What makes an ATM counterfeit bills. What to do if the ATM dispenses a counterfeit bill

Financial security is one of the most important problems of our time. Each participant in financial transactions wants his payments to be made on time and on time, and access to his funds to be as secure as possible and possible only for the owner of the deposit or account. And although many payments are made in non-cash form, payments with banknotes have also not lost their relevance.

The main threat to individuals or legal entities is receiving counterfeit currency. How can she get into her hands? Can an ATM accept a counterfeit bill or issue one?

What banknotes are most often counterfeited at ATMs?

When answering the question whether an ATM will accept a counterfeit bill, it is worth determining which currency denomination is most often counterfeited in Russia. Among counterfeiters, money in denominations of 5,000 rubles holds the lead, although they have the maximum level of protection. When checking their authenticity, special devices “pay attention” to:

laser microperforation;
security thread;
combined watermarks;
rainbow stripes;
hidden characters;
kipp effect, etc.

However, given the interest of fraudsters in counterfeiting money, ATM manufacturers are also equipping their machines with security features. When scanning the currency, they pay attention to every detail, right down to the relief. ATMs may not even accept a real bill if it is worn out or has some defects (inscriptions, mechanical damage).

What happens if you put a counterfeit bill into an ATM? The machine, most likely, simply will not accept it and will push it out of the receiver if the fake is not of very high quality. But security programs are more tuned to detect counterfeit money in large denominations (1000 and 5000 rubles). This means that it will be much easier to push counterfeit “change” (denomination from 10 to 100 rubles) into an ATM. Fortunately, small currency is counterfeited extremely rarely, since it is unprofitable.

How then do fakes get into the machines of credit institutions?

In most cases, the answer to the question of whether an ATM recognizes counterfeit bills is yes. However, in October 2013, an outrageous incident occurred: several thousand copies of counterfeit money in denominations of 500, 1000 and 5000 rubles were discovered in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The counterfeit currency was made extremely crudely, and visually anyone could understand that this was not real money. But ATMs were powerless: the paper currency contained all the signs of authenticity, which the machine checked.

ATM services in the country's largest credit institutions (Sberbank, VTB24, Alfa Bank) were suspended after this incident in order to urgently update the software and strengthen protection. And although employees of financial companies unanimously claim that it is impossible to obtain counterfeit funds from their equipment, the opposite can sometimes be seen.

Does the ATM accept counterfeit money? If this is an old-style device whose security programs have not been updated for a long time, then yes, it may well accept a fake. It is safer to pay at cash desks, where a bank employee and special equipment jointly determine the authenticity of currency.

Stages of loading cash into ATMs by cashiers

Before the owner of the plastic card receives his money from the banking machine, the procedure of loading cash into his special cassettes takes place. How does this happen?

Sealed bundles of cash are delivered from the bank vault to credit institutions.
Cashiers, having received them, count them using a banknote counter.
Once the number of banknotes has been established, verification of their authenticity begins. Cashiers detect counterfeits both visually and with the help of special equipment that records the presence or absence of security features.
Next, cash of one denomination is placed in separate cassettes (i.e., bills of 5,000 rubles are placed in one cassette, and notes of 1,000 rubles are placed in another), after which the procedure for their typing occurs.
The entire process is monitored by video recording. In addition, when loading cash into cassettes, the presence of two cashiers is mandatory in order to avoid possible criminal actions on their part.
Afterwards, the cassettes are handed over to collectors, who must load them into ATMs. When opening the equipment safe, two employees (also to avoid fraudulent actions on their part) unload old cassettes and load new ones.
Empty (fully or partially) ATM cassettes are opened by cashiers, the bills located there are counted and sent back to the bank vault.

Not only domestic, but also foreign currency undergoes a similar procedure. But how does an ATM determine the authenticity of a bill? Additional protection against counterfeits is provided by the equipment software, which must recognize real money by at least 4 signs of authenticity. Therefore, it is extremely doubtful that counterfeit banknotes got into the “insides” of the equipment from the bank. Fake paper money is most often obtained from terminals that not only issue, but also receive cash, since the security programs may be imperfect.

Therefore, it is better to withdraw funds from ATMs that only issue banknotes. The chance of getting a fake there is lower and almost impossible.

What to do if you find a counterfeit bill in your wallet

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to prove that a counterfeit banknote was issued by a specific ATM. Even existing video surveillance systems will not help: the images they capture will be too small. It is not always possible to recognize even a person’s face in the recordings, not to mention the image of cash.

If you find a counterfeit bill in your wallet, you must:

Stop her money circulation. You should not try to buy anything with it: selling counterfeit money is a crime under Art. 186 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The punishment for selling counterfeit banknotes is a fine of up to 1 million rubles, forced labor for up to 5 years, or imprisonment from 8 to 12 years, depending on how many rubles the currency was sold for.
You must immediately take the fake currency to the bank. Having verified its falsity, the credit institution will issue a special certificate to the citizen who brought it. However, a genuine replacement for a fake will not be issued.

