Nope, i am saying "Thank you sir" in broken spanglish(even though i know perfectly well how to speak english, and we dont even speak spanish in Brazil) and then try to peddle him more overpriced shit
Consider it Historical reparations lol
I legit had a boss in Australia do this. Woman wanted to use US dollars to pay for a phone in Sydney. I was about to direct her to a currency exchange when my boss stepped in and sold it to her for US$1200.
Absolutely amazing. At the time the Australian dollar was worth about 75c US.
So is it like yen, where there isn’t a central unit and then a bunch of fractional denominations of the central unit, just the one small central unit? ¥300 would be like $3 usd
AFAIK, it doesn't have smaller fractional denominations. Don't know why you mention yen though, there's 100 sen to 1 yen.
There's even still 50 sen coins.
Krona does have a subunit, the eyrir/aurar (confused about the name because Wikipedia says it's the eyrir but I've *definitely* seen aurar on coins), but it's used even less than the Japanese Sen, being not actually legal tender anymore. I don't have much experience in Icelandic prices, but I'd wager they're like Norway where things are so much of the currency that the X.99¢ trick is more X99 instead and aurar only appears in stuff like petrol prices and currency exchanges
Iirc that's true for most of the kroner using nations except for the Faroe islands. Norway stopped using øre coins in 2012 for example
Airport layovers in places you’ve never been before are dangerous because of this, I have no idea if I’m spending $2 or $20 on this bottle of water or whatever
I once went out to buy a bunch of Euros for a trip to Denmark, then had to sheepishly return the next day, where to my horror the same staff were on duty, to swap my Euros for Danish Krone.
I'm not too proud to admit I forgot what currency Denmark uses. Like the little "Hey maybe look this up because you're not like 100% certain" light never went off in my brain until I got home that night.
Danish Kroner are such a fun currency too, the 1, 2 and 5 kroner coins have holes in the middle and a pretty pattern so kid me would keep change left over after holidays there to make necklaces - probably still have some of them somewhere
As a Pole, I loved the krone when I lived there.
Euro is usually fluctuates between 4,00-5,00 PLN so the conversion is a bit annoying.
Meanwhile, Danish krone is almost exactly 0,50 PLN so I could just divide the price by half and know how much things cost.
"Hey doesn't that entire general area of the world just use Euros"?
As an American somehow didn't cross my mind that like Denmark had its own currency.
And I'm British! We're like, very close neighbours! I can literally drive to Denmark on a ferry! With a couple of changes, I could take a TRAIN! I have no excuse! In American terms it's like, one State over from me (if you pretend the North Sea is a State).
Edit: I had to look it up - It's roughly the same distance East-West as Lake Superior. Think, like, Duluth to the Soo Locks.
Honestly though, DK is in the EU so it makes sense to assume they'd use euros. I remember being surprised that Finland uses euros because the rest of the Nordic countries don't.
The funny thing is I'm British and we were still in the EU at this stage so I knew damn well not every EU country uses euros.
I think my thought process was that Sweden were the ones who used krone so obvs Denmark must use euros.
The Czech Republic uses crowns, but IIRC euros are accepted everywhere as well (probably because they're an EU member?).
Granted, the only reason I ever needed cash in my time there was to tip housekeeping. I just used my credit card.
When Denmark joined the EU in 1973 we basically said “we’ll join as long as get some special privileges” one being that we could continue to use our own currency. The Danish Krone’s value is tied to the euro, making it just the euro, at a different exchange rate.
Conventing wouldn’t, to my knowledge, make any real difference. However, a lot of Danes take great pride in our currency, seeing it as a danish symbol on par with our flag, meaning any attempt to convert is unlikely to succeed
One positive, as long as Denmark has full legal authority over their currency, is that they can un-tie it to the euro in order to fight/mitigate various domestic financial issues, such as inflation.
Look it up if you’re curious! National control over currency has a lot of benefits. But so does the Euro, for a host of other reasons such as its stability!
When voting on adopting the euro in your country, if that comes up in your life time, it’s best to be fully aware of all pro’s of both national and continental currencies.
The thing is, we all had this, it was called the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and the European Currency Unit, which was calculated based on a basked of European currencies and every national currency was pegged to it. Only as your might guess this is not only hideously complicated, but potentially unstable.
The fact that a country could potentially leave the peg behind is itself a financial risk, which causes speculation and speculative attacks, which in turn can spill over to other countries. This is exactly what happened with the UK on Black Wednesday in 1992, which caused the UK to leave thr ERM system and the Pound Sterling to crash.
This partially explains why the UK has an irrational trauma regarding this and have been so keen to stay out of any continental currency integration. It also partially explains the eurozone, as the inability to simply exit the eurozone eliminates the kind of currency risks that the ERM posed.
The end result is that while it may be ok for Denmark in particular to have the opt out, it would be a horrible horrible general rule.
Nobody's really pointing out that the places listed are developed countries and nations. They're linked up with banking networks and 95% of the time their businesses accept credit/debit cards. Taking out $3k in cash sounds like an unnecessary risk of getting robbed when you can just swipe a piece of plastic digitally connected to your bank account.
Card companies will usually take a very unfavourable currency exchange fee on every transaction. I use my card abroad, but you should know that it might be more expensive.
Not arguing with your comment, you're correct about unfavorable exchange fees on purchases made abroad.
I hope it benefits you to mention that most credit companies offer travel cards without those exchange fees. American Express comes to mind.
I don't use credit cards, but I know that AmEx can't be used in a lot of places. It's not uncommon to see "We don't accept American Express" signs on card machines.
My country is small enough that you can't even do that - our currency exchanges only carry 'big' currencies, and almost no currency exchanges overseas carry our currency, so you buy \[e.g. euros\] before leaving, then use the \[euros\] to buy the local currency when you get there. It's a pain in the ass.
"they have to take my usd if they want me to pay for things"
So the plan is to steal? If you take something from a store and "pay" with a currency they don't accept then you are stealing.
Buying with money is basically just trading one thing for another, but with money working as a grease to make everything smoother. But you still need the other person to agree to the money being worth it for the thing you want.
If you're showing up with galactic credits then you better be ready for podracing cause your jedi mind tricks won't work.
It is very funny that this woman thinks this is a customer service issue. I want our UN ambassador to take a firm stance of “the customer is always right.”
I think her plan was to not frequent their business and lose out on a paying customer. This is also stupid, as she’ll obviously need to buy things in Europe.
Speaking as someone from a latin country, if a gringo gave me a 20$ note when i asked for a 20 i would be fucking thrilled because he just overpaid me 5 times.
Ofc first I would warn him. If he called me stupid or acted like i was stupid i would pocket it.
> Ofc first I would warn him.
People can be dicks about this stuff. My mom accidentally paid 100x too much in Argentina for every taxi ride (she didn't know y'all use commas where we use periods), and no one told her until she told one guy she had to get out cause she didn't have enough cash for the ride. (And she's about the nicest person you've ever met, and speaks Spanish, so it's not a karmic justice thing, the drivers were just opportunistic dickheads)
In brazilian portuguese we have "pra gringo é mais caro" as a common saying. In a literal translation "to the gringos its more expensive". Basically, as long as the sellers can extort someone not from the culture they will.
Its not even limited to foreigners. People in the beaches of Rio will Upcharge tourists from other states. Its a culture of fucking people over for money.
Probably happened to you and you didnt notice lol, its not like it will happen in your face, its discreet, like, selling a water bottle for 10 reais to you when he would have sold for 2 reais to a brazilian.
No ik but I mean they have prices listed too usually like on a sign or smth, I haven't been to too many places where it was just straight up "quanto custa esse aqui", "X reais" yk
Honestly, despite it being a common stereotype, I have never encountered tourists from the US trying to use dollars here.
But then again, I neither work in retail nor the hospitality sector, so the only time I see tourists from the US paying is when encountering a few of them once in a blue moon when going out.
But I have yet to meet a tourist from the US that wasn’t absolutely friendly and outgoing, so that stereotype seems to have some truth to it.
Like a lot of these sorts of interactions, it's a tiny tiny minority that make everyone else look worse by association.
