So ok, my brother came to Japan to visit and before in home country changed local currency for yens he asked for 140.000 yens and he got trolled but very hard by the bank (it was exchanged in a well know national bank and not in a shaddy shop) they gave him 70 x 2.000 yen bills. He didn’t know anything about it, he thought it was normal and he didn’t know what bills are common or not in Japan so he took it as it good enough.
Ok fine, he is in Japan (I didn’t noticed about the bills) and went for sushi for lunch, total was 26k in Ginza and my brother said “let me pay I have plenty of cash”, so the surprise was the restaurant staff didn’t want to accept the 2.000 bills, they said they are “fake” so no way to accept 2.000 bills, those bills are neat mint condition I don’t think they were used before and looks brand new, looking closely they don’t look anywhere fake just brand new. My brother even had the receipt from the bank about the exchange (for any questions may happened in the airport customs…) so no way those bills were fake.
So we were adamant if you want your money from the lunch is going to be with 2.000 bills, the tencho was start threatening with calling the police if we don’t pay, I told go ahead (I was reading at the same time that 2.000 bills are legal bank notes in Japan, not common I know because in few years here first time seeing 2.000 bills but legal nevertheless)
They wanted to close because was 3pm already and seeing that I was not willing to pay with another currency or way the fucking called the police. Yeah fine, imagine the typical bullshit with police asking me the papers, residence, phone everything before I was trying to explain the situation, no way police on their duty on checking on gaijins, after they check everything we start discussing about the 2.000 bills, even police asked me to pay with another way, and (lying) told them thats the only money I have with me now. They check the bills 1 by 1, made phone calls, they started talking with the restaurant manager, and finally they told that I can pay with that money because is not fake (of course its not fucking fake)
almost 2 hours wasted but was a nice experience for my brother.
Now the question, is that serious business trying to pay with 2.000 bills in Japan? We have like 50 more bills to spend in few days one time was funny but I dont want this happening every time….
Edit: yeah thanks I was not considering the option of using deposit ATM will do tomorrow (unless as someone suggested to check serial numbers if they are consecutive will keep for potential collectors of that kind of stuff)
34 comments
2000 Bills? Damn
Sell those bills and you can probably double your money!Last time I saw a 2000 bill was around in 2010. I never saw them around anymore.
That’s a great story, hilarious stuff.
I would think that usually you’d be fine but if you really want to avoid any chance of this happening again, it’s easy to just deposit it at any ATM and withdraw the same cash (ATMs won’t give out 2000 yen notes, obviously).
Ive used 2000 yen bills before with no issue. Some places might be surprised, but should accept them regardless.
I always enjoy reading stories about incompetent police in Japan are, so thanks for the good read and laughs. Might send a 2000 yen bill your way.
Sometimes you need to make a principled stand for what is right in life.
Sometimes you just need to put it on the card instead because there’s no point wasting two hours of your life dealing with dickheads.
Only you can decide which of these applied in this situation.
I think all of the ¥2000 bills are all overseas waiting to be issued to unsuspecting travelers. It’s the most common time I’ve seen them. Almost the only time I’ve seen them.
As it sound like you live in Japan take them off your brother’s hands and give him some other cash. Deposit the money in your bank.
The bank might blink for a moment but other then that you’ll be good to go.
First time I saw a ¥2000 yen bill was last month from a Canadian tourist. Was mindblown lol
As recent as last year a JR ticket machine spit one out as change when I charged my card. Later I went grocery shopping only to find out that none of the automated cash registers can accept them, so I almost didn’t have enough other bills to buy my groceries. On the other hand, I think places that do everything manually are more lenient about this.
That tencho is an idiot if he thought they were fake, though. 2000 yen bills do exist, while at the same time anyone trying to forge currency wouldn’t be trying to replicate them. They’d go for something more widely used and less surprising.
Maybe you can go to your bank and get them exchanged, though, because they are super inconvenient to use now.
I also kept a couple of 2000¥ because there’re somehow rare and also looking pretty nice.
Deposit the bills into your bank account, withdraw the same amount, problem solved. But yes, it’s stupid that they give those notes to unsuspecting tourists at all. Why are they even still being printed?
Some machines might not accept it and as you can see, there are idiots everywhere, so if you want to avoid trouble, go to the nearest bank and them to changed.
If you want to avoid talking to the bank staff, just use the ATM to deposit it into your account, then take it out right away. ATMs can take those bills but cannot issue them.
But if I were you, I’d save some of those mint condition 2000yen bills because they’re not too easy to find within Japan. If you want to sell them for some reason, you should know that sending cash by post is also a hassle.
I got a whole bunch of those before coming to Japan in 2014.
I managed to use them anywhere without problems, but I did get some odd looks!
Glad you put your foot down, since it is legal tender.
Can you exchange me one…. I was hoping for a 2000 bill but I can’t find them.
>Now the question, is that serious business trying to pay with 2.000 bills in Japan? We have like 50 more bills to spend in few days
2000 JPY bills were printed only twice in history, in FY 2000 and FY 2003. And that’s it. They are actually not that common outside of super touristy areas.
