Shocking difference!

[Deleted User]

The Travel Money Maximiser is a great tool for people looking for a good rate when it comes to BUYING foreign currency. However, if you have leftover currency from a trip abroad and wish to SELL your foreign money, the TMM is not so great. I have 1000 Swiss francs that I wish to change into GBP. The best quote I got yesterday was £471 (no commission) in Thomas Currency FX for the 1000 CHF. Then I phoned Travelex in Heathrow and they quoted me £423!! And that was most likely BEFORE deducting a £3 commission. What an utterly rip off!! I almost dropped the phone. Today I went into a high street shop of Going Places and wait for this....they offered me exactly £400 to buy my CHF. I didn't even ask whether that offensive offer included commission or not. What I can't understand is, why would ANYONE want to deal with rip off merchants like that. I guess a lot of people must be willing to get ripped off, since they're in business.
Some years ago, I spent a lot of time in Istanbul and Singapore and the money changers I dealt with, NEVER charged more than ONE percent between buying and selling main foreign currencies. Of course they wouldn't charge commission more than once. The difference between the buying and the selling rate is how they make their profits. Let's say a currency's middle rate is 100 to the $. That means you're typically paying 100.5 in local currency if you buy 1 dollar. If you sell 1 dollar, you typically get 99.5 in local currency. This example show there's only about 1% between buying and selling. Some money changers with large turnovers change less than 1%. Here in 'rip off Britain', the difference between the buy and sell rate of 20%, is quite common and then they charge commission on top of that!
I'm lost for words!!!

hammy_the_hammer

take them next time you go to a med. tourist resort and exchange them into euros

dzug

So you can really run a business on a 0.5% 'profit' margin? Covering your premises, staff, risk of losses, and all other costs as well as actual profit? I really doubt it.

The 'rip off' in Britain is that staff expect something approaching a living wage, currency booths will attract mega rentals, etc.

Added to which a large proportion of the Great Briish Public is totally illiterate in exchange matters. The sign 'no commission' is enough to lure them in and convince them they are getting a good deal.

An example - some years back the Post Office had a standing offer - we'll exchange any left over currency at the rate at which you bought it for a 1% commission. Did the public avail themselves of it? No - not to any great extent. They went down the road to someone offering no commission, completely oblivious that the buy back exchange rate there was 10% or so worse.

hammy_the_hammer

the public's attitude to exchange rates is "what difference will it make when i exchange holiday money ?"
stuff the fact that your home grown industry might be going down the pan because of it.
i chuckle every time they go on the streets and ask joe public whether we should go with the euro in the uk . ....guaranteed someone will say that it would make it easier when they go to the costas once a year as they wouldn't need to change money!!!

Glittermonkey

I'd just like to add that BAA charge the FX operators for each transaction, they take nearly half the commission on each transaction!

Travelex and Amex will both buy back at the same rate for a small fee and as far as I know Amex has some more restrictions on their buy back than Travelex does.

Finishrich

I don't know when you bought the CHF's but the rate has dropped in the last few weeks it was just over 2CHF to the £ and I thought that was poor but when I checked earlier today it's now just under the 2 CHF which is the lowest it's been for years.

budgetflyer

Glittermonkey wrote: »

Travelex and Amex will both buy back at the same rate for a small fee and as far as I know Amex has some more restrictions on their buy back than Travelex does.

That fee must be paid at time of purchase to get the guaranteed buy back rate.

It may be worth trying some of the high street pawn shops such as Cash Convertors or Cheque Centre. They work on tighter margins. Certainly for selling Euro/$ they beat just about everyone.

ailuro2

The best way to avoid these buy back charges, is to take only a nominal amount of hard currency, use a Nationwide card, or other fee-free card to spend on,or with=draw money without stinging penalties and then when you come to the last day or two of hols make sure you spend all of your leftover currency before you fly home.