By following these instructions, you can protect yourself from criminal liability. Take care of yourself and your wallet!

The ATM scans only certain, most secure areas of banknotes. In addition, many ATMs are not fully equipped to conduct legally required inspections. As a result, scammers manage to insert a counterfeit banknote into the terminal, causing law-abiding citizens of Russia to suffer. But there is no need to despair: if you quickly contact the bank after discovering a fake, in most cases the bank will accommodate the client halfway.

The ATM checks money in a very fast mode: often people put whole stacks of banknotes into the bill acceptor, after which, within a few seconds, the ATM checks everything and reports whether they were loaded successfully. Of course, with such processing speed, it is simply unrealistic to detect all counterfeit banknotes.

Therefore, depending on the circumstances, an ATM may accept a counterfeit bill, and it does not matter whether the terminal belongs to Sberbank or a small bank. True, this happens in most cases with hundred-ruble bills or denominations of 200-500 rubles. The methods for checking thousand-dollar bills at ATMs are much more serious.

But even with hundred-ruble bills, the “trick” is not always successful: if the scammers don’t bother to put at least some of the security marks on the banknote (for example, a foil thread), the ATM will simply give the bill back. In the case of banknotes of larger denominations, this almost always happens.

For some reason, it is believed that when an ATM detects a counterfeit, it automatically sends a signal to the bank’s central administration. In fact, the ATM considers the bill not counterfeit, but invalid - the banknote can become a bearer of this status simply due to excessive wear, mechanical damage, etc.

Therefore, if you inserted money into a bill acceptor and one of them turned out to be counterfeit, do not panic - no one will call the police. This is good because... In such a situation, it is advisable for you to contact law enforcement agencies first, thereby ensuring yourself at least minimal legal protection.

How does the terminal detect a fake?

The ATM determines whether a banknote is counterfeit using two tools:

A laser that responds to the size of the banknote. So, for example, if a 100 ruble bill inserted into the terminal turns out to be significantly smaller or larger than it should be, the ATM will consider it invalid;
Ultraviolet light. It reads all the security features that are present on the banknote: the foil thread and the engraving of numbers on it, small multi-colored stripes, as if scattered across the banknote, holograms, etc.;
Scans for magnetic field. Each large banknote (1000, 2000 and 5000 rubles) acquires its own magnetic mark during the creation process - it is extremely difficult to counterfeit, so it is necessary for mutual settlements involving large amounts. Most ATMs have such a reader, but, unfortunately, not all.

At the same time, the laser and ultraviolet light scan only certain areas of the banknote, which is often used by scammers: if you know the location of these zones, you can glue together bills of different denominations (for example, 100 and 5,000 rubles) and insert them into the ATM under the guise of the largest banknote.

The ATM will automatically check the areas where the 5,000 ruble elements have been prudently pasted and consider it an original. As a result, scammers can make several such “banknotes” from one single large denomination bill.

Can an ATM give out a counterfeit bill?

As we have already discussed above, yes, the terminal can produce a fake. Since fraudsters annually manage to load tens of millions of counterfeit rubles into self-service machines, their issuance occurs just as often.

The reason for such a significant stuffing is simple negligence or excessive savings: not all ATMs have a sufficient degree of security; many do not have a magnetic tag scanner. This applies even to the largest banks in Russia like Sberbank, VTB and the like - however, large organizations try not to skimp on terminals, so the number of scandals they have is relatively small.

And although the answer to the question of whether an ATM can give out a counterfeit 5,000 ruble bill has been found, not everything is so simple: money must be checked before it is issued to “ordinary people.” So, the money first comes from the bank vault, fresh bundles of bills are opened by bank specialists, counted and visually checked for integrity and absence of defects. Then the funds are placed in special cassettes and sealed. At the same time, all the actions of the specialists are recorded by a video camera.

According to the requirement of the Bank of Russia 318 P dated April 24, 2008, cash issued by terminals must first be checked by specialists at the bank. In this case, the process must involve reading machines that automatically check banknotes for suitability for circulation.

Summarizing all of the above, in theory, the number of counterfeit bills issued by terminals should have been reduced to zero. However, the presence of the human factor among banking specialists, as well as the growing sophistication of fraudsters, eventually led to the spread of counterfeits.

What to do if the ATM dispenses a counterfeit bill?

If this happens, the first thing you need to remember is that under no circumstances try to insert the bill back into the terminal. If you fail, all responsibility for violating the law will fall on you, and a retaliatory attempt to prove your innocence may take many months of litigation.

