Notable fakes

Recently, a Mumbai journalist travelling to Muscat drew $500 from a large public sector bank with branches in the Omani capital. Among the notes handed to her was a $100 bill from the 1996 series. In Muscat, no bank or exchange agreed to change that note for riyals — not even the currency exchange branch managed by the public sector bank that had sold her the dollars. The mystery, it turned out, was that in the international currency market, many fake dollar notes were printed in the 1996 series, so travellers who happen to get them find them notoriously difficult to change. The lesson, of course, is to check the forex you get so as to not end up with unacceptable notes, even if they come from a reputed government bank.