the outcome of that story, but just a caution that you can never be too careful.

Source: Xian Travel