Bish0p
I had a problem with one of the bills that I had stamped the other day witha merchant not willing to accept the bill, so being the good little canadian geek that I am I fired off an email to the wonderful folks at the "Bank Note" devision of the Bank of Canada.
I asked them about the legalities of stamping something, or writing something, on to a bill. I also wondered about the status of the bill once a bill with a stamp is received at the BOC.
Now my phone # is included in each one of my emails and to my surprise the folks at the BOC actually called me to talk to me about the bill and my email (imagine my shock to have a goverment employee actually call). Here is a brief run down about what they said.
1) No it is not illegal to write or stamp something onto a bill as long as it does not attempt to deceive someone into believing it is a different demonination, or damage the security features of the bill.
2) Stamping something on a bill does not change the "legal tender" status of the bill, however no merchant is required to accept the bill once it has been stamped. You can however suggest that they check the security features that are built into each bill to make sure it is a valid bill, and once that checks out they should accept the bill.
3) If a bill arrives at the BOC in good condition to be destroyed only because someone has written/stamped something on it, the bill will in fact be put back in to circulation no destroyed.
4) If you are having a major problem not getting merchants or banks to accept a bill because of some writing or stamp, return it to the BOC and once the security features have been verified they will cut you a cheque for the value of the bill.
Bishop.