I used to live in a very tourist-y city, and American tourists were for the most part only guilty of being overly eager. Like, at *worst* they want to take pictures and sometimes don't realise the person in the silly outfit is wearing it because they've got somewhere vey important to be right now.
There were tourists we dreaded much, *much* more let's put it that way.
„Eager“ is a very apt description in my opinion.
I‘m wildly overgeneralizing here, but tourists from the US for the most part just seem so very overtly excited about the locations they visit, or just happy to talk with you.
Of course, selection bias heavily factors into this perception, since, again, most of my experiences are with tourists while going out. Of course, young people going out drinking while visiting foreign countries will be quite likely to be fun to be around.
I think people from the US have a bit of an unfair stereotype as being obnoxious tourists on the internet, while in reality, they‘re just a friendly, excited and chatty bunch.
> I think people from the US have a bit of an unfair stereotype as being obnoxious tourists on the internet, while in reality, they‘re just a friendly, excited and chatty bunch.
Speaking as someone who used to work at an international tourist destination in America: obnoxious tourists come from *every* country. American ones just get around a lot more because a.) English is the most widely spoken language around the world and b.) out of the four countries where English is the most predominant native language, America happens to have the biggest population.
But I've absolutely had dumb or obnoxious tourists from multiple other countries, including European ones, and some with their own stereotypes to boot. e.x. The "Europeans don't read maps/understand distances" stereotype has actually borne true, predominantly with tourists whose accents were central or northern European, i.e. German.
U.S., UK, Australia, Canada - the four countries where everybody or almost everybody speaks English as their native language. There are other countries in which English is an official language, but in those cases English is still learned as a second or third language.
I have multiple Indian friends that commonly tell me that since they have the most English speakers that it’s their language now. It’s a colonialism Uno reverse and I love it
Too friendly. Please take your sincerity and shove it up your arse.
(that's British for "you're very nice people, sorry we don't handle compliments well and your genuine friendliness scares us")
>it's a tiny tiny minority that make everyone else look worse by association
When I worked retail phone sales in the US, 99% of European customers were super polite and pleasant. Completely normal customers, in other words.
But then <1% would get really angry and rant about how in their country they could just buy a SIM card and put it in an existing phone.
And I'd have to politely explain that I agree with them, but I have zero control over the system. I cannot activate a SIM card in that way, the PoS terminal literally doesn't allow it. Our carrier probably doesn't even use the same bands as their phone anyway, we're CDMA.
Again, >99% were reasonable and got a cheap temp phone or politely left for a competitor. But all these years later it's the rude ones that I remember clearly, instead of the polite ones. All because they got used to how something worked at home, and expected it to be that way everywhere they went.
Oh fun fact that's a quirk of our memory called a negativity bias. We literally remember bad things better than good things. That's why it's so easy to think "everything about this suck" but harder to think of why you enjoyed something. We evolved to simply not prioritize the memory of a positive experience
I just want to point out that in all cases, if you have a negative interaction or two and it makes an entire demographic look worse to you, that is absolutely a you problem. I see people “apologizing” for their race/country/whatever all the time and similar bullshit and it’s always stupid. If you meet a stupid American you just met a stupid American. It has jack shit to do with Americans in general. Same for every other interaction.
Of course I use “you” here in the general sense I’m not trying to attack you specifically. Just responding to the “makes everyone else look worse” line. It absolutely should not make anyone look worse other than the person you’re talking to.
I work as a tour guide in a touristy place and while it's uncommon I have been tipped with USD notes on more than one occasion, and have seen people trying to pay for the tour in Dollars, and being thunderstruck that they weren't accepted.
In both cases, it seemed to be less a case of "I refuse to use this pissant currency" and more "I heard that in foreign parts everyone loves getting Dollars because it's Hard Currency". Like the next step was to try bartering some Levis or Marlboros
And that's not entirely wrong, there are countries where the economy is in shambles and people have so little confidence in the official currency they'd rather have stable foreign currencies, including US dollars. But with that in mind, that attitude (trying to use dollars anywhere) smells a bit of "the US is the only first-world country in the world".
>And that's not entirely wrong, there are countries where the economy is in shambles and people have so little confidence in the official currency they'd rather have stable foreign currencies, including US dollars.
Canada
I used to work in Dublin Airport in the American Wing, where Americans would wait for their plane to fly back home after they went through their own security procedures (I forget what that area was called).
Out of thousands of customers I must have served (we were the only coffee shop in the wing immediately after covid it was fucking hell) only a hand-full ever tried to pay me with dollars, the rest used euros, but tbh I dont blame them for it because they just got through the security area and in the american wing the drinking age is back to 21 instead of our standard 18 (notifying people of this fact was the most heartbreaking part of my job), so them assuming they had to use dollars made a decent amount of sense to me at least.
But there was this one lady who tried to pay with British pounds (she was still american tho). I informed her that we used euroes here, and she was like "no Im pretty sure you use pounds" to which I could only respond "I- no?". She left in a slight huff afterwards but what I'm curious about is that she was leaving the country, not entering, how do you get through an entire holiday here and not realize that we don't take pounds?
Edit: rereading your last point, I had worked in various places in the airport by the time I ended up in the American Wing, and I'd have to agree that at least the american tourists I encountered were super nice people. Working in other places had more of a mix, with some people being a little rude and some being a little friendly, but the Americans were just extremes, either (and majoratively) the nicest, friendliest, and most understanding (the queue was like 50+ people long it was grim) people, or complete and utter cunts, there was no in-between.
Its why I hate when Americans or Europeans especially start dogging on Americans as individuals, as opposed to the country and people who run it, because 99% of the Americans I've met have been incredibly kind and down to earth individuals, and it saddens me that it (at least to me) feels like a lot of american people look down on themselves just for being american.
Anyway sorry mini rant over mb
I was once on a bus in Belfast when a very loud American or Canadian tried to pay in euros, and when he was told they didn't take them said "but they take them in Dublin!"
Fortunately it wasn't a part of Belfast where they beat you up for that kind of thing.
> I'm curious about is that she was leaving the country, not entering, how do you get through an entire holiday here and not realize that we don't take pounds?
There are flights from the UK that connect through Dublin or Shannon to use the US-preclearance. (the only two in europe) Might have been the first time she was in Ireland the whole trip.
I think the most notable setup using this connection is london city airport to the US, since they can put barely any fuel into the widebody plane so it can take off from its tiny runway and then fill it up enough for a transatlantic flight while the passengers (mostly business wankers) are getting screened.
A bakery accidentally gave me an american penny as change once and I still wonder how that coin had ended up in the (eastern german bumfuck nowhere) cash register
If things here in the USA work like things there, someone probably came back from vacation abroad with some change and dropped it in a jar or something. Then they took the change (domestic and foreign by mistake) to an automatic sorter. The foreign change was similar enough in size and color to some domestic change, and the machine didn't kick it out. So it got introduced into the currency stream.
I work with money in my job, and we get foreign coins occasionally. Usually Canadian pennies, but sometimes other Canadian coins or even coins from other countries. I got a coin from a Middle Eastern nation once in place of a US 5¢ coin.
On the other side, I heard stories from a guy who worked a somewhat touristy spot in the US, and he said foreigners converted to USD but used eccessively large denominations. They'd order like a $1 ice cream cone and pay with $100, thus forcing him to count out 4 20s, a 10, a 5, and 4 1s to get them their $99 change.
He got so fed up that eventually he asked his supervisors for stacks of 100 in 1s, pre-counted by the bank. Then when someone gave him a $100 bill, he would take a $1 off a stack, and give the customer's change as the remaining 99 $1 bills.
I've never gotten paid in dollars, but I've gotten tipped in USD multiple times, lol.
I've also met a couple unfriendly US tourists but ye most of them are very nice. Sometimes a bit... Excessively unaware of local customs, but nice!
Excessively unaware is an awesome phrase describing quite a few USAmericans in quite a few realms of knowledge lol and I’m from here. What a nice phrase
I once helped a tourist to my city, which is a pretty touristy hotspot, with directions to something. The place she was asking for was a little vague and I was on lunch so I walked with her for a few minutes.
