Euro (€) Currency Thread

belfastgirl23

shockedsaver wrote: »

I am off to the Cape Verde islands at the beginning of October and i am a little confused about what currency i should be taking. Can anyone offer me some advice?
I have had a look on the usual sites but some say Euros and others say Dollars. Don't want to go with the wrong currency as i know there arn't many places to change it.

Any help would be great!:huh:

If there's a choice (ie both currencies are commonly accepted there), given the exchange rates at the minute I'd go for dollars. But I don't know anything about the currency in Cape Verde though...others might know more.

moredough

robnye wrote: »

thought i was being clever and followed the 'change your money into foreign currency' for the best rate.

used the mse best currency thing...

went to the website for 'currency express', ordered my euros at the best rate
euros promptly delivered 2 days later....

now the pee'd off bit,

just checked my bank statement and i have been charged 2% of the transaction amount...

spoke to my bank (A&L), to be told, its not their fault its visa...

but surely A&L are the ones to blame, they deducted the money (cotton picking winkers!)

what i dont understand, is i paid by debit card (cash straight from my account) to a british company in pounds and then got charged for doing so..... it was a computer to computer transaction, how can visa justify charging me the same fee as they would charge if i had withdrawn the money overseas....... i would have ended up paying less n the high street....

uuuurrrgggghhhhhhh

Just checked my A&L statement to find a transaction card counter charge too. Phoned them and was told it's because you've bought foreign currency. Tried arguing but they're not interested. All I was told is it tells you on the back of your statement. Outrageous. When you buy something like this with a credit card, You are told at the point of sale 'Your credit card company may charge you for this transaction'. Yes they probably tell you somewhere in your CC small print too, but who honestly reads that before making a purchase. Why is the same warning not given to Visa Debit card users. It's my money, straight from my account. Completing a transaction in GB£ in the UK. Why should they have the right to help themselves to a percentage of that transaction just because I've bought currency and not a weekly shop. It's nothing to do with them what I buy, is it?

I bought currency last year from Travelex using a Maestro card and was not charged. This year, I used Travelex again, this time using my A&L's Visa Debit, without giving it a second thought and the robbing bankers charged me. :eek:

I could have gone to the cashpoint. withdrawn my, yes my cash and then gone and bought some Euros, or I could have just bought the Euros from my Maestro card if there had been a warning when purchasing using that theiving Visa Debit on Travelex' website. :mad:

That, to me, is unfair bank charges. A&L have gone way down in my opinion, and I am seriously considering leaving them.:mad:

I too read the article on travel money, and didn't spot that one.:mad:

MigsyBigsy

Not sure if this is the right post for my query, but here goes anyway.

I have recently changed my Turkish lira into sterling but I am left with around £5 worth of Turkish coins as the exchange shop does not accept coins. Does anyone know if there is a Bureau that buys coins (in London would be good)

thanks

JimBlizz

moredough wrote: »

I too read the article on travel money, and didn't spot that one.:mad:

I just had this, i'm rather disgusted. £6.59 - to cover what? Is this an unfair bank charge I can claim back? :mad:

benjus

JimBlizz wrote: »

I just had this, i'm rather disgusted. £6.59 - to cover what? Is this an unfair bank charge I can claim back? :mad:

I don't think so. I may be wrong, but AFAIK the bank charges you can (potentially) claim back are limited to penalty charges for breach of contract, since the law only allows such penalties to cover the actual cost incurred to the bank.

Manx_Cat

My son is living in France for a year doing a degree. He has opened (he has to or cannot get registered, plus he needs to pay for a flat and utilities by standing order!) an account in a French bank. To save money, I'm thinking the best is to use the Travel Money Maximiser to get the best rate for a termly lump sum, draw out cash from my bank here and change it into travellers cheques in Euros for the best rate, then he can pay it in to his bank account in France.

Any other suggestions?

Cheers

benjus

Manx_Cat wrote: »

My son is living in France for a year doing a degree. He has opened (he has to or cannot get registered, plus he needs to pay for a flat and utilities by standing order!) an account in a French bank. To save money, I'm thinking the best is to use the Travel Money Maximiser to get the best rate for a termly lump sum, draw out cash from my bank here and change it into travellers cheques in Euros for the best rate, then he can pay it in to his bank account in France.

Any other suggestions?

Cheers

Using Travellers' Cheques is going to be rather expensive, I would have thought. The cheapest way would be to open a Nationwide Flexaccount and give him the card. Then you can load it with the money and let him withdraw it in cash and pay it into his French account. However, you would need to be careful he didn't draw too much and take the account overdrawn.

Alternatively, using a Forex specialist should give you better rates. Have you read this article (http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/overseas-money-transfers)?

As an example, I have an account with Moneycorp (http://www.moneycorp.com/personal/) which offers good rates for international transfers. The minimum one-off transfer is £5000, but the regular payment plan can be used for a minimum of £250 per month.

harryhound

BTW bouncing a cheque is a criminal offence in France - they don't go for financially irresponsible students over there.

The son of a friend of mine had his cheque book stolen (& then used); it caused a lot more problems than the same events would in the UK.

indierocker85

Hi,

I bank with Barclays and dont have a good enough credit rating to apply for a credit card. And in any case there wont be enough time.

When the best rate online was 1.24 I planned to get a fair FX card 2 weeks before we go away on 26/9/08 and change £100 on the high street. However I can only afford to take about £500 as can my partner. So now I am panicking because come 2 weeks before the holiday the rate may have dropped WAYYY down again. As it is now. IS there anything else I can do to get a better rate, or maybe change out in Alcudia, Spain? Or buy from anywhere not mentioned on here. Really dont wanna be restricted to what we can do on hol just cause of not much money :-'(

**woody123**

I'm in much the same situation as you but i leave in 3 weeks for gran canaria.

I too have seen the euro rate at 1.24 but didn't have the funds to get it at the time and now have seen it drop to 1.20.

The rate at the resort is likely to be much the same it is here on high street so you could take a bit english money over with you.

I'm going to wait another week before exchanging my money and see if the rate goes up a bit.