Does anyone have any experience using/exchanging €500 notes?

My brothers a pro poker player and when he plays live, his winnings are often paid in Euros. As such he has a number of €500 notes. I'm going to Cyprus in a couple of days and was intending to take some of these notes, but I've heard they're hard to spend or even change for smaller denominations.

Any thoughts?

 

You will find it extremely difficult to find anywhere that takes these notes, apart from banks. I'm surprised they didn't scrap them years ago.

 

Send them to me I´ll exchange them 1:9 for 50´s

 

Thanks.

Do you mean English banks swapping them for £ (obviously with a poor exchange rate) or Cypriot banks will split them into smaller notes?

 

We travel to Cyprus regularly, and we have had to change a €500 note at the bank in Cyprus. I dont think there should be an issue with them doing that and giving you lower denomination notes instead.

Now we always bring €100's as the maximum as they are relatively easy to shop with.

 

With the current exchange rate I would find a bank in Cyprus to change them for 50's or 100's. You would lose out exchanging them for sterling and then back to euros in Cyprus.

 

Hi David,
I'm from Germany and I can tell you, that a 500€ note will make most of the people suspicious. It even happens often with 200€ notes.
I hope you are going to the Republic of Cyprus, they have EUR. Go to a bank and let them split your notes into smaller ones. Be aware, more than 10k€ have to be declared when you enter EU!

 

At least here in the US I can go o any decent branch of my bank that has international currency and they will change it for me. You have to have an account though .

But the stylish tjing to do of its poker money is to just give the bill and tell them to keep the change.....make it rain.......

 

Would be better to change it in any local bank. Only some luxurious hotels can accept it possibly (happened in Ritz and Hilton), but would not be accepted elsewhere.

 

We're onlly nipping over for a short break so I think €9k should just about tide me over!!

Thanks for the responses chaps - seems like a Cypriot bank is the way to go.

 

The gangsters' note of choice. You'll have no luck in the UK.

"However, fed up with abuse of the currency, Britain's Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has decided with the Treasury and Home Office to remove €500 notes from circulation in Britain"

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/goodbye-to-the-note-of-illrepute-1972192.html

 

My friend went into a Paris bank and asked them to break a 500 note. He wanted a quiet exchange, he had sold a coin for cash and is naive in these matters. He declares everything and is quite a humble person, and he was uncharacteristicly going to fly under the tax radar with his ill gotten 500.

The little girl's eyes went wide. She held the note up high. (In French)" look look! Everybody, a 500! A 500! Wow! I've not seen one, "

Then all the bank staff crowd round to look at it and my friend wants to crawl in a hole.

500's apparently mark you as a crook.

In Europe, Tax avoidance has quietly become a criminal offence, as opposed to the civil offense before.

 

You'd think the Fed would get its act together and improve the quality of the notes, to reduce those fears/risks. It undermines the entire economy if there isn't absolute trust in the currency.

 

Interesting report on the impact/cost of counterfeiting currency:
http://www.news.com.au/finance/mone...small-businesses/story-e6frfmcr-1227334789881

In 2013 fake Australian currency worth $1.2 million were detected, amounting to 16 out of every one million notes minted. The cost per Australian was five cents.

That compares to counterfeiting in the euro zone worth $44 million or 13 cents per head of population. The big victim of fake cash is the United Kingdom. Counterfeits worth $19 million were detected, but because of the spread of the bills — 230 for every one million legitimate ones — the cost to citizens was $2.30.

 

I find some of these (European) responses to be over the top. There are plenty of places that will accept 500 Euro notes without great fanfare, especially if one is purchasing something. With regards to "changing" the notes into smaller bills, it's understandable that there might be resistance, even if it has nothing to do with any suspicion.