UBA staff rejected my torn money

Posted by Felix Okoli on Monday September 15, 2014 at 10:52:51:

I recently went to a UBA branch to deposit some money and to my utmost surprise, one of my N1000 notes was rejected on the grounds that it was torn and incomplete.

Well, I have to agree that the money was torn and that I wouldn't be expecting small businesses or shop owners to even accept the money but I always expected banks to accept it since they are the ones who have a responsibility to return bad notes to the CBN.

I just went to deposit some money into the bank account and out of all the N1000 notes I gave to the cashier, he still chose to return one on the account that about 30% of it was already torn off. Yes, the money was torn and it was basically just 70% remaining but it still showed the fact that it was a N1000 note and the serial numbers were there. It wasn't fake Naira but an original one printed by the Central Bank of Nigeria but the UBA cashier just decided to give it back to me.

I tried getting him to explain why since banks are not expected to return torn notes but rather destroy fake ones. I didn't know if it was the policy of the bank or just the over zealousness of the bank cashier but I didn't want to waste time arguing over a rejected N1000 note and so I just gave him another.

I mean, the machine had already counted and accepted the money but the UBA staff had to check them one by one and after noticing that just one note was unattractive, he gave it back to me to replace. Is it the duty of bank customers meant to replace old or torn notes? Na wa for this our Nigeria sef!

I think it's normal and routine for most Nigerians to take back old or torn Naira notes to their banks since banks are the last place of resort but when Nigerian banks start to reject old or torn notes I wonder what they expect bank customers to start doing.

Should I no longer bother taking my old or Naira notes to the bank? Is is no longer the duty of the banks and CBN to remove old Naira notes in circulation and in its place print new ones?

Anyway, after that experience, I din't bother taking the rejected note again to UBA and so when I wanted to make another deposit, I took it to Diamond bank and it was accepted. I guess that's why it's good to try out other banks when one banks disappoints you.

I'm not sure why Diamond bank accepted it. Perhaps they didn't notice it or maybe they are too big to be bothered about rejecting torn currency. Anyway, I have to say that in this aspect, Diamond bank offered me a better service than UBA despite the fact that queues at UBA are nothing to write home about.

I love UBA but at times it pays not to be stuck to one bank.