Steve Dulieu wrote:

On the subject of training, is it just me, or has every bar person in the
UK lost the ability to add up/check the price of a drink as they pour it?
old git mode when I were a lad, working in a pub you would add the round
as you went along & inform the punter of the damage as you handed him/her
the last drink. Today, the process seems to be serve drinks then prod
listlessly at the till, sometimes asking the punter to remind them what
they've just served them, until enlightenment dawns and a sum of money is
requested. And then asks the sodding great queue that's formed "who's
next?" then wonders why some people get a bit upset! /old git mode

Not sure about pubs but when I worked in a coffee shop some years ago we
entered everything * on the till via short codes and never had training in
what the actual prices were or if they had changed (the stock did rotate
about a bit). But also in the intensity on the till where a lot of drinks
have similar names and multiple sizes and you're dealing with people in
rapid succession it's very risky to rely on mental arithmatic to add up the
bill as you can easily make a mistake and tell the customer before the till
rectifies it.

(* Annoyingly some customers would bring sandwiches from the food hall two
floors below, resulting in us on the till having to dig up the infrared
reader, which was generally parked in such a way that this was very awkward.
Those sandwiches also had a different price on them but it was hard to say
they were technically food from outside when we were taking money for them!)

Mizter T wrote:

Indeed. I try and avoid using phrases I don't properly understand, but
'legal tender' is one where I was aware of the complexities thereof
and so avoid using for that reason.

(I think sometimes it gets all confuddled with the Coinage Act 1971
rules which define legal tender vis-a-vis making payments with coins -
e.g. 20p and 50p coins can make a payment of up to £10 - but again,
when you're paying off your credit card bill or overdraft with bags of
coins the bank is only concerned about getting the money, though the
cashier might be a bit miffed about the queue forming behind you! [1])

[1] That said, yes I know banks do have rules about how much coinage
they handle, but they're not going to start repossessing your home if
you can pay what's required, even if that is £50 in 50p's.

Banks can process it, but don't like it. However other service providers
would be rather more miffed if they were handed buckets of change to
extinguish the debt. I would not be amused if I walked or took public
transport to a job and then at the end was given (say) £100 in tiny change
as I would have to count it all myself to check it was the exact amount and
then have a huge weight to haul about until I could pay it into a bank (and
I think even HSBC's coin machines would get overloaded by it).

Paul Terry wrote:

This isn't a problem, because legal tender is not an issue in
day-to-day life. I've never made a transaction for which legal
tender was necessary.

You always pay in advance in restaurants, hairdressers and taxis?

It doesn't matter whether Mike pays in advance or in arrears for such
services. Legal tender is only involved if there is a dispute that goes to
court.

If Mike then pays into court the exact amount due, in legal tender, he
cannot be successfully sued for the debt.

That is the only application of the term legal tender in the UK. Many
people assume it has some wider meaning, but it really doesn't.

Every other explanation I've ever been given of legal tender is that it also
applies before the court stage - indeed a court would likely immediately
strike the pursiuit of a debt where the creditor had declined legal tender.
And the explanation further down implies that the concept exists precisely
to protect the consumer from being charged late payment fees by a creditor
refusing to accept the payment offered.

(I assume that a cabbie can't decline a payment made with a £50 Bank of
England note but *can* say that he can't give change on it?)

In article ,
Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Every other explanation I've ever been given of legal tender is that it also
applies before the court stage

I don't believe it does.

- indeed a court would likely immediately
strike the pursiuit of a debt where the creditor had declined legal tender.

Again, I don't think it would. The debt wouild still exist, and
in the absence of cash paid into court, the creditor will never be
satisfied. This seems unfair.

And the explanation further down implies that the concept exists precisely
to protect the consumer from being charged late payment fees by a creditor
refusing to accept the payment offered.

I think this is an incorrect belief. I can think of no reason why
a contract can not specify the way in which payment will be made (subject
to unfair contract laws, of course).

(I assume that a cabbie can't decline a payment made with a £50 Bank of
England note but *can* say that he can't give change on it?)

I think a cabbie can decline payment made with a £50 BoE note. The
act of offering him payment in such a way means that no crime has
been committed, but does not extinguish the debt. Consider a cabbie
who honestly, but mistakenly, thinks the note is a forgery.

Cheers,
Mike

--
Mike Bristow

In article , d
says...

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:49:31 +0100
Mike Bristow wrote:
In article ,
d wrote:
On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:24:13 +0100
Clive wrote:
When I take foreign notes into my bank (Barclay's) for refund in pounds,
they take the precaution of checking them against pictures of currency
in a big book. Could you expect a barmaid in Bristol to do this it she
has never seen a note like it before?

Exactly how many pubs check for the validity of english bank notes?

English bar staff are likely to be reasonably familiar with English
banknotes, seeing as they fondle fairly large quantities of them
every day.

The same is not true of Scottish notes.

I doubt anyone could spot a good forgery of a bank of england note without
specialist equipment these days. Certainly not simply by "fondling" it for
2 seconds.

B2003

Be they barmaids in Bristol or cashiers in a London Tesco it's all to do
with familiarity. I'm sure Boltar is correct in saying that a good
forgery of a smaller denomination Bank of England note would probably
not be noticed but anyone involved in retail would know a bad one
immediately. Some pubs I use do still check twenty and fifty pound
notes with a device [ultra violet?].

Slightly off-topic, as an office junior in a Thomas Cook office in the
late fifties I once had to take a Scottish £100 note to the local
Midland Bank to change into English money [at a discount of sixpence in
the pound]. I was petrified carrying this huge note in the street.

Of course we got quite a few lesser notes which did become familiar and
several times I helped out Scots at Heathrow when having their notes
refused by Green Line drivers and conductors. To this day ECML staff on
trains to Scotland will occasionally when giving change ask where you
are traveling to.

Even more off-topic, during a period when I was based at the Cook's
office in Queensway we once had a 'working girl', of which there were
quite a few in the area, being bitterly disappointed when it was pointed
out to her that the Scottish note she had accepted from a client was not
genuine. It stated that it was payable at the Bonny Banks of Loch
Lomond.