Next, look at your watch and remember the time the bill was issued - this will be needed to submit an application to the bank. Also remember the address of the branch or ATM location where you received the counterfeit. Keep the banknote with you, preferably in the same form in which it was when issued.

Go to the nearest bank branch and write a written complaint. It must be compiled in two copies, each of them must bear the signature of a bank employee and the seal of the organization.

The claim should indicate:

Denomination of the counterfeit banknote, its serial number;
Address of the terminal that issued the fake;
Cash withdrawal time;
If it so happens that the withdrawal of money took place in front of witnesses, indicate them in the claim;

Be sure to ask employees in writing to preserve CCTV footage. The thing is that many banks keep records for 48 or 72 hours. If no one asks to keep them, bank employees simply delete them to free up space on their hard drives. In turn, a record of your stay at the branch when you withdrew money can play a decisive role in a possible trial.

In most cases, the bank tries to quickly “hush up the matter” by satisfying the client’s demands. With rare exceptions, admitting a mistake and exchanging a counterfeit for an original banknote can take a long time, in which case you should contact the police.

To help the investigation, the same data is needed - the time of cashing, the address, the counterfeit bill itself and recordings from video cameras, so this is where the instructions end: the police will advise all further actions.

The influx of counterfeit 5,000-ruble bills has caused some banks to temporarily suspend issuing banknotes. What are the risks of customers receiving counterfeit banknotes and how to distinguish counterfeit money from real money?

Some Russian ATMs have stopped accepting 5,000 ruble bills, the newspaper found out. The problem affected ATMs of the NCR company, which, according to the publication, warned banks last week about a large-scale injection of counterfeit bills. Fraudsters managed to fool receivers with old devices for verifying the authenticity of banknotes. Among the banks that received a warning and likely suspended the acceptance of 5,000 ruble banknotes are MKB, Alfa-Bank and Otkritie. The damage from the actions of fraudsters is estimated at several million rubles for each bank, the newspaper clarifies.

Throwing counterfeit banknotes into ATMs will not affect bank clients in any way, assures Maxim Dareshin, head of the department for the development of self-service systems at Alfa-Bank. We are only talking about accepting counterfeit banknotes, which harms the banks themselves. In this case, nothing threatens clients, since the ATMs that accepted counterfeit bills were only accepting, not issuing. “The danger here is for the banks, not the clients,” assures Dareshin.

How to recognize a fake

According to the Bank of Russia, a 5,000 ruble banknote is most often counterfeited by fraudsters. In the second quarter of 2018, the regulator identified almost 7,000 such counterfeits. The second most popular banknote among scammers is the 1,000-ruble banknote—the regulator discovered about 2,300 such counterfeits in the second quarter.

According to experts interviewed by Forbes, there are two types of counterfeit bills: some for people, others for ATMs. “Fakes that are made for people, as a rule, are not recognized by machines; scammers make them beautiful and similar to the original only in appearance. In the second case, fraudsters fake only machine-readable signs. Then the appearance of the banknote will obviously indicate a fake,” explains Maxim Dareshin.

The fact is that when identifying a banknote, an ATM evaluates parameters such as dimensions down to nanometers, the location and material of the “diving” security lines, paper density, and the presence of luminescent and magnetic elements, explains Ilya Zharsky, managing partner of the Veta expert group.

“As a result, due to the “color blindness” of most modern ATMs, counterfeit bills intended for them are made in black and white and some of them are completely devoid of a design - only the elements necessary to recognize a digitized bill with a digital impression are copied,” says Zharsky. That is, a person can easily distinguish such banknotes.

But an ordinary client is unlikely to be able to recognize counterfeits that were distributed among people, and not machines, says Egor Kovalenko, managing partner of the Amulex National Legal Service. Such banknotes can only be identified by experts or cashiers who know the distinctive features of the types of printing used in the production of banknotes, the elements of protecting banknotes from counterfeiting, as well as ways to imitate these elements.

So it will not be possible to recognize a high-quality fake, therefore, in order to protect yourself in case of deception, you should follow a few simple rules. Namely: always request a bank check when receiving money from an ATM and keep it with you, do not use questionable-looking ATMs that have overlays on the keyboard, dents, or other signs of inconsistency, advises Kovalenko.

The ATM gave out a fake. What to do?

If, nevertheless, the client suspects that the ATM has given him a counterfeit or even just a damaged, torn or dirty bill, he needs to take the following steps, explains Yegor Kovalenko.

First, you should contact the bank using the phone number that is usually located on the ATM, explain the situation and provide the ATM number or location. Secondly, you need to wait for the bank employees and hand over the dubious banknote to them according to the act, while being sure to keep a copy of the act and the receipt.