To your question, yep it can be an issue to pay with 2000 JPY bills depending on the location. Many vending machines won’t accept them, some businesses won’t accept them, there are people that have never seen them… So maybe a quick trip to a bank or a post to get some change could avoid a few headaches.
You should tell the bank. It’s irresponsible of them to still be handling those bills. For now, though, go to a bank or post office and have them exchanged.
The fake reaction is prob due to quantity in an area seeing very few those days. And as mentioned above trying to use it in machines would probably be a problem too. Exchange asap is best indeed.
My parents visited a few months ago and they brought around 10×2000 yen bills they exchanged in the USA.
I swapped them for other bills as I like the 2000 yen notes and think they look great. Still have them on my shelf…
No idea if they will increase in value (unlikely) but they look cool.
If your brother has a bunch of 2000 with *consecutive serial numbers* it might be worth holding on to them. Collectors love that stuff.
How is the obvious solution here not to go to your bank and ask them to change the bills into something more usable?
Never see them in Tokyo anymore, not in years. As noted, apparently common in Okinawa. At the end of the day, people are using less and less cash anyway and no vending machine, parking machine ever took them. But they are not worth any more than 2000 yen. Don’t be fooled into that.
If you have a bank account here in the country, just exchange the bills at your bank for other denominations. That should solve the issue no?
I’ve been in Japan for 21+ years. I saw a ¥2000 bill **once**.
2000 yen bills are common around Okinawa, I saw a couple of them in the kansai area, most japanese don’t really know about it. It always surprised them.
This is fucking stupid, you could probably get on the The NHK News with this mayhem 🙂
There’s absolutely no way that the shop and plod didn’t know about 2000円 bills. They just didn’t want to admit whatever it was that they had their knickers in a twist about.
Anyway, the banks send those overseas, so that it cause maximum fuck for tourists. All according to plan.
You could also write a stern letter of complaint to the police chief, because they took down your particulars when no crime had been committed.
I’m sorry to hear that you had to go through that bs. 2000 yen bills were printed to celebrate the year 2000 and they were in circulation for a while but didn’t get renewed and we collectively kinda forgot about them. Americans liked them because they were similar to their 20 dollar bills in value so I heard they were still in circulation in Okinawa.
I know you don’t want to deal with this no more but if I were you I would keep a few in hand because they could hold some value in future, especially unused clean bills.
According to some collector’s site on the net, you cannot expect more than 2000 yen (their exact value) for these as they are theoretically still in production.
A friend of mine also was given a massive number of 2,000 yen bills when he visited. I kept one because everybody was shocked by how rare they are here. It’s very weird that banks are issuing them to unsuspecting foreigners who have to deal with the scrutiny of such an uncommon denomination.
I received a bunch of 2,000 yen bills before I moved to Japan (ordered them at my bank in the UK before flying over) and yeah of course I had a lot of people saying “oooh 2,000 yen haven’t seen one of those before/for ages!” but never came close to someone refusing to accept it as payment, let alone call the police.
Then again I probably used one or two in a single transaction at most (didn’t have the financial leeway to go for fancy sushi at the time).
Also… I’m guessing you didn’t receive an apology from the shop at the end.
Second also… thank you for your service.
The more people who stand up to dickhead shopkeepers doing stuff like this, the less likely they are to call the police like this. The shop wasted everyone’s time. It’s 100% their fault. If they truly believed the notes were fake they would have been able to explain to the police why they thought so.
Hopefully he’s kept them in pristine condition. Yahoo auctions prices for 2000yen notes are 2300->5000. Buy them off him list them for 2000yen starting price and profit.
https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/search/search?auccat=&tab_ex=commerce&ei=utf-8&aq=-1&oq=&sc_i=&fr=auc_top&p=%E4%BA%8C%E5%8D%83%E5%86%86%E6%9C%AD&x=31&y=23
Ive never seen 2000 in circulation, they are usually only given by oversee banks. (Apparently they even use them to see where foreigners spends money but this could be fake info but who cares) Most Japanese people probably dont know they exist.
All the 2000s are either in Okinawa or sent overseas. And yes they’re perfectly legal tender but anyone under 30 has probably never actually heard of let alone seen them.
Fuck that tencho lol. Lesson learned.
FYI you can take them to a bank and exchange for other bills that are more useful.
If you changed money at Narita and got UK pounds you’d very often get mint £50 notes which almost no one in the UK carries. Splitting a £50 when you arrived was always a challenge. Shop assistants would hold them up to the light, rub their fingers on them, tear them, but them under the UV light to check that they weren’t fake. The police were never called though…
2000 yen bills are extremely common in Okinawa.
Some ATM machines have a button that you can press so the ATM won’t dispense 2000 yen bills, because if you withdraw an even number (2000, 4000 yen, etc.), there’s an high change you’ll get a 2000 yen bill.
University students in Fukuoka that help proctor the Eiken exam get paid in ¥2,000 bills so it’s not uncommon at all.
As rare as $2 USA bills I presume. I miss $2 bills…those were cool and I remember when I was a kid like 20+ years ago I used to take recyclables to the recycling center and they would pay in $2 bills. Wish I kept at least 1 but being a kid I didn’t think anything of it.