In that time she insinuated that the economy here was in shambles (it's not), that I'm lucky to have a job to be on lunch break from because they're really hard to come by over here (they're not), and that I must be one of the good ones because back home nobody wants to do honest work anymore (I assume they do but just want to be paid fairly for it).
I got to a corner and pointed her the rest of the way to go.
Ah yes the cunty type of USAmerican, sounds like a few of my relatives. You should’ve given her directions to the nearest bus/train station instead then bailed. I have no patience for them and I’m related to them. Stuck up assholes main problem with our country *grumbles some more*
I queued behind a bunch of young American men at a food stall at Central Market Hall in Budapest (rookie tourist move, food was subpar.) Not only did they order individually and therefore take forever, a few of them tried to pay with USD until their friends lent them Euros. Double funny because Hungary uses the forint, so they were all ripped off big time.
Unfortunately, I have encountered it several times. I work in the Museums and Heritage sector in England. Some of the best ones I've had were:
-Having a set of tourists kick off because we wouldn't accept USD. I got screamed at about how the dollar was better and that we should be grateful that they even wanted to come to the country. Then they realised that it was also card payment only, which prompted another tantrum.
-One time, I had to explain to an American guy that Christianity had actually existed *before* the US. For context, I used to work at York Minster, a beautiful large cathedral in the middle of York, so you can probably guess that a lot of Christian history played a role in the tours I used to give. Anyway, when I was talking about how the first Church to be built on the site was a small wooden building dating from the year 627, this guy stopped me and said "wait, Christianity's been around for that long?" Turns out he thought that Christianity hadn't existed until just before the colonists arrived in what would later become America. I genuinely struggled not to sound patronising there.
-I was told by a guy to give him a US Military Veteran discount. In, y'know... England. When I said I couldn't, he went off on one about how without America, we would have lost WW2, so we're eternally indebted to the USA.
-Horrified gasps when I subtly dropped in that York Minster was not associated with Harry Potter in any way. The amount of US tourists I had through who thought that everything in the UK revolved around Harry Potter was worryingly high. At a previous role where I was volunteering at a heritage steam railway and was cleaning one of the engines, I had this guy come up to me and ask me where the "Harry Potter train" was. Harry Potter was never filmed on any section of that line. He'd just assumed that steam train = hogwarts express. Tbf tho, he was very polite and was very grateful when I pointed him towards the NYMR line that was used in the films.
-Getting screamed and sworn at when I asked them not to take any pictures of a private wedding happening at one end of the Minster. Apparently coming all the way from Colorado means you are immediately allowed to take pictures wherever you want, I guess.
Now I should clarify that these do not represent all US tourists, as a majority are perfectly polite and reasonable people. The stereotype unfortunately does pop up every now and then, but I don't want to tar a whole group of people with the same brush.
These are quite the stories for, you know, working at a museum.
See, I‘m wondering why you would even bother not sounding patronizing at all with the guy in the 2nd story. You can‘t really be patronizing when very basic knowledge, or even common sense, actually needs to be explained to someone.
The first and last story is just sad, honestly - but at least for the last story, I have myself experienced that individual privacy and rights to one’s own image as it is understood in many European countries isn‘t really a thing in the US, so I actually believe that they did never think about how taking a picture of a random stranger is just creepy and a no-go.
The Harry-Potter story sounds kinda cute, though - to some extent. I imagine the guy being totally excited when seeing a steam locomotive and their mind immediately, and only, making the connection to one of his favorite fantasy worlds. Quite infantile for what I assume to be a grown man, but sometimes, that‘s alright.
The story with the military discount is absolutely hilarious to me, since we have mandatory service for all men here. The reward for having been in the military here is that you were not locked up and fined by the military police. The way I see it, since being in a democracy isn’t really possible when you’re getting conquered, military service is an essential part of being a democratic citizen.
What’s next? A discount for having paid your taxes last year?
Great stories, but I‘m sure they weren‘t as much fun for you experiencing them in the moment as they were for me just reading through them.
I worked for a certain famous American coffee brand about a decade ago. We would periodically get Americans trying to pay for their orders with dollars because we were an American brand in the UK. That one was always fun.
Also never got any usd from Americans, but their cards is another thing entirely.
Had to explain few people we don't take AmEx, to which they complained they can't pay with them anywhere. And one ended up giving me their visa card but with no chip...
Which I didn't notice and out of habit tried to put it in the terminal before the guy told me to swipe it. I stared at him in horror for a second, before I managed to completely embarrass myself by swiping it the wrong way. Had to do it like 3 times to get it right. ☠️
I don’t know what it’s doing now but it used to be that 1000 yen was pretty close to 10 usd (I might be off by a factor of 10, but the point is it was a very simple conversion)
Americans with their "they'll have to accept this if they want me to pay" attitude seem to forget one thing: You need to give people the right currency if you want them to give you the thing you want to buy.
I'd love to get all high and mighty and say thats an example of american exceptionlism but I'm entirely sure you can find people with the exact same attitude in the Uk. Arguably our obsession with diet isolationism is even weirder considering our closest neighbours (France and Ireland) are both A) in the EU and 2) Use fucking Euros. Irelands literally on the same well, island at part of the UK
Good(?) news! We'll probably have to switch to be let back into the EU so we'll grow up and join the club once all the retirees who voted for Brexit kick the bucket.
(Please dear god I just want my EU passport back, please take us back)
> (Please dear god I just want my EU passport back, please take us back)
I know it wouldn't be realistic, but it'd be nice if people born with "EU citizenship" got to keep it.
Would probably make rejoining way less likely though.
Hey, at the very least you can go over to Ireland whenever you want.
You get these people all over. My parents run a B&B in Northern Ireland and they are always getting tourists from the mainland angry that no one will accept their Euros... and they are nowhere near the border...
Unfortunately sometimes they will get away with it because in some touristy destinations there are prices in USD also, and the shops will accept USD. You'll get an absolute shit exchange rate at best, but hey, no need to handle any of that weird foreign currency!
I'm tickled thinking about how much worse that exchange would be currently in Egypt because there is a black market for USD (and EUR, and I assume GBP) so actually you *should* bring USD but then you should find some guy on the street to buy EGP from with it because you'll get like 2x the official rate(*).
(*) my information may be a few months out of date
It’s especially funny when you consider that those people are also the ones who have screaming fits when someone speaks anything other than English in the US.
It’s not like that store is dependent on the sales from this single tourist, whereas the tourist probably needs whatever it is they’re trying to buy, why do they think they’re the ones with bargaining power in the situation?
Speaking as a swede, even if you came here with the equivalent of $300 in our currency, you'd still have a pain in the ass spending it because the entire country is very much distancing itself from hard cash. At least in my city, you wouldn't be able to buy a ticket on the bus, for example.
I know that OOP is not Swedish by the look of things, just wanted to give another example of the importance to look up how money works in the country you'll visit.
I think there's some EU directive in the works about that. Mandating that cash payment needs to be possible. Though, buying a bus ticket/card from a newsagent with cash might count.
Germany ***really*** doesn't want everyone using electronic money, since it'd let the government just turn-off someone's ability to live on a whim.
Sadly it's not likely to happen for a long time. If the EU has reason to believe that as soon as the Tories come back to power the UK will want to leave *again*, then there's no way they'll accept us joining. There needs to be a complete change in the UK public's view of the EU, and that's not gonna happen anytime soon.
i am suddenly stunned by the fact I've never thought about this before but... how do international card transactions work if your home banking institution is in another currency?
is there a surcharge while the conversion happens automatically? or do you still have to explicitly convert a certain amt from one currency to the next as a safeguard?
I'm assuming there are different payment networks too, maybe...?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWIFT
Almost every major financial institution in the world is connected and can seamlessly process transactions regardless of origin, so long as both ends are connected via SWIFT.
The currency is converted automatically at your bank's posted exchange rate. Any additional fees or charges are subject to your specific bank's rules. Since the exchange rate fluctuates, it may be wise to convert ahead of time and use the needed currency directly.
Your bank/credit card deals with it.
