Difficulty passing Euro bills?

[Staxman]

I'm in the United States. I've been a member of Where's George since October 1999, so I definitely get the concept of EuroBillTracker.

A friend of mine is going to France in a couple of weeks. Today we met for coffee, and he's going to collect his € bills from the foreign exchange bureau in the next couple of days. He knows that I'm on Where's George but has no particular interest in it himself. I'm thinking that I'd like to enter his bills on EuroBillTracker, assuming that he's willing--I haven't yet asked. I don't foresee traveling to the € zone myself any time soon. Farthest afield I've ever been has been Canada and the UK.

If I mark the bills, is my friend likely to have trouble passing them in France? I'd mark them fairly discreetly--just the URL on both sides in fine-point marker. I ask because I've heard reports that in some Asian countries, people simply won't accept bills marked in this manner, full stop. I won't do this unless I'm sure my friend won't be inconvenienced. Thank you.

[Montgomery Burns]

It's very difficult to generalize. The general feeling around the forum is the that France is one of the more "difficult" countries - many people there tend to be picky about the state of their bills. In any event, passing on 2 or 3 stamped notes at a time to the same person may raise suspicions, it's something I try to avoid around here in my own country (Portugal - I rarely mark my bills because of this, I wish I felt I could mark more bills than I do but I know I will run into trouble if I do).

[Staxman]

I was thinking of marking them only on the reverse of the bill, so it would be less obvious that the bill was marked. Would that still be problematic? I have a couple of dedicated rubber stamps for my Where's George bills. One says, "Follow this bill's travels/www.wheresgeorge.com," and the other says, "Currency tracking project." Of course I won't bother getting a stamp made for just a few Euro bills. My plan is to write just the URL. My friend's concern is that he'll have to explain the website to recipients of the bills, but if he has trouble getting them accepted, that would be even worse.

The other approach would be to refrain from marking them and accept that they'll be less likely to get hit.

[trezay]

Personally, I've never had anybody in France refuse my notes because they had been marked, although it has happened for other reasons (the denomination being to big for the cost of the purchase, the note looking "too new", etc ). Overall, I don't think there's much of a risk that your friend has more trouble with marked notes than unmarked ones, as long as you keep the url somewhat discreet. Also, bear in mind that European banks are more strict when it comes to the damaged notes they take out of circulation, so marking them probably means they will not circulate as long.

[Staxman]

Based on Montgomery Burns's response I emailed my friend about an hour ago and said we should plan on not marking the bills. I can't really backtrack on that now. Since my friend will essentially be doing me a favor that he's not obligated to do, I really have to err on the side of caution. I won't get my hopes up about the bills being hit, and if they are, it will a nice surprise.

Some people do enter bills on Where's George without marking them. In 23.5 years I've hit 580 bills that had already been entered, and I think the stealth Georges, as we call them, could be counted on one hand. The most recent wild I hit was a stealth George:

http://www.wheresgeorge.com/b:Lkzq0CX0Hk&e

No wonder it took 6 years to get hit! I once got into an email exchange with someone who had entered a bill I hit later. He said he doesn't mark bills because he wants to be able to deposit them into banks. Depositing a Where's George bill in a bank is OK it it's not marked. If it is marked, it's strictly against the rules and will get you kicked off Where's George.

My brother and my Greek sister-in-law sometimes spend time in Athens, where her family has a house, and they say I should join them some time. Maybe some day I'll get to spend some Euros in Greece.

[LITO]

There is usually no problem at all with marked notes in France , the only problem that might happen is that if a note is not clean enough when it gets back to a bank it will be withdrawn from use and destroyed... so will never hit

[Montgomery Burns]

Based on Montgomery Burns's response I emailed my friend about an hour ago and said we should plan on not marking the bills. I can't really backtrack on that now.

Well, I'm sorry you only had my reply on which to base your final opinion haha - like I said, it's very difficult to generalize, as is made evident by the totally opposing views that have since popped up here.

But what's really important is that you're taking part, and hopefully will do so other times in the future.

[trezay]

I really have to err on the side of caution.

I agree, even if it's unlikely that a note would be refused, it's nicer to be cautious and avoid causing your friend any potential problems.

[Staxman]

I told my friend about the follow-up responses. I said I'd at least like to mark the bills on the back, but if he didn't want me to mark them, I'd understand, and he doesn't want me to. If I"d held off and told him about the more encouraging responses in the first place, I don't know if his answer would have been different or not. I'll be meeting with him some time in the next week to enter the bills.

A trip to Greece is very much a hypothetical now. If this happens, I'll probably enter some bills in the United States from my computer and some more bills in Greece from my iPad. If I ever need to know how EBT-marked bills are received in Greece, I know where to ask!

[siriusLT]

I don't think it's a good idea to stamp or mark banknotes. i have 4000+ hits, ~80% of them was found by me. out of all of these hits it was only one banknote having stamp 'eurobilltracker.com'. other meaningless stamps on banknotes were not a hit. i have noticed that in Lithuania there are less and less stamped banknotes lately. cashiers say that they try to take them out of circulation. the ones who register banknotes, they will register each banknote despite the banknote having the stamp or not