I haven’t lived here long, and still have spending money from when I left my home country and came over; including a whole bunch of 2000 yen notes, which I’ve triple checked are legal currency.
I bought about 1100 yen worth of stuff at Lawson, and paid with a 2000 note. The clerk took it and apparently said it wasn’t valid. I ended up leaving because he didn’t know English and my Japanese is limited. He was being extremely rude, too.
I double checked with a Japanese coworker, and he confirmed that these are Japanese bank notes. Obviously I’m never going to Lawson again, but how do I go about getting my money back? Can a clerk just claim something is counterfeit and pocket the money??
14 comments
You should go back to that Lawson and speak to the manager. If you can’t get your money back you should complain to the police because that was basically theft.
So some clerk took your money, and you just walked away…??
lolol Yeah, youre going to go to lawson again. Its one of the major conbini chains and basically the only existing one in rural areas.
Get back there asap before the camera footage is erased.
Valid or not it was not for the clerk to take anything. The clerk should have handed it back. Demand it back. Take someone to translate with you.
Go to the police box, tell them the time it happened. Get camera footage from the Lawson (through the police) and get your 2000 yen back. It probably won’t go that far because the manager will probably fire the employee and refund you if you go back and show you went to the police.
wtf is going on lately…seems like a string of shit happening to Japan expats lately. Or maybe I don’t check Reddit enough
Every single Japanese person knows 2000 yen bank note exists and is legally valid.
The clerk took your bank note and didn’t give it back to you? Why did you leave it there?
You need to ask a store manager at the LAWSON and check security cameras.
They have security cameras. Need to go back with someone who speaks more Japanese
I once paid with 10,000 and I wasnt paying attention and the staff member forgot to give me and I didn’t realise I didn’t get the 5,000 note in change.
When I came there the next week, they gave me the 5000yen and said they found the register didn’t balance, so they checked the security footage and found it was me.
Do you still have your receipt? Call their customer service line, use the receipt to report exactly which store you went to and what time.
I called them once because I was pissed a clerk saw me waiting, ignored me for 5min, then told the Japanese man behind me she would serve him. She refused to explain or apologize, then we both swore at each other a bunch. So I called their customer service line as soon as I got home. Never saw her working there again after that. Bye bye Baba!
Go to the police.
¥2000 bills are like unicorns. I worked as a cashier during the period they started and saw them 5 times or so.
I’m almost forty and I only saw those bills less than 10 times. Younger people might have never seen them.
I would recommend you go to a bank and ask to change your bills to ¥1,000, ¥5,000 or ¥10,000. Most banks will change up to 10 bills free of charge.
Most vending machines will not accept ¥2,000.
Is there a chance you can go back there with someone who speaks Japanese?
Someone miscounted my change, THEY MUST HAVE STOLEN FROM ME!
Don’t get me wrong there’s a lot of shitty people out their, but it was probably just a mistake, not Ill will
I’ll take shit that didn’t happen for 1000 Alex.
First time I’m hearing of a 2000 yen note. Maybe first time for cashier as well and he or she decided to confiscate it to turn it to the police?
do you think someone is going to risk their job, legal consequences and possibly their reputation for 2000 yen? in a country that is known for their customer service
or do you think its more likely you misunderstood the situation and just willingly walked away?