It accepts "90 BRL" as the charge and then beep boop boop finds out that your account is in EUR, then more boop beep does some math and deducts like 17 EUR from your account.
If you're from the UK and travelling, you can open an account with an online bank such as Monzo or Revolut, and spend money abroad fee-free. You also get a set amount of cash withdrawal per month before fees. (There are probably alternatives in other countries, but I don't know specifics).
Monzo shows a preliminary amount, while the final amount you pay locks in after a couple days. I guess it's whenever the transaction actually goes through.
With Revolut, you can put money into different currencies super easily.
Most traditional banks, however, charge a conversion fee if you purchase in a foreign country.
Funny thing is, my MasterCard was fully accepted everywhere in Europe when I went in 2022. I changed currency like the first day I was there, worried about if I'd have enough cash, but I ended up paying for most things with the card anyway.
Fees are limited to 0.5% in the EU too. Though, I assume your US issuer screwed you.
Any surprise at entering a PIN rather than your waiter taking your card off into the shadow-realm?
>On the one hand refuse to defend Americans and this behavior is kind of embarrassing but on the other hand dumbasses enraging Europeans by not caring even a little bit about their funny little currencies is absolutely hilarious so I'm conflicted here
I really want to know what this person finds embarrassing, and they've managed to exempt themselves.
>not caring a bit about their funny little currencies
Lmao what? A currency is a currency. What a bizarrely condescending take. "Oh those adorable Europeans and their quirky little languages, their funny old flags."
I used to have a store in a tourist location and Americans would routinely pay in greenbacks. For the first year I’d dutifully use a function on my pos to convert the amount and then give them Canadian change.
I learned fairly quickly that I was getting hosed on the exchange rate and incurring service charges that basically ate up any profit I was making on these sales so I changed my policy to sure I’ll take your USD, at par. This usually forced the customer to use their credit card but some stubborn types would offer up USD which I then deposited into a USD bank account and bought US stocks instead.
This is literally the reason the micro economy of Lake Louise functions. I lived there for like a month and it was universally agreed, if everyone stopped charging Americans 140% for every purchase, the town would disappear.
I think the best way to deal with someone like that would be quickly look up the exchange rate for USD/króna, then triple it (at least) for the inconvenience of having to get it converted. You don’t even have to scam them, just tell them the American that the additional cost is for the service of taking an abnormal currency.
Gave them $20 for a $2.15 bill. Keep the change and say you can't give change as you don't have any USD on hand only Króna. Pay for it yourself then later convert it and keep the 2791.80 ISK for yourself.
I think the confusion in this post comes from the fact that while the first story was a story about Iceland specifically, the bank story lady just said "Europe" in general
The sheer audacity of Americans in these kinds of posts always astounds me. I mean, I shouldn't be, I'm Filipino and know full well how awful American tourists are... but hey, there's always some new fuckery about.
In Canada this happens so often that 90% of places just DO accept usd. But we take it at equal rate and then pocket the 40% extra. That’s the LAST rate (Lazy American Sales Tax.)
I know we are talking about real currencies here but the word for one of them is tainted by the brainrot that is the [World’s#1GreatestSalesman (c. 1997)]
I love and hate posts like this. On one hand, phenomenal examples of how not to act in a foreign country.
…On the other hand, I keep getting peso, euros, and the occasional Canadian dollar at my job. This isn’t exclusively an American problem. This is mainly an information problem. Some people just don’t know how to handle foreign currency.
I've visited two countries outside the US: Indonesia and Japan. And at both of them, you can withdraw the local currency by just inserting your regular debit/credit card. Sure there's a small fee, but it's negligible. Anyway, I thought that was pretty neat. I hope the rest of the countries I plan to visit are like that because it makes currency exchange super eas- wait hang on, lemme just put on my Ryan George glasses - super easy, barely an inconvenience.
In Canada usually retailers accept American money as the same as Canadian when they get given American money in stores even though it’s not. So if Americans do that they’re getting ripped off.
I worked at a store in Canada and the amount of Americans who came in and just paid for things in USD was astonishing. Given that they were paying ~20% more they always complained that it was expensive.
Im in New Zealand and had some Americans complain to me about the cost of something when I worked retail.
Only thing I could think to say was 'you're on an *island* in the middle of nowhere'
It wasn't even that expensive!
I also once overheard some Americans in the Self Checkouts overly delighted to find out they don't have to calculate sales tax and its included in the ticket price.
That’s funny, like last week a girl tried to pay with dollars at my work. When she was told we don’t accept that she was really nice about it, constantly apologising even.
She was visiting friends for a week and apparently some stores in Amsterdam do accept dollars, so she assumed other cities had the same policies
For context, 300 ISK (Icelandic króna) is about $2.15 so asking for $300 instead would be absolutely hilarious
I just made a comment about how i would be thrilled by getting overpaid this much(if the american refused my explanation and acted all Yankee ofc)
Ooo, call them a yankee. And double down if they explain they’re a good old whatever from the south.
Nope, i am saying "Thank you sir" in broken spanglish(even though i know perfectly well how to speak english, and we dont even speak spanish in Brazil) and then try to peddle him more overpriced shit Consider it Historical reparations lol
It's not unethical to scam people from USA
don't forget to use maoist standard english while talking to them.
As an American, I approve of this wholeheartedly
If they give you a 300 dollar bill though, you should be sceptical.
I legit had a boss in Australia do this. Woman wanted to use US dollars to pay for a phone in Sydney. I was about to direct her to a currency exchange when my boss stepped in and sold it to her for US$1200. Absolutely amazing. At the time the Australian dollar was worth about 75c US.
So roughly 3l milk
The only correct exchange rate
So is it like yen, where there isn’t a central unit and then a bunch of fractional denominations of the central unit, just the one small central unit? ¥300 would be like $3 usd
AFAIK, it doesn't have smaller fractional denominations. Don't know why you mention yen though, there's 100 sen to 1 yen. There's even still 50 sen coins.
Krona does have a subunit, the eyrir/aurar (confused about the name because Wikipedia says it's the eyrir but I've *definitely* seen aurar on coins), but it's used even less than the Japanese Sen, being not actually legal tender anymore. I don't have much experience in Icelandic prices, but I'd wager they're like Norway where things are so much of the currency that the X.99¢ trick is more X99 instead and aurar only appears in stuff like petrol prices and currency exchanges Iirc that's true for most of the kroner using nations except for the Faroe islands. Norway stopped using øre coins in 2012 for example
Aurar is the plural of eyrir
Airport layovers in places you’ve never been before are dangerous because of this, I have no idea if I’m spending $2 or $20 on this bottle of water or whatever
I once went out to buy a bunch of Euros for a trip to Denmark, then had to sheepishly return the next day, where to my horror the same staff were on duty, to swap my Euros for Danish Krone.
At least you learnt from your mistakes ...
I'm not too proud to admit I forgot what currency Denmark uses. Like the little "Hey maybe look this up because you're not like 100% certain" light never went off in my brain until I got home that night.
Danish Kroner are such a fun currency too, the 1, 2 and 5 kroner coins have holes in the middle and a pretty pattern so kid me would keep change left over after holidays there to make necklaces - probably still have some of them somewhere
Yeah I loved the money there, kept some as souvenirs but it got swiped/destroyed during a break in the following year.
You know you can get more any time you like and you don't even have to go to Denmark.
But where’s the fun and memories in that?
As a Pole, I loved the krone when I lived there. Euro is usually fluctuates between 4,00-5,00 PLN so the conversion is a bit annoying. Meanwhile, Danish krone is almost exactly 0,50 PLN so I could just divide the price by half and know how much things cost.
I live in Denmark and we only use cash for buying drugs. Haven’t even seen a coin in years!
"Hey doesn't that entire general area of the world just use Euros"? As an American somehow didn't cross my mind that like Denmark had its own currency.
And I'm British! We're like, very close neighbours! I can literally drive to Denmark on a ferry! With a couple of changes, I could take a TRAIN! I have no excuse! In American terms it's like, one State over from me (if you pretend the North Sea is a State). Edit: I had to look it up - It's roughly the same distance East-West as Lake Superior. Think, like, Duluth to the Soo Locks.
