Bill Horne asked "whatever happened to travelers' cheques?"
They're still around (in fact when my 89 year old dad came to the states in May he brought some with him.) The reason they're not so popular now is that if you use a bank check card/debit card generally you'll have easier access to local cash and you'll also get a much better exchange rate generally than you do exchanging travelers' cheques.
***** Moderator's Note *****
IIRC, Travelers' checks can be purchased in any currency.
|***** Moderator's Note ***** | |IIRC, Travelers' checks can be purchased in any currency.
I never thought to try that. The last time I used Travelers' checks (about 20 years ago) was in Italy. The banks and other money changing locations would not accept them unless you presented your passport. Italy has this thing where the hotel is (supposedly) required to take your passport at check-in to register with the police. After that they really don't like to give it back until you check out. Eventually I stood at the desk making a pain of myself asking when they would finish "registering" me so I could have my passport back. (This was already day
2 so they had had plenty of time.) After a few rounds telling me I really didn't need it they decided they could make a photocopy for themselves and let me have the original.
If the Travelers' checks had been denominated in local currency I wonder if I could have used them without a passport.
I've never encountered the hotel passport thing in any other "modern" European country nor have the money changers there needed to see my passport. Seems like a funny coincidence.
They forge almost anything. The other day my wife went to the market and had about $5.00 worth of Internet coupons and the market no longer will take them since they got burned on forgeries, that is the fault of the markets employees the coupons all have an anti-copy lines on them.
Oh, that's for sure. Several years ago here in Silicon Valley, two high school kids at, IIRC, Atherton High School made 100% perfect phony California drivers' licenses using equipment they purchased on eBay. Even the holograms on the licenses appeared legitimate. The purpose? "Fake" IDs to purchase alcoholic beverages. A quick Google search using "atherton counterfeit driver license" found this article describing what they did (longer ago than I thought):
Odd. Here I just print coupons from the local supermarket store's web site using my HP laser printer.
I last used traveler's checks in 2001 during a trip to Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It was more trouble than it was worth. The hotel was the only place I could find where I could exchange them for cash and the rate they gave me wasn't very competitive. Also, for reasons I didn't understand, I was given checks in denominations of $20. That was a lot of signing. Money changers are more prevalent outside of the US and Canada (my experience has been they're everywhere in Europe, Asia, and Mexico).
Being someone who's on an extended business trip to Malaysia I must say using an ATM to withdrawal local currency is the way to go. No hassles. The only fly in the ointment could be if the machine isn't programmed for English, or at least a language you understand. I also suggest using ATMs associated with a bank and not standalone, independent ATM. I don't trust those. I use the ATM at work which belongs to Maybank. I can even "top off" my pre-paid cellular at most ATMs.
Getting currency in the US before your trip isn't always a good idea either. In the pre-Euro days a friend of mine went to Italy. He got lira at a local bank in the US. He arrived in Italy and stopped in a shop after leaving the airport, handed the woman his money, and she started shouting "Polizia". He had handed her money was very obviously counterfeit, but since he wasn't familiar with their money he had no idea. It turned out the thousands of US dollars worth of lira he had was all fake and by the sounds of it not much better quality than Monopoly money.
About 12 years ago I returned from a business trip in Mexico. I had traveler's checks left over. On the way home I stopped at the local supermarket chain. I asked if they could accept traveler's checks. He navigated the menu on the register and I saw "Mexican Peso" was an option. I asked him to try that as I had leftover pesos. Sure enough it worked and it computed my change in USD. But he was then puzzled what to do with the pesos. For the record I live in Texas and this chain, H-E-B, has stores in Texas and northern Mexico.
True. But trying to cash a Swiss France T/C at a Swiss bank or post office will bring you up against a fee as high as 10% for the privilege, as will trying to cash a Chinese Yuan T/C at a Chinese bank or PO, or ... ; whereas using an ATM/debit card at an ATM will trigger, at worst, a
3% fee on the part of your card issuer (and perhaps a $2.00 charge on the part of the ATM owner).
Not really. You can get them in major currencies like UK pounds, Euro, and Japanese yen, but you won't find them in Argentine pesos.
Nope. You will also generally find that the rate you get when you buy TCs in anything other than your local currency is so poor that it negates any advantages.
Personally, I haven't used them in a decade. ATM cards work better.
I'm not sure that the Internet or any other modern advance in technology has made or allowed people to be more dishonest.
I remember as a kid, pre-Internet, pre-computer, that dads lied about their kids' Little League runs, moms lied about the chores their kids did around the house to earn scouting merit badges, etc.
Liberace lied about being gay (and won money from a defamation suit by a newspaper), our neighbor, Mr. Hall, lied to the tax authority about the kitchen addition he had made to his home.
My uncle Art disconnected the bell on the illegal stolen Bell System phone he added to the illegal guest room he'd built in his home, so he wouldn't be charged for the extra phone on his line.
One of the things I've observed living in San Francisco where we have lots of tourists is how many people immediately cash out their travelers' checks once they arrive in town. Well, the trouble with theft is not going to happen on the plane or ship; it's going to happen in the hotel room, in the wallet, etc. So, a lot of people aren't using travelers' checks properly.
I don't recall the original discussion. But for our younger readers, today Visa and Mastercard* credit cards are commonplace, accepted virtually anywhere and almost everyone has one. This is a relatively recent situation. It wasn't that long ago that only people with solid credit--having a good job for several years and living in one place for several years--could get such a card. The credit limits were much lower. Further, they were not accepted as widely as today. The other cards, such as American Express, Diner's Club, etc., were fairly rare. Accordingly, people who travelled purchased travelers checks as a way of protecting their cash. (I once lost some travelers checks and true to their ads they were great about replacing them.) Once Visa and Mastercard became commonplace, they were much more convenient and thus used instead.