Bank employees will have to submit the banknote for examination, which is carried out by a special division of the Central Bank. “If the examination reveals signs of counterfeiting, then you need to be prepared to communicate with police officers who will find out all the circumstances of the origin of this banknote. In this case, the act of transferring the banknote and the bank check issued by the ATM, previously drawn up with the bank, can be useful,” explains Kovalenko.

If, upon verification, it is confirmed that the ATM issued a counterfeit bill, the bank must cancel the withdrawal operation and return the money to the account owner.

Lyudmila PETUKHOVA, Forbes Staff

One of the ATMs in Moscow issued two banknotes with a face value of 5,100 rubles to a Sberbank client. No, we are not talking about new banknotes. The fact is that the money was glued together from three genuine parts, one of which was from a hundred-ruble note. We tell you what to do if you find yourself in such a situation in our Questions and Answers section.

The ATM gave out something wrong. What are my actions?

Sberbank asks customers to be more careful when receiving banknotes from ATMs. If the machine gives you a partially damaged bill (and it doesn’t matter whether it is glued together or missing, for example, a corner), you must immediately contact the bank’s call center. Before calling, you need to write down the time you received cash and the ATM number.

The second option is to contact the bank branch in person and explain the situation, as well as write a statement. Employees of the financial organization, in turn, are required to call the police and record the transfer of money for examination.

Great, when will I see my real money?

As the Sberbank press service notes, every message regarding the receipt of damaged cash at an ATM requires special attention. And in each individual case, detailed investigations are carried out, taking into account the theoretical possibility of technical failures in the operation of the equipment.

If the fact of receipt of such banknotes is proven, then the citizen is entitled to compensation in full. In the case of the Muscovite, we are talking about banknotes that were glued together from parts of genuine banknotes. According to the rules of the Bank of Russia, such a banknote is subject to 100% refund.

Please note that the cash processing process is under total video surveillance. That is why it is worth checking your money without leaving the ATM. After you leave the ATM premises and, for example, already at home, as happened with the Muscovite, you discover that something is wrong, it will be much more difficult to prove that you are right.

Are there cases when ATMs give out counterfeits?

The media periodically report such facts, but representatives of credit institutions do not confirm this information. Based on statistics, fake banknotes with a face value of 5 thousand rubles were periodically issued by ATMs of Sberbank and Alfa-Bank. Another client of the Bank of Moscow was given not a 500-ruble bill, but a bookmark, which is very difficult to confuse with the original.

Let us recall that the requirement of the Bank of Russia No. 318 dated April 24, 08 “On the procedure for conducting cash transactions and the rules for storage, transportation and collection of banknotes and coins of the Bank of Russia in credit institutions on the territory of the Russian Federation” states that money for ATMs in banks must undergo preliminary testing with the participation of sorting and counting machines. All counterfeits and unusable money must be excluded.

Therefore, replacing money with counterfeit money is possible by the cashier. Customers themselves can load counterfeits into closed-loop machines. There have already been cases of deception of built-in validators in ATMs.

Some Russian ATMs have stopped accepting 5,000 ruble bills, the newspaper found out. The problem affected ATMs of the NCR company, which, according to the publication, warned banks last week about a large-scale injection of counterfeit bills. Fraudsters managed to fool receivers with old devices for verifying the authenticity of banknotes. Among the banks that received a warning and likely suspended the acceptance of 5,000 ruble banknotes are MKB, Alfa Bank and Otkritie. The damage from the actions of fraudsters is estimated at several million rubles for each bank, the newspaper clarifies.

Throwing counterfeit banknotes into ATMs will not affect bank clients in any way, assures Maxim Dareshin, head of the department for the development of self-service systems at Alfa Bank. We are only talking about accepting counterfeit banknotes, which harms the banks themselves. In this case, nothing threatens clients, since the ATMs that accepted counterfeit bills only worked to accept, and not to issue. “The danger here is for the banks, not the clients,” assures Dareshin.

How to recognize a fake

The fact is that when identifying a banknote, an ATM evaluates parameters such as dimensions, down to nanometers, the location and material of the “diving” security lines, paper density, and the presence of luminescent and magnetic elements, explains Ilya Zharsky, managing partner of the Veta expert group.

“As a result, due to the “color blindness” of most modern ATMs, counterfeit bills intended for them are made in black and white, and some of them are completely devoid of a design - only the elements necessary to recognize a digitized bill with a digital impression are copied,” says Zharsky . That is, a person can easily distinguish such banknotes.

The ATM gave out a fake. What to do?

If, nevertheless, the client suspects that the ATM has given him a counterfeit or even just a damaged, torn or dirty bill, he needs to take the following steps, explains Yegor Kovalenko.

If, upon verification, it is confirmed that the ATM issued a counterfeit bill, the bank must cancel the withdrawal operation and return the money to the account owner.