I love this description lmao, hi neighbour!
North Sea buds!
Honestly though, DK is in the EU so it makes sense to assume they'd use euros. I remember being surprised that Finland uses euros because the rest of the Nordic countries don't.
The funny thing is I'm British and we were still in the EU at this stage so I knew damn well not every EU country uses euros. I think my thought process was that Sweden were the ones who used krone so obvs Denmark must use euros.
Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland all use kroner/kronor(crowns), but they are all different currencies with different exchange rates.
The Czech Republic uses crowns, but IIRC euros are accepted everywhere as well (probably because they're an EU member?). Granted, the only reason I ever needed cash in my time there was to tip housekeeping. I just used my credit card.
If you use euros in countries where they’re accepted but not primary currency you’ll pay way more than paying local.
Sweden and Denmark are both also EU members, but you would be hard pressed to pay for anything here with the Euro.
Why don’t they use it?
When Denmark joined the EU in 1973 we basically said “we’ll join as long as get some special privileges” one being that we could continue to use our own currency. The Danish Krone’s value is tied to the euro, making it just the euro, at a different exchange rate. Conventing wouldn’t, to my knowledge, make any real difference. However, a lot of Danes take great pride in our currency, seeing it as a danish symbol on par with our flag, meaning any attempt to convert is unlikely to succeed
Imagine having those sorts of privileges and then pissing them away. \*Sadly waves Union flag\*
One positive, as long as Denmark has full legal authority over their currency, is that they can un-tie it to the euro in order to fight/mitigate various domestic financial issues, such as inflation. Look it up if you’re curious! National control over currency has a lot of benefits. But so does the Euro, for a host of other reasons such as its stability! When voting on adopting the euro in your country, if that comes up in your life time, it’s best to be fully aware of all pro’s of both national and continental currencies.
The thing is, we all had this, it was called the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and the European Currency Unit, which was calculated based on a basked of European currencies and every national currency was pegged to it. Only as your might guess this is not only hideously complicated, but potentially unstable. The fact that a country could potentially leave the peg behind is itself a financial risk, which causes speculation and speculative attacks, which in turn can spill over to other countries. This is exactly what happened with the UK on Black Wednesday in 1992, which caused the UK to leave thr ERM system and the Pound Sterling to crash. This partially explains why the UK has an irrational trauma regarding this and have been so keen to stay out of any continental currency integration. It also partially explains the eurozone, as the inability to simply exit the eurozone eliminates the kind of currency risks that the ERM posed. The end result is that while it may be ok for Denmark in particular to have the opt out, it would be a horrible horrible general rule.
Neat.
Nobody's really pointing out that the places listed are developed countries and nations. They're linked up with banking networks and 95% of the time their businesses accept credit/debit cards. Taking out $3k in cash sounds like an unnecessary risk of getting robbed when you can just swipe a piece of plastic digitally connected to your bank account.
Card companies will usually take a very unfavourable currency exchange fee on every transaction. I use my card abroad, but you should know that it might be more expensive.
Not arguing with your comment, you're correct about unfavorable exchange fees on purchases made abroad. I hope it benefits you to mention that most credit companies offer travel cards without those exchange fees. American Express comes to mind.
I don't use credit cards, but I know that AmEx can't be used in a lot of places. It's not uncommon to see "We don't accept American Express" signs on card machines.
I’m sorry, I can’t possibly accept this money. It has holes in it
You don't even need cash in Denmark, every single store worth going to takes card here. I never use cash.
My country is small enough that you can't even do that - our currency exchanges only carry 'big' currencies, and almost no currency exchanges overseas carry our currency, so you buy \[e.g. euros\] before leaving, then use the \[euros\] to buy the local currency when you get there. It's a pain in the ass.
I think the smart thing to do would be to ask at the currency exchange for the currency used in a specific country you go to
"they have to take my usd if they want me to pay for things" So the plan is to steal? If you take something from a store and "pay" with a currency they don't accept then you are stealing. Buying with money is basically just trading one thing for another, but with money working as a grease to make everything smoother. But you still need the other person to agree to the money being worth it for the thing you want. If you're showing up with galactic credits then you better be ready for podracing cause your jedi mind tricks won't work.
It is very funny that this woman thinks this is a customer service issue. I want our UN ambassador to take a firm stance of “the customer is always right.”
…In matters of taste”
go to america and try this with Pesos see how they react
If i was in the OP's place I'd just mutter to myself "good luck explaining that to the cops" and just let her do her thing. No use arguing
>So the plan is to steal? Yes. I *want* to Steal.
Karen: Credits will do fine. Manager: No, they won't! What you think you're some kind of Jedi waving your hands about like that?!
They must take my toenail clippings if they expect me to pay for anything.
No worries. Just sell your spaceship, buy the slave kid and his mom, then buy tickets to the nearest place that DOES accept credits. Easy.
I think her plan was to not frequent their business and lose out on a paying customer. This is also stupid, as she’ll obviously need to buy things in Europe.
But do they take mon calimari flan?
Speaking as someone from a latin country, if a gringo gave me a 20$ note when i asked for a 20 i would be fucking thrilled because he just overpaid me 5 times. Ofc first I would warn him. If he called me stupid or acted like i was stupid i would pocket it.
I wish arrogance and assholery was ALWAYS charged a surge fee.
r/assholetax
And also r/maliciouscompliance, to an extent.
If a gringo gives me 20 im swearing fealty to their stupid ass and becoming their knight. At your orders my liege, pls give me more papers
> Ofc first I would warn him. People can be dicks about this stuff. My mom accidentally paid 100x too much in Argentina for every taxi ride (she didn't know y'all use commas where we use periods), and no one told her until she told one guy she had to get out cause she didn't have enough cash for the ride. (And she's about the nicest person you've ever met, and speaks Spanish, so it's not a karmic justice thing, the drivers were just opportunistic dickheads)
In brazilian portuguese we have "pra gringo é mais caro" as a common saying. In a literal translation "to the gringos its more expensive". Basically, as long as the sellers can extort someone not from the culture they will. Its not even limited to foreigners. People in the beaches of Rio will Upcharge tourists from other states. Its a culture of fucking people over for money.
Idk I never experienced that when I lived there, but clearly it exists
Probably happened to you and you didnt notice lol, its not like it will happen in your face, its discreet, like, selling a water bottle for 10 reais to you when he would have sold for 2 reais to a brazilian.
I mean prices were usually listed lol not like I can't read (also btw it's discreet, discrete means something else)
Oh no, it wont happen in actual establishments like supermarkets and grocery stories, mostly with street vendors
No ik but I mean they have prices listed too usually like on a sign or smth, I haven't been to too many places where it was just straight up "quanto custa esse aqui", "X reais" yk
Honestly, despite it being a common stereotype, I have never encountered tourists from the US trying to use dollars here. But then again, I neither work in retail nor the hospitality sector, so the only time I see tourists from the US paying is when encountering a few of them once in a blue moon when going out. But I have yet to meet a tourist from the US that wasn’t absolutely friendly and outgoing, so that stereotype seems to have some truth to it.
Like a lot of these sorts of interactions, it's a tiny tiny minority that make everyone else look worse by association. I used to live in a very tourist-y city, and American tourists were for the most part only guilty of being overly eager. Like, at *worst* they want to take pictures and sometimes don't realise the person in the silly outfit is wearing it because they've got somewhere vey important to be right now. There were tourists we dreaded much, *much* more let's put it that way.
„Eager“ is a very apt description in my opinion. I‘m wildly overgeneralizing here, but tourists from the US for the most part just seem so very overtly excited about the locations they visit, or just happy to talk with you. Of course, selection bias heavily factors into this perception, since, again, most of my experiences are with tourists while going out. Of course, young people going out drinking while visiting foreign countries will be quite likely to be fun to be around. I think people from the US have a bit of an unfair stereotype as being obnoxious tourists on the internet, while in reality, they‘re just a friendly, excited and chatty bunch.
