You might say “Excuse me? I just want to count my money again.” and that’s basically it.
When you insist to count the money in front of their eyes again, they will begin to make some ‘tohuwabou’ or telling you, that *you* want to cheat *them*. You can bet that you have much less than the agreed sum, especially, if you changed for than just a few dollars or if the sum is pretty uneven Very quickly you have the double-counted money back. All while the other guy is pumping up his ‘chit-chat’ attack, maybe even touching your arm, showing you something he want to sell or jumping around next to you, so you can’t but look at him from time to time. They mainly try to hold it close to their belly so notes can easily be slid out and fall under the high desk on which both sides the 2 of you are standing. Hold the notes tight – because now he wants to count them again! Don’t let him! You count and everything is fine usually. After handing over your 50 Euro, 75 USD, 100 SGD or whatever other currency, they will count the local agreed equivalent right in front of your eyes. If you didn’t walk out by now already, you are ready for the main show They type you the local sum into a calculator, which could be rigged too, although we didn’t have that problem yet. The other one will quote you a rate, sometimes already an other, than advertised. So one is always trying to keep you busy, by asking questions like “Where you from?”, “What you do?”, “Where you stay in Bali?” and other standard chit-chat. First, they almost always come in a pair of 2 guys, who run a Money Changer shop. So what problem should arise? Count your Cash, do the math, hand the bills over and count the Cash you get in return? Unfortunately, not here in Bali.ģ out of 3 Money Changers we tried to exchange Money tried to cheat us. On the above mentioned roads you can see them every few metres. They announce their rates on billboard signs (see left) standing by their shops. There is an abundance of Money Changers in Kuta, Legian or Seminyak along the main tourist routes, like Jalan Dhyana Pura, Jalan Legian or Jalan Raya Seminyak. What is the obvious institution that comes to mind? Right, a Money Changer! Driving around the Island it became almost inevitable that someone had to change their cash EURO oder Singapore Dollar into the local currency Rupiah. Over the last 3 weeks we had some visitors from Germany and Singapore. The next episode only confirmed those worries: It’s what you read and hear, that most of the time people get cheated or aren’t paid the agreed rates or simply have less money at the end, then what they bargained for. Other than the ones at Singapore’s Changi Airport or big, official Banks with receipts and all I just don’t trust them. I usually don’t use Money Changers at all.
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