I believe their names used to be Bank Americard and Master Charge.
I should also note that years ago using the card was less convenient. They did not have the instant automatic validators they have now. A store clerk would first check a booklet, and for big purchases, telephone (slow rotary dial 10 digits) a service bureau and orally pass the information, wait, and then write down an authorization code.
I believe the travellers check companies made their money mostly from the fact that you paid for the checks up front, but took time to use them; and in that time difference they could invest the money. There was also of course the service fees paid up front.
In the days before widespread ESS, I wonder what kind of national telephone voice and data network "SCAN" the Bell System provided for American Express (one of the principal check companies). It must have been quite sophisticated. For large national organizations the Bell System provided special national networks of tie lines interconnecting various locations. A telephone set would have two numbers--the Centrex or outside number regular callers used, and a separate internal number for the special network.
If memory serves, a former president of American Express became the president of IBM, one of the first outside people to lead the organization in a long time. He brought to IBM the perspective of a major customer. He had the challenge of turning IBM around from a "big iron" maker to one more suited for the modern era.
I additionally suggest using the ATM while the attached bank is open. While in Norway many years ago I was using my U.S.-based ATM card when the ATM froze for several minutes, then rebooted, then retained my card. (Probably because the ATM doesn't know whether the customer has walked away in the interim.)
As the attached bank branch was closed that Saturday afternoon, I had to return the following Monday to get my card back. Fortunately I wasn't moving on to another city; otherwise it would have been a major hassle.
So perhaps another piece of advice would be to carry more than one ATM card.
There was also First National City "Everything Card" way back when.
Back when I worked retail, we had a "Floor Limit", usually $25. Above that you had to phone in and get an Auth Code. Below that you checked the book for a stolen card. Back then they would even give a merchant the customer's address and phone number if you requested it.
I remember getting a special "Validator" phone maybe 1975. It was much faster and it gave you approve/decline in a few seconds. There was no swiping. You imprinted the card on the charge slip and then punched in the card number and the amount on the Validator.
Back then they offered a reward to any salesperson who caught and turned in a stolen card. Nobody I ever worked with ever found one, but we were always speculating if the thief would pull a gun or something if we wouldn't give the card back to him.
Yes, but most banks don't have a variety of currencies in stock, only the ones for which there is some appreciable demand (usually just the local currency. More than 25 years ago I cashed some U.S. dollar, American Express, traveler's checks in Reynosa, Mexico, just a few miles from the border, and the bank still wanted to see my driver's license and other identifying material (that was before you needed passprots for Mexico; I think they may still not be required in the border zone.) Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com
Chase Bank ATMs have a menu with many foreign languages to select from, many in non-Latin characters. I think I mistakenly hit one in Slavic characters one day but the preompts were obvious enough I didn't bother to start over. Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com
I believe in the waning days of the old Bell System they developed such a unit. This was likely one of the last customer sets designed by the old Bell System. How widely it was used I can't say; don't recall seeing any in service. Large dept. stores tended to use their own homegrown variety of validator.
BTW, I remember credit cards issued way back that had punched holes in them instead of the mag stripe, as an early form of machine readability. I think _widespread_ usage of magstripes on credit cards didn't come out until the 1980s.
Our emeritus moderator worked in credit card processing for an oil company; his thread describes their operations in handling all the charge slips. They card number and amount were optically read-- embossed by the Addressograph machine most charge counters used.
I understand going back even further, charge cards were once known as "charge plates" and were metallic, not plastic.
In today's world, a possibiliity. People I know who work in retail today tell me they're told never to stop a thief or confiscate a refused card. As an aside, today, I notice in smaller stores the charge validator uses a dial up connection, sometimes you hear it dial and connect. Bigger stores seem to have them permanently on-line.
I suspect the Baby Bell companies are busy selling data link services to retail stores. A chain drugstore would require extensive data links for not only credit card purchases, but prescription insurance validations, and corporate reporting. Indeed, such stores have self- service terminals where one types out a job application.
I once was paying for a corporate dinner by credit card in those days, and the authorization bureau closed by the time we were thorugh eating and the amount, of course, was over the floor limit. Fortunately I had two credit cards and the restaurant split the bill. Early credit cards started out local and were peddled mostly to merchants that the issuing bank could handle their credit card for less than it cost the neighborhood merchant. Also as soon as they got some merchants signed up they sent you a card good at all the merchants who had signed up. (That's how I got two cards from two different banks which were each pushing their own plans and had signed up different merchants. Many banks sent out cards to all or most of their customers. As to being something special, not originally. I don't even remember a formal credit limit, although anything over a specified amount (the "floor limit") had to get authorization from the bank. I don't recall that the floor limit was published to customers, but any merchant could tell you. There were no magnetic strips and the imprinting raised characters were on a metal strip riveted to the paper card. Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com
C'mon, the main reason for the *increase* is the way modern technology has made access to and the opportunity for criminal activity easier.
Every convenience made available with technology has opened a certain level of criminal opportunity, and without all these technologies that we are all happy to use comes the vectors that the crims can use including the social ones).
Turn off the Internet, shut down electronic money transfers and the world may seem a bit more "Honest", but I doubt that it actually will be.
-- Regards, David.
David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have.
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