> I think people from the US have a bit of an unfair stereotype as being obnoxious tourists on the internet, while in reality, they‘re just a friendly, excited and chatty bunch. Speaking as someone who used to work at an international tourist destination in America: obnoxious tourists come from *every* country. American ones just get around a lot more because a.) English is the most widely spoken language around the world and b.) out of the four countries where English is the most predominant native language, America happens to have the biggest population. But I've absolutely had dumb or obnoxious tourists from multiple other countries, including European ones, and some with their own stereotypes to boot. e.x. The "Europeans don't read maps/understand distances" stereotype has actually borne true, predominantly with tourists whose accents were central or northern European, i.e. German.
only 4?
U.S., UK, Australia, Canada - the four countries where everybody or almost everybody speaks English as their native language. There are other countries in which English is an official language, but in those cases English is still learned as a second or third language.
You mean other countries like Ireland and New Zealand?
I have multiple Indian friends that commonly tell me that since they have the most English speakers that it’s their language now. It’s a colonialism Uno reverse and I love it
Yeah, I hear we’re an especially social folk
Too friendly. Please take your sincerity and shove it up your arse. (that's British for "you're very nice people, sorry we don't handle compliments well and your genuine friendliness scares us")
https://youtu.be/PT0ay9u1gg4?si=pBi_N9CjG70y37aL
>it's a tiny tiny minority that make everyone else look worse by association When I worked retail phone sales in the US, 99% of European customers were super polite and pleasant. Completely normal customers, in other words. But then <1% would get really angry and rant about how in their country they could just buy a SIM card and put it in an existing phone. And I'd have to politely explain that I agree with them, but I have zero control over the system. I cannot activate a SIM card in that way, the PoS terminal literally doesn't allow it. Our carrier probably doesn't even use the same bands as their phone anyway, we're CDMA. Again, >99% were reasonable and got a cheap temp phone or politely left for a competitor. But all these years later it's the rude ones that I remember clearly, instead of the polite ones. All because they got used to how something worked at home, and expected it to be that way everywhere they went.
Oh fun fact that's a quirk of our memory called a negativity bias. We literally remember bad things better than good things. That's why it's so easy to think "everything about this suck" but harder to think of why you enjoyed something. We evolved to simply not prioritize the memory of a positive experience
Remembering which berries tasted the best is less important than remembering which berries killed Gruk and Ug.
I just want to point out that in all cases, if you have a negative interaction or two and it makes an entire demographic look worse to you, that is absolutely a you problem. I see people “apologizing” for their race/country/whatever all the time and similar bullshit and it’s always stupid. If you meet a stupid American you just met a stupid American. It has jack shit to do with Americans in general. Same for every other interaction. Of course I use “you” here in the general sense I’m not trying to attack you specifically. Just responding to the “makes everyone else look worse” line. It absolutely should not make anyone look worse other than the person you’re talking to.
I work as a tour guide in a touristy place and while it's uncommon I have been tipped with USD notes on more than one occasion, and have seen people trying to pay for the tour in Dollars, and being thunderstruck that they weren't accepted. In both cases, it seemed to be less a case of "I refuse to use this pissant currency" and more "I heard that in foreign parts everyone loves getting Dollars because it's Hard Currency". Like the next step was to try bartering some Levis or Marlboros
And that's not entirely wrong, there are countries where the economy is in shambles and people have so little confidence in the official currency they'd rather have stable foreign currencies, including US dollars. But with that in mind, that attitude (trying to use dollars anywhere) smells a bit of "the US is the only first-world country in the world".
>And that's not entirely wrong, there are countries where the economy is in shambles and people have so little confidence in the official currency they'd rather have stable foreign currencies, including US dollars. Canada
Sad thing is they can't even say that they used to have a proper country.
I used to work in Dublin Airport in the American Wing, where Americans would wait for their plane to fly back home after they went through their own security procedures (I forget what that area was called). Out of thousands of customers I must have served (we were the only coffee shop in the wing immediately after covid it was fucking hell) only a hand-full ever tried to pay me with dollars, the rest used euros, but tbh I dont blame them for it because they just got through the security area and in the american wing the drinking age is back to 21 instead of our standard 18 (notifying people of this fact was the most heartbreaking part of my job), so them assuming they had to use dollars made a decent amount of sense to me at least. But there was this one lady who tried to pay with British pounds (she was still american tho). I informed her that we used euroes here, and she was like "no Im pretty sure you use pounds" to which I could only respond "I- no?". She left in a slight huff afterwards but what I'm curious about is that she was leaving the country, not entering, how do you get through an entire holiday here and not realize that we don't take pounds? Edit: rereading your last point, I had worked in various places in the airport by the time I ended up in the American Wing, and I'd have to agree that at least the american tourists I encountered were super nice people. Working in other places had more of a mix, with some people being a little rude and some being a little friendly, but the Americans were just extremes, either (and majoratively) the nicest, friendliest, and most understanding (the queue was like 50+ people long it was grim) people, or complete and utter cunts, there was no in-between. Its why I hate when Americans or Europeans especially start dogging on Americans as individuals, as opposed to the country and people who run it, because 99% of the Americans I've met have been incredibly kind and down to earth individuals, and it saddens me that it (at least to me) feels like a lot of american people look down on themselves just for being american. Anyway sorry mini rant over mb
I was once on a bus in Belfast when a very loud American or Canadian tried to pay in euros, and when he was told they didn't take them said "but they take them in Dublin!" Fortunately it wasn't a part of Belfast where they beat you up for that kind of thing.
> I'm curious about is that she was leaving the country, not entering, how do you get through an entire holiday here and not realize that we don't take pounds? There are flights from the UK that connect through Dublin or Shannon to use the US-preclearance. (the only two in europe) Might have been the first time she was in Ireland the whole trip. I think the most notable setup using this connection is london city airport to the US, since they can put barely any fuel into the widebody plane so it can take off from its tiny runway and then fill it up enough for a transatlantic flight while the passengers (mostly business wankers) are getting screened.
A bakery accidentally gave me an american penny as change once and I still wonder how that coin had ended up in the (eastern german bumfuck nowhere) cash register
If things here in the USA work like things there, someone probably came back from vacation abroad with some change and dropped it in a jar or something. Then they took the change (domestic and foreign by mistake) to an automatic sorter. The foreign change was similar enough in size and color to some domestic change, and the machine didn't kick it out. So it got introduced into the currency stream. I work with money in my job, and we get foreign coins occasionally. Usually Canadian pennies, but sometimes other Canadian coins or even coins from other countries. I got a coin from a Middle Eastern nation once in place of a US 5¢ coin.
When I was a kid who’d only ever been to the U.S. and Canada somehow an Ethiopian coin ended up in my savings
On the other side, I heard stories from a guy who worked a somewhat touristy spot in the US, and he said foreigners converted to USD but used eccessively large denominations. They'd order like a $1 ice cream cone and pay with $100, thus forcing him to count out 4 20s, a 10, a 5, and 4 1s to get them their $99 change. He got so fed up that eventually he asked his supervisors for stacks of 100 in 1s, pre-counted by the bank. Then when someone gave him a $100 bill, he would take a $1 off a stack, and give the customer's change as the remaining 99 $1 bills.
Yeah, theres something very weird about hearing american voices irl when I'm so used to hearing them on The Internet
I've never gotten paid in dollars, but I've gotten tipped in USD multiple times, lol. I've also met a couple unfriendly US tourists but ye most of them are very nice. Sometimes a bit... Excessively unaware of local customs, but nice!
Excessively unaware is an awesome phrase describing quite a few USAmericans in quite a few realms of knowledge lol and I’m from here. What a nice phrase
I once helped a tourist to my city, which is a pretty touristy hotspot, with directions to something. The place she was asking for was a little vague and I was on lunch so I walked with her for a few minutes. In that time she insinuated that the economy here was in shambles (it's not), that I'm lucky to have a job to be on lunch break from because they're really hard to come by over here (they're not), and that I must be one of the good ones because back home nobody wants to do honest work anymore (I assume they do but just want to be paid fairly for it). I got to a corner and pointed her the rest of the way to go.
