Priority Urgent Cuba

Legacy_user

I've just had a call from my daughter in Cuba, it seems 3 people on the trip are Scottish and they've taken scottish currency and unable to find a bank that will exchange the notes for cuban currency. Does anyone have any information please. I've phoned the Bank of Scotland who say there are no sanctions on this currency and it is probably a discretionary thing, but that's no help.

Voyager2002

Maybe she/they can find some other British tourists who would exchange the Scots notes for them? After all, they can be used throughout the UK.

mystic_trev

To be quite frank anyone taking Scottish notes to another country just has to be plain stupid! Some retailers in England won't take Scottish notes, let alone Cuba. I suggest the three of them try to borrow money off other Holiday makers and put the whole episode down to a lesson learnt!

Emmzi

Could you Western Union them some money?

alanrowell

Scottish banknotes aren't legal tender ANYWHERE in the world - not even in Scotland.

Cadge money off their fellow holidaymakers. Have a word with the tour rep as I seem to recall that non-US backed CC's can be used to get a cash advance.

mystic_trev

Emmzi wrote: »

Could you Western Union them some money?

They'd be more chance of getting the Cubans to accept the Scottish notes!

jonesMUFCforever

Do they not have any debit or credit cards?
(My A&L credit card issued by MBNA has an emergency money wire facility - although I have never had to use it - perhaps others do to?)

System

I spoke to the Bank of Scotland who told me that there was no reason for Cuban banks to refuse the notes. I spoke to the Tour Company who said there were several options. 1) try changing the currency at top class hotels 2) try selling it to fellow travellers in the group, 3) use visa cards or 4) then they gave me a direct line phone number so that one of the group could contact MY contact at the company, who could arrange finance to be available at their agent in Havana.

I was told that in documentation, it is pointed out not to take Bank of Scotland, Nrthn Ireland or Channel island notes. I passed this information back to the group who by now had left Havana and on route for "cigar country". They seemed well satisfied with my attempt to help.

So there you are. Maybe someone might learn from this.

lynzpower

let this be a lesson for anyone going to cuba.

the usual rules of currency exchange do not exist. Do your homework!

I remember being stuck in Trinidad on a sunday with my sterling TCs and nowhere to exchange them as it was a sunday. I jsut couldnt believe it! However, this is cuba, the only thing to do was to get 100% ratted on mojitos and wait for the tourist office to open the next day.

Voyager2002

lynzpower wrote: »

let this be a lesson for anyone going to cuba.

the usual rules of currency exchange do not exist. Do your homework!

I remember being stuck in Trinidad on a sunday with my sterling TCs and nowhere to exchange them as it was a sunday. I jsut couldnt believe it! However, this is cuba, the only thing to do was to get 100% ratted on mojitos and wait for the tourist office to open the next day.

Cuba is far from unique in this respect.

I once wasted a week -- yes, a whole week -- failing to change money in Bogota, the capital of Colombia. I had changed a small amount of money at the airport, but had planned to change at a better rate in town. The major banks would not only change my AmEx travellers' cheques (US dollar) but could not tell me who would do so. And it was really annoying because you had to go right inside each bank and queue up for half an hour before finding out that they couldn't help! Of course, they would advise you to go to the next bank, where the same thing would happen...

Eventually I went direct to the Amex office. Even they would not change their own traveller's cheques, but gave me a couple of bank addresses and times, and warned me that I also needed to bring along a photocopy of my passport for the bank to keep. The first time I went, I found the relevant counter but the clerk was chatting on the telephone. By the time she had finished, the clock over her desk (which was a few minutes fast) said that the 30 minutes in which currency could be changed each week was up, and so she sent me away. The next day, at another bank, I finally managed to get my hands on some more pesos. And for some reason I had stopped worrying about the exchange rate!

All the trouble in Colombia resulted from their government's concern about money-laundering (drug money). Of course, at the time the drug lords were bank-rolling ALL the political parties and maintained private armies that were more than a match for the national armed forces. I don't think these silly laws caused them any trouble, but simply convinced the USA that they were doing something about the problem. And the restrictions on money-changing were irrelevant to the ways in which the drug lords were later defeated and imprisoned (which is another long story). Sad that Blair's Britain has learnt only the wrong lessons from this experience.

Katmc2k

alanrowell wrote: »

Scottish banknotes aren't legal tender ANYWHERE in the world - not even in Scotland.

can you explain what you mean by this? I can't tell if its a joke or not but I assume it must be... have I been paying with fakes all these years???