THE buying and selling of bank notes is illegal and anyone claiming to be able to buy back bank notes with special serial numbers is not to be trusted, the People s Bank of China Shenzhen Branch said Tuesday.
The bank said it had never entrusted any company or individual to buy back bank notes in circulation, the Daily Sunshine reported.
Residents reported several cases of people in various districts offering to repurchase bank notes with special serial numbers for up to 250,000 yuan (US$37,606) each.
An unidentified middle-aged man claiming to be a representative of the so-called China Commemorative Coin Repurchase Co., told pedestrians that some bank notes with special serial numbers could be sold for high prices, of which 100-yuan notes with such numbers could be sold for 250,000 yuan.
He showed one Daily Sunshine reporter a book, costing 3 yuan, which contained the special number notes with a list of repurchasing prices. Buy one book and check the numbers with the notes you have at home. If you find one with a special number, you can call me and I can buy it back at your home, the man told Zhu Yi, a reporter for the newspaper.
If your note can be sold for more than 2,000 yuan, you need to open an account with People s Bank of China and we can transfer the money to the account, he said. The man claimed one middle-aged woman had sold him a 1-jiao note for about 100 yuan, the newspaper said.
He claimed the company bought back the notes to make commemorative notes.
However, an official from the bank said the bank only recycled notes which were damaged or out of date. Bank notes in circulation that have not been damaged cannot be recycled according to the law, he said.
(Wang Yuanyuan)