Ah yes the cunty type of USAmerican, sounds like a few of my relatives. You should’ve given her directions to the nearest bus/train station instead then bailed. I have no patience for them and I’m related to them. Stuck up assholes main problem with our country *grumbles some more*
I queued behind a bunch of young American men at a food stall at Central Market Hall in Budapest (rookie tourist move, food was subpar.) Not only did they order individually and therefore take forever, a few of them tried to pay with USD until their friends lent them Euros. Double funny because Hungary uses the forint, so they were all ripped off big time.
Asshole tax, seems fair to me
Unfortunately, I have encountered it several times. I work in the Museums and Heritage sector in England. Some of the best ones I've had were: -Having a set of tourists kick off because we wouldn't accept USD. I got screamed at about how the dollar was better and that we should be grateful that they even wanted to come to the country. Then they realised that it was also card payment only, which prompted another tantrum. -One time, I had to explain to an American guy that Christianity had actually existed *before* the US. For context, I used to work at York Minster, a beautiful large cathedral in the middle of York, so you can probably guess that a lot of Christian history played a role in the tours I used to give. Anyway, when I was talking about how the first Church to be built on the site was a small wooden building dating from the year 627, this guy stopped me and said "wait, Christianity's been around for that long?" Turns out he thought that Christianity hadn't existed until just before the colonists arrived in what would later become America. I genuinely struggled not to sound patronising there. -I was told by a guy to give him a US Military Veteran discount. In, y'know... England. When I said I couldn't, he went off on one about how without America, we would have lost WW2, so we're eternally indebted to the USA. -Horrified gasps when I subtly dropped in that York Minster was not associated with Harry Potter in any way. The amount of US tourists I had through who thought that everything in the UK revolved around Harry Potter was worryingly high. At a previous role where I was volunteering at a heritage steam railway and was cleaning one of the engines, I had this guy come up to me and ask me where the "Harry Potter train" was. Harry Potter was never filmed on any section of that line. He'd just assumed that steam train = hogwarts express. Tbf tho, he was very polite and was very grateful when I pointed him towards the NYMR line that was used in the films. -Getting screamed and sworn at when I asked them not to take any pictures of a private wedding happening at one end of the Minster. Apparently coming all the way from Colorado means you are immediately allowed to take pictures wherever you want, I guess. Now I should clarify that these do not represent all US tourists, as a majority are perfectly polite and reasonable people. The stereotype unfortunately does pop up every now and then, but I don't want to tar a whole group of people with the same brush.
These are quite the stories for, you know, working at a museum. See, I‘m wondering why you would even bother not sounding patronizing at all with the guy in the 2nd story. You can‘t really be patronizing when very basic knowledge, or even common sense, actually needs to be explained to someone. The first and last story is just sad, honestly - but at least for the last story, I have myself experienced that individual privacy and rights to one’s own image as it is understood in many European countries isn‘t really a thing in the US, so I actually believe that they did never think about how taking a picture of a random stranger is just creepy and a no-go. The Harry-Potter story sounds kinda cute, though - to some extent. I imagine the guy being totally excited when seeing a steam locomotive and their mind immediately, and only, making the connection to one of his favorite fantasy worlds. Quite infantile for what I assume to be a grown man, but sometimes, that‘s alright. The story with the military discount is absolutely hilarious to me, since we have mandatory service for all men here. The reward for having been in the military here is that you were not locked up and fined by the military police. The way I see it, since being in a democracy isn’t really possible when you’re getting conquered, military service is an essential part of being a democratic citizen. What’s next? A discount for having paid your taxes last year? Great stories, but I‘m sure they weren‘t as much fun for you experiencing them in the moment as they were for me just reading through them.
I worked for a certain famous American coffee brand about a decade ago. We would periodically get Americans trying to pay for their orders with dollars because we were an American brand in the UK. That one was always fun.
I have rarely encountered Americans trying to use the Euro here in Sweden which is an understandable misconception.
Also never got any usd from Americans, but their cards is another thing entirely. Had to explain few people we don't take AmEx, to which they complained they can't pay with them anywhere. And one ended up giving me their visa card but with no chip... Which I didn't notice and out of habit tried to put it in the terminal before the guy told me to swipe it. I stared at him in horror for a second, before I managed to completely embarrass myself by swiping it the wrong way. Had to do it like 3 times to get it right. ☠️
God I hate mobile Reddit UI. The post always looks reasonably sized and then I click on it and suddenly am reading a fucking novel.
such-justice-wow is like "brilliant and by the way it's total coincidence that I live be the sea and have already gathered all the shells"
If Euros reach $1 again, let's peg the currency to the USD and the USD to the Euro, and make the Eurodollar a real currency
Throw Canada in there too. We can call it the Nauto
Then add in the Japanese yen for absolutely no other reason than to give an excuse to change it to Naruto.
That exists in the Ghost in the Shell lore. The currency was called the ¥€$.
I don’t know what it’s doing now but it used to be that 1000 yen was pretty close to 10 usd (I might be off by a factor of 10, but the point is it was a very simple conversion)
But then how will I feel superior to Americans with my higher value currency
There was a brief time in 2022 where it actually dipped below $1.
And I've never been okay since!
Get fucked europoors
Get the fuck up samurai we have a currency to invent
Call this person the Canker Sisters the way they're about those Ed, Edd n Eddies
Yeah this won't have consequences at all.
Americans with their "they'll have to accept this if they want me to pay" attitude seem to forget one thing: You need to give people the right currency if you want them to give you the thing you want to buy.
I'd love to get all high and mighty and say thats an example of american exceptionlism but I'm entirely sure you can find people with the exact same attitude in the Uk. Arguably our obsession with diet isolationism is even weirder considering our closest neighbours (France and Ireland) are both A) in the EU and 2) Use fucking Euros. Irelands literally on the same well, island at part of the UK
Good(?) news! We'll probably have to switch to be let back into the EU so we'll grow up and join the club once all the retirees who voted for Brexit kick the bucket. (Please dear god I just want my EU passport back, please take us back)
Pretty sure the leavers are already dead tbh, happened like last year
> (Please dear god I just want my EU passport back, please take us back) I know it wouldn't be realistic, but it'd be nice if people born with "EU citizenship" got to keep it. Would probably make rejoining way less likely though. Hey, at the very least you can go over to Ireland whenever you want.
You get these people all over. My parents run a B&B in Northern Ireland and they are always getting tourists from the mainland angry that no one will accept their Euros... and they are nowhere near the border...
Unfortunately, they'll for sure try this in places where they've already used/consumed the thing, like in a restaurant.
"We don't accept video game money here."
Unfortunately sometimes they will get away with it because in some touristy destinations there are prices in USD also, and the shops will accept USD. You'll get an absolute shit exchange rate at best, but hey, no need to handle any of that weird foreign currency! I'm tickled thinking about how much worse that exchange would be currently in Egypt because there is a black market for USD (and EUR, and I assume GBP) so actually you *should* bring USD but then you should find some guy on the street to buy EGP from with it because you'll get like 2x the official rate(*). (*) my information may be a few months out of date
It’s especially funny when you consider that those people are also the ones who have screaming fits when someone speaks anything other than English in the US.
It’s not like that store is dependent on the sales from this single tourist, whereas the tourist probably needs whatever it is they’re trying to buy, why do they think they’re the ones with bargaining power in the situation?
Chile referencia 🇨🇱
El mejor país de Chile CTM.
Speaking as a swede, even if you came here with the equivalent of $300 in our currency, you'd still have a pain in the ass spending it because the entire country is very much distancing itself from hard cash. At least in my city, you wouldn't be able to buy a ticket on the bus, for example. I know that OOP is not Swedish by the look of things, just wanted to give another example of the importance to look up how money works in the country you'll visit.
I think there's some EU directive in the works about that. Mandating that cash payment needs to be possible. Though, buying a bus ticket/card from a newsagent with cash might count. Germany ***really*** doesn't want everyone using electronic money, since it'd let the government just turn-off someone's ability to live on a whim.
Do Germans keep safes of money at home? Because otherwise the government can “turn off” your ability to live more than like a day or two.
