The Currency BazaarNobody pays you lakhs for a ₹2 coin
If someone has offered you a huge price for an old coin or note and then asked you to pay a fee first, you are being robbed. This page explains exactly how it works.
A real buyer never asks the seller for money. Not registration, not GST, not TDS, not RBI clearance, not a refundable deposit. Money moves one way only — from the buyer to you. The moment you are asked to pay anything, it is a scam, no matter how official it sounds.
How the fee ladder works
It never starts with a big demand. It starts small enough to feel reasonable, and each payment is presented as the last one standing between you and the money you have already been promised.
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1The hook
A video, ad, or message tells you a common coin — a ₹1, ₹2, ₹5 coin, or a ₹10 note — is worth lakhs. A “buyer” then contacts you and agrees to a price far above anything real.
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2Registration fee
A small first payment to “register you as a verified seller” or to “open your file”. It is deliberately small, because the point is only to get you to pay once.
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3Processing or courier charge
A second, larger fee to “process the transfer” or insure the parcel. By now you have already paid once, so this one feels like protecting that investment.
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4GST or TDS
A tax-sounding demand, often with a fake challan or receipt. No genuine buyer ever collects tax from a seller before paying them.
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5RBI clearance or NOC
The final and largest demand, using the Reserve Bank of India’s name to sound unarguable. The payment you were promised never arrives, and the number stops answering.
The amounts vary, but the ladder does not. Once you pay the first one, the next reason always arrives.
One real case, itemised
A man in Mangaluru was told his 15 old coins would fetch ₹49,00,000. Over five weeks, from 25 November to 30 December 2024, he was asked for these — each one presented as the last step before the money arrived.
| What they called it | What he paid |
|---|---|
| RBI registration | ₹750 |
| GST proceeding data fee | ₹17,500 |
| Insurance fee | ₹94,500 |
| TDS fee | ₹49,499 |
| GPS fee | ₹71,500 |
| ITR fee | ₹39,990 |
| “RBI notice pending” fee | ₹3,50,000 |
| Final demand, “as per RBI guidelines” | ₹12,55,000 |
| Total reported loss (the report itemises only part of it; more instalments followed) | ₹58,26,399 |
Reported by ETV Bharat, 9 January 2025. Case registered at Kavoor police station, Mangaluru.
It is clarified that Reserve Bank of India does not deal in such matters and never seeks charges/ commissions of any sort. Reserve Bank of India has also not authorised any institution/ firm/ person etc. to collect charges/ commission on its behalf in such transactions.
— Reserve Bank of India, Press Release 2021-2022/634, 4 August 2021
Read that again: the Reserve Bank does not buy or sell old coins and notes, never charges anything for it, and has authorised nobody to charge you on its behalf. Every “RBI registration”, “RBI clearance” and “RBI notice” demand is therefore a lie by definition — there is nothing to register with and nobody to clear.
The six things we check on every single message
These are not general tips. They are the exact rules our scanner runs against every message sent on this site, and they are the six moves this fraud is built from.
Any fee, charge, deposit, GST, TDS, customs or “clearance” demanded from you. This is the single clearest sign, and it is the one the whole fraud depends on.
A UPI id, account number or IFSC arriving from a buyer makes no sense — a buyer needs yours, not the other way round. It is only ever sent so that you can pay them.
Lakhs or crores offered for an ordinary coin. The inflated number is the bait, and it is set high enough that the fees feel small next to it.
RBI, “government approved”, a museum, an auction house, income tax, customs. Borrowed authority is used to make the next demand for money feel official.
“Only today”, “offer closing”, “two hours left”. Hurry exists to stop you checking anything or asking anyone.
A phone number, WhatsApp or Telegram, often spelled out in words to dodge filters. Off the site, nothing is scanned and nothing is recorded.
Why this works — and how it stops working
This fraud does not run on greed. It runs on the fact that almost nobody knows what an old coin is actually worth. If you have no number in your head, someone else’s number becomes the truth.
So here are real ones. These ranges come from completed sales at independent coin shops and dealers, not asking prices, for coins and notes of the kind these ads name — and each shows how many sales it rests on. Once you know your coin sits here, an offer of ₹3,00,000 stops being exciting and starts being the warning it always was.
| Coin or note | Range from completed sales |
|---|---|
| Indira Gandhi Five Rupees | ₹78 – ₹82 8 completed sales |
| One Rupee — George VI (nickel) | ₹180 – ₹225 8 completed sales |
| One Rupee Note — Ashoka Pillar | ₹197 – ₹556 16 completed sales |
| Five Rupees Note — Deer, signature L.K. Jha | ₹196 – ₹390 5 completed sales |
| Fifty Rupees Note — Parliament House, signature I.G. Patel | ₹299 – ₹452 6 completed sales |
| Hundred Rupees Note — 786 in the serial | ₹249 – ₹1,149 16 completed sales |
| Five Rupees Note — King George VI, signature C.D. Deshmukh | ₹3,925 – ₹6,750 7 completed sales |
Each range is the middle half of completed sales at independent coin shops and dealers — asking prices are never counted — with the number of sales beside it. A coin or note appears here only while enough sales from more than one shop stand behind it. Where we have enough completed sales of the same kind of piece, listings on this site show them next to the asking price.
See what things like yours actually sold for
Real listings, and the price each one sold or left at, with dates. Not estimates and not promises.
See sold pricesOn The Currency Bazaar a buyer can never ask you for money — every message is scanned, and your phone number is never shown.
Read next
If you have already paid
Act quickly. Money reported in the first hours is far more likely to be frozen before it moves on.
- Call 1930, the national cyber-crime helpline, or report at cybercrime.gov.in. Do it first — before anything else.
- File a written complaint at your local police station and keep the acknowledgement.
- If it happened in a chat on this site, use the Report button in that conversation. It reaches us directly.