New online money exchange service booms in Nghe An

At the end of the year, in need of exchanging new money and small bills for Tet gifts and going to temples and pagodas, Mr. Nguyen Hoai Nam (Hung Loc Ward, Vinh City) went to the banks where he was a regular customer to exchange. However, the amount of small bills and new bills that the bank gave to customers was limited to 2-3 million VND. "My job involves a lot of transactions with banks, and I have become a VIP customer at many banks. However, it is very difficult to exchange tens of millions of brand new bills, original series, especially low denomination bills."

Mr. Nam said that the bank staff explained that for the past 5 years, the State Bank has not issued banknotes with denominations under 50,000 VND on the occasion of Lunar New Year. Therefore, many bank staff have to find ways to politely refuse, not to offend customers or relatives, or collect money to exchange in order to maintain relationships.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, an employee of VIB International Bank on Quang Trung Street (Vinh City) said: "Currently, there are no new bills to exchange for customers at the branches, only a small amount of cash is reserved to show gratitude to the bank's loyal customers. There is absolutely no exchange service."

While the official channel is banks do not exchange new money during Tet, this demand is still high. That has created opportunities for online money exchange services to appear. Starting from December, on social networking sites, the service of exchanging small change and new money for lucky money and going to pagodas at the beginning of the year has been bustling. Accordingly, many personal Facebook users publicly post small change and new money exchange services with attractive invitations: such as low exchange fees, commitment to real money, original series of money, exchange as much as you want. In particular, the subjects are also willing to deliver to the door, the money exchanger can check the goods before receiving them.

Posing as a customer who wants to exchange new bills in the same series of denominations of 20,000 VND, 50,000 VND and 100,000 VND, account name LTP (Vinh city) said that the exchange fee ranges from 30,000-50,000 VND/1 million VND (depending on the denomination). If you exchange early, you can choose the denomination you need, if you exchange late, you will run out of money. The transaction method is that the customer will deposit a small amount in advance, after receiving the exchanged money, they will pay the remaining amount along with the difference in fees. Or you can receive it directly in the "cash on delivery" style.

According to research, it is known that people who provide the service of exchanging small change and new money also go through another agent, they "buy" new money and new money from these people and then provide the service. Ms. L. - a person who provides the service of exchanging money in Thanh Chuong said: "During Tet, the demand for using new money to give lucky money, small change to go to temples and pagodas increases, so I go to the agent to exchange new money, then return it to people in need and enjoy the difference. New money costs more than used money, guaranteed to be real money because they use a scanner to check. Also, the people who exchange money are all familiar, so they must be reputable."

In addition to the service of exchanging new money and small change, these accounts also sell lucky money, unique money, rare money, and foreign currencies from many countries. These types of money are mainly transferred directly from abroad, with the selling price often many times higher than the actual face value depending on the uniqueness of the money. For example, money with a serial number of the date, month, and year of birth of the person who needs the gift is worth twice the actual value of the face value to be exchanged (for example, a 200,000 VND bill with a serial number ending in the date of birth will be sold for 400,000 VND); 2 USD gold-plated snake money costs 140,000 VND/bill; a pair of Australian gold-plated snake coins, silver with a red brocade bag costs 80,000 VND/pair; Buddha Tathagata coins cost 60,000 VND/coin; Hong Kong gold-plated God of Wealth coins cost 60,000 VND/coin...

Exchanging small change and new money is a need and habit of many people. Where there is demand, there is supply, but according to the law, all acts of trading and exchanging money are prohibited and will be punished if discovered. In addition, many people have fallen into fraud traps when participating in exchanging new money online, that is, after transferring a deposit, the money exchange service provider locked their Facebook account, blocked messages; or exchanged real money for fake money...

Therefore, to stop illegal money exchange business, consumer habits must change, not distinguishing between new and old money; making offerings to temples and making donations is also up to the mind, currently all temples and pagodas have QR codes for Buddhists who want to make offerings and send donations via bank transfer. At the same time, it is necessary to step up propaganda and encourage people not to exchange small change or new money at unlicensed organizations and individuals, to avoid risks and avoid violating the law.