Fake RM50 and RM100 notes are things that we’ve all heard of, and they’ve been circulating within Malaysia for the past several years, with reports of them surfacing every once in a while.
But how often do we actually take the time to check if the RM50 or RM100 note we receive from merchants, customers, or the bank is real or counterfeit?
I dare say that for most of us, not often enough. Personally, I’ve never done it.
Maybe it’s because we think it’s difficult to tell the difference between real and counterfeit money. We’d assume that we probably have to use the UV light from a banknote detector, or scrutinise the printing quality of the wording and watermark of the Agong; however, people who create these fake notes are getting more careless and clumsy—because there is now a quicker and easier way to identify counterfeit notes.
In the video below—it has been shared over 6K times on Facebook since the 30th of June—Facebook user Awie Makyong Salio shows how easy it is to scrape off the vertical security hologram strip. She also did the same on a real RM50 note to show the difference between the two.
Yup, that’s how easy it is to know if a RM50 or RM100 banknote is fake.
Of course, not all fake notes will be that easy to identify, but for those who don’t always have a banknote detector handy, or the time to really scan through every detail on a bank note, this would be the fastest and most convenient way.