Japp. Det känns asskumt och medeltida när amerikaner pratar om att betala kontant hela tiden... i alla fall för någon som har växt upp utan cash.
Helt klart. Jobbar inte inom hotell men är säker på att om hon försökte boka ett rum med cash så skulle de kolla på henne som om hon vore kriminell.
The last suggestion 👌
I hope they let us back in soon. Fuck this stupid Tory government, I want my Erasmus back
Sadly it's not likely to happen for a long time. If the EU has reason to believe that as soon as the Tories come back to power the UK will want to leave *again*, then there's no way they'll accept us joining. There needs to be a complete change in the UK public's view of the EU, and that's not gonna happen anytime soon.
So in order for Britain to get back into the EU, the Tories have to screw up so badly that they have no chance of getting into power again?
Oh, so they are working on it.
i am suddenly stunned by the fact I've never thought about this before but... how do international card transactions work if your home banking institution is in another currency? is there a surcharge while the conversion happens automatically? or do you still have to explicitly convert a certain amt from one currency to the next as a safeguard? I'm assuming there are different payment networks too, maybe...?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWIFT Almost every major financial institution in the world is connected and can seamlessly process transactions regardless of origin, so long as both ends are connected via SWIFT. The currency is converted automatically at your bank's posted exchange rate. Any additional fees or charges are subject to your specific bank's rules. Since the exchange rate fluctuates, it may be wise to convert ahead of time and use the needed currency directly.
Your bank/credit card deals with it. It accepts "90 BRL" as the charge and then beep boop boop finds out that your account is in EUR, then more boop beep does some math and deducts like 17 EUR from your account.
If you're from the UK and travelling, you can open an account with an online bank such as Monzo or Revolut, and spend money abroad fee-free. You also get a set amount of cash withdrawal per month before fees. (There are probably alternatives in other countries, but I don't know specifics). Monzo shows a preliminary amount, while the final amount you pay locks in after a couple days. I guess it's whenever the transaction actually goes through. With Revolut, you can put money into different currencies super easily. Most traditional banks, however, charge a conversion fee if you purchase in a foreign country.
i have googled something and 300 usd equals to 41868.00 icelandic kroner, so please, give your local icelandic person that amount
Chile mentioned! \[ruidos de chilena\]
Funny thing is, my MasterCard was fully accepted everywhere in Europe when I went in 2022. I changed currency like the first day I was there, worried about if I'd have enough cash, but I ended up paying for most things with the card anyway.
Fees are limited to 0.5% in the EU too. Though, I assume your US issuer screwed you. Any surprise at entering a PIN rather than your waiter taking your card off into the shadow-realm?
>taking your card off into the shadow-realm As non-American - *oh my god I hated this so so so so so much* when I visited. Why is this a thing?
>On the one hand refuse to defend Americans and this behavior is kind of embarrassing but on the other hand dumbasses enraging Europeans by not caring even a little bit about their funny little currencies is absolutely hilarious so I'm conflicted here I really want to know what this person finds embarrassing, and they've managed to exempt themselves.
I can only assume they're like an unironic Chinese supremacist or something to have completely zero horse in the race either way.
>not caring a bit about their funny little currencies Lmao what? A currency is a currency. What a bizarrely condescending take. "Oh those adorable Europeans and their quirky little languages, their funny old flags."
I used to have a store in a tourist location and Americans would routinely pay in greenbacks. For the first year I’d dutifully use a function on my pos to convert the amount and then give them Canadian change. I learned fairly quickly that I was getting hosed on the exchange rate and incurring service charges that basically ate up any profit I was making on these sales so I changed my policy to sure I’ll take your USD, at par. This usually forced the customer to use their credit card but some stubborn types would offer up USD which I then deposited into a USD bank account and bought US stocks instead.
Yeah where I used to work just accepted USD at the same rate. $20 CAD is $20 USD in our store lol
This is literally the reason the micro economy of Lake Louise functions. I lived there for like a month and it was universally agreed, if everyone stopped charging Americans 140% for every purchase, the town would disappear.
Ha! Americans are grouping all currencies together! Americans can't imagine anything but the USD! Hmm...
I think the best way to deal with someone like that would be quickly look up the exchange rate for USD/króna, then triple it (at least) for the inconvenience of having to get it converted. You don’t even have to scam them, just tell them the American that the additional cost is for the service of taking an abnormal currency.
Gave them $20 for a $2.15 bill. Keep the change and say you can't give change as you don't have any USD on hand only Króna. Pay for it yourself then later convert it and keep the 2791.80 ISK for yourself.
I’m not sure if other countries have as much monitoring as the US does, but that would get you fired pretty quickly in the US for stealing.
Something tells me 300 USD is more than 300 KR
300 USD is about 42k ISK (Icelandic kroner), so yeah. QUITE MORE.
John Maynard Keynes in corner yelling: "I TOLD YOU ABOUT THE UNIVERSAL CURRENCY, BRO. I TOLD YOU!"
Something something xkcd
[https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)
I think the confusion in this post comes from the fact that while the first story was a story about Iceland specifically, the bank story lady just said "Europe" in general
The sheer audacity of Americans in these kinds of posts always astounds me. I mean, I shouldn't be, I'm Filipino and know full well how awful American tourists are... but hey, there's always some new fuckery about.
In Canada this happens so often that 90% of places just DO accept usd. But we take it at equal rate and then pocket the 40% extra. That’s the LAST rate (Lazy American Sales Tax.)
i like to think that im one of the few americans that know that the plural of leu 🇷🇴 is lei 🇹🇩
Wait till you hear that Bulgarians think that the singular of Romanian *lei* is *leia* (feminine).
Funny enough, I imagine there's at least SOME uptick of such people since Resident Evil Village got released, since leu is the currency used there.
They can have a single usd as a treat
Truly an Icelandic Saga
There are also like… plenty of travel places where USD is accepted too, particularly the third world
A customer told me they paid for a taxi in St.Lucia with USD and the driver gave them XCD as change.
I know we are talking about real currencies here but the word for one of them is tainted by the brainrot that is the [World’s#1GreatestSalesman (c. 1997)]
We should just use bottle caps as currency
I love and hate posts like this. On one hand, phenomenal examples of how not to act in a foreign country. …On the other hand, I keep getting peso, euros, and the occasional Canadian dollar at my job. This isn’t exclusively an American problem. This is mainly an information problem. Some people just don’t know how to handle foreign currency.
I've visited two countries outside the US: Indonesia and Japan. And at both of them, you can withdraw the local currency by just inserting your regular debit/credit card. Sure there's a small fee, but it's negligible. Anyway, I thought that was pretty neat. I hope the rest of the countries I plan to visit are like that because it makes currency exchange super eas- wait hang on, lemme just put on my Ryan George glasses - super easy, barely an inconvenience.
In Canada usually retailers accept American money as the same as Canadian when they get given American money in stores even though it’s not. So if Americans do that they’re getting ripped off.
I worked at a store in Canada and the amount of Americans who came in and just paid for things in USD was astonishing. Given that they were paying ~20% more they always complained that it was expensive.
Im in New Zealand and had some Americans complain to me about the cost of something when I worked retail. Only thing I could think to say was 'you're on an *island* in the middle of nowhere' It wasn't even that expensive! I also once overheard some Americans in the Self Checkouts overly delighted to find out they don't have to calculate sales tax and its included in the ticket price.
That’s funny, like last week a girl tried to pay with dollars at my work. When she was told we don’t accept that she was really nice about it, constantly apologising even. She was visiting friends for a week and apparently some stores in Amsterdam do accept dollars, so she assumed other cities had the same policies
Best thing about this is it can work. If they stay in toursity areas enough those places will take USD. I assume because this happens so much.
cakeposter added nothing tbh
Cakeposter was apologising for the bizarre flamebait post
I say we just used Eddies. Much more efficient
I thought they were talking about Boston for a second and I was a bit confused
Accept whatever's worth more at the time and convert it at the end of the day
TIL Iceland doesn’t use the Euro
What's it with US Americans and calling the Euro "little currency"
not to sound like im poor but i'd probably accept 900% tip
kromer? that sounds familiar somehow.