A furious north-east man filmed a London McDonald’s manager refusing to accept his Scottish £5 note.
In the clip, taken in a McDonald’s near Hyde Park on Sunday, Ian Hardie tries to pay for his order with a new Scottish plastic fiver.
But the woman behind the till, who appears to be a manager, shakes her head and tries to hand it back. Ian, from Aberdeen, eventually storms: “It’s a £5 note!”
It was revealed earlier this year that a chain of McDonald’s in the Lincolnshire area was refusing Scottish money but such cases are rare in the capital.
It also emerged today that a chain of chemists in Gloucestershire is also refusing to accept Scottish bank notes.
In the 15-second clip, Ian attempts to argue with the McDonald’s manager, saying: “No seriously, it’s pound sterling.”
But the staff member continues to shake her head, and says it is her “discretion” whether she takes the money or not.
At this stage, Ian becomes angry, and replies: “It’s a five pound note.”
Yet the woman will still not let up, gesturing towards the till and saying “I’m sorry but the machine is not accepting it”.
Ian, 27, said that, despite being infuriated at the time, he found the incident quite comical.
“Before my money was given back to me, I’d been stood for about five minutes whilst management discussed it then they said they wouldn’t accept it.
“I found the whole thing hilarious if I’m honest. A lot of people have taken it quite seriously.”
He added that after the debacle, he ended up leaving the restaurant, saying: “If my fiver wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t using my card.”
A spokeswoman for McDonald’s said “the vast majority” of their UK restaurants accept Scottish banknotes.
“However, the decision to accept Scotland’s tender is ultimately taken on a case by case basis,” she added.
The clip has received almost 250,000 views after being posted on Facebook on Sunday.
Scottish social media users expressed their anger at the incident.
Glenn Ives posted an image of a scene from Braveheart with the caption: “They can take our lands but they’ll never take our fivers.”
In September, McDonald’s themselves were branded “ridiculous” after it was revealed that many of their stores in the county of Lincolnshire had a policy not to accept Scottish banknotes.
This is one of the first instances of this nature to take place in the capital.
This week, a Gloucestershire based chemist revealed that they had decided to stop accepting Scottish banknotes because they are some of the most counterfeited in the country.
According to the Bank of England Scottish banknotes “are not legal tender”; furthermore, Bank of England banknotes are only legal tender in England and Wales. Legal tender has, however, a very narrow technical meaning in relation to the settlement of debt.
“The acceptability of a Scottish or Northern Ireland banknote as a means of payment is essentially a matter for agreement between the parties involved.
“If both parties are in agreement, Scottish and Northern Ireland banknotes can be used in England and Wales.”
