TODAYS CURRENCY RATES ON THE STREET

[rick00001967]

Nothing beats just using a bank card to withdraw Pesos at a Bank owned ATM, as long as you reject the initial conversion fees. Google is showing 16.59 Pesos to the CAD.

thx don. yes i am aware of the online rate. that is why am not too eager to get mxn thru my bank. they are charging about 7%. if i get usd they charge about 3.5%.

but i am trying to find what the rates are at the exchange booths on the street. that is where we typically exchange our dollars. i do not use atm's as the fees thru my bank are crazy high.

 

[rick00001967]

The "street" rate is about 1 peso less than the active offical banking rate usually roughly..... plus minus.....

so i guess the question is......if the online rate is 16.59 today for example, what would the banks rate be down there ? (my banks rate is 15.39 which is about 7% less) if we know that, then the street rate should be about one peso less than that.

 

[DandyDon]

@MMM is a Canadian who lives on the island for periods. Maybe she can offer help. I avoid the currency exchange booths.

 

[ChuckP]

so i guess the question is......if the online rate is 16.59 today for example, what would the banks rate be down there ? (my banks rate is 15.39 which is about 7% less) if we know that, then the street rate should be about one peso less than that.

My guess of 1 peso is based on dollars - I'll try and see what a rate is for today when I run out.

 

[ChuckP]

so i guess the question is......if the online rate is 16.59 today for example, what would the banks rate be down there ? (my banks rate is 15.39 which is about 7% less) if we know that, then the street rate should be about one peso less than that.

Took two pictures today, one is CI Banco which has decent rates, the second is another exchange place that always has worse rates, like 0.20 pesos difference on the dollar - looks like trhey really don't care for Looneys.... Both places ar closed so I'd guess that is Saturdays prices. Just a FYI - Oxxo usually posts their rate in the window, one Oxxo was 19.10 today, the other was 19.4 today - probably someoe not updating the board.....

 

[Kimela]

I protect myself by not using my debit card. In the states I use credit cards for everything. Almost never have cash on me. When I go on a diving trip I carefully plan how much cash I'll need, and bring a buffer just in case. If a place takes credit cards without too ridiculous of a surcharge, I use that to conserve cash. I still have my debit card if I need more cash, but it's an absolute last resort.

I wouldn't call it living in fear, but I am probably more security conscious than most due to the nature of my work. And I've read too many stories about people getting told "too bad so sad" by their bank when somebody used their debit card to withdraw cash and they couldn't prove it wasn't them. It does happen. It's so easy to avoid, I just do.

I'm not mandating. Just educating! There are a lot of people out there that don't know how 'OEM' these skimmers can look.

What are your thoughts on the Schwab debit card that works with the phone app, so you can turn off the card (via the app) right after using the card, so nothing else will go through? I haven't spoken with Schwab, but I guess I'm hoping that if it's turned off I wouldn't need to worry about charges that come after that. But I don't work in that industry so am curious about your assessment.

 

[DeltaWardog]

Schwab debit card that works with the phone app, so you can turn off the card

I know nothing about that so I can't offer an opinion. It sounds like a good solution and I like that companies are trying to find ways to solve these security problems. I think no matter what kind of options they gave me, I would still want liability protection in the form of disputing charges. And that is often the problem with the debit card - that's your money they took, not the creditor's money. And you're out that money until the investigation is concluded, no matter what. So you might want to ask Schwab what happens if criminals still manage to get a fraudulent charge through even though you were diligent about securing access.

Keep in mind, the way skimmer operations work is that they are often just collecting your info and reselling it to other criminals. You might get your card skimmed and a fraudulent charge show up weeks or months later, and you didn't even know your data was compromised that long ago, so it's hard to figure out where the leak was if you used that card in other places since.

 

[rick00001967]

Took two pictures today, one is CI Banco which has decent rates, the second is another exchange place that always has worse rates, like 0.20 pesos difference on the dollar - looks like trhey really don't care for Looneys.... Both places ar closed so I'd guess that is Saturdays prices. Just a FYI - Oxxo usually posts their rate in the window, one Oxxo was 19.10 today, the other was 19.4 today - probably someoe not updating the board.....

wow that is really kind of you to do this. it is interesting to see the differences. i guess my banks rate of 15.39 is not as bad as i thought. thx !!

 

[gopbroek]

I have been using a Schwab account for about 5 years now for trips in Cozumel (up to 18 trips a year) and haven't had any issues. I load it by writing myself a check and mobile depositing it intialy but for the last few years I parked some money in a brokerage account and can transfer funds into the checking account at will.
Currently Oanda lists a bank exchange rate of 20.63 MXN :1 USD with any ATM I use I would expect Schwab to exchange it about 20.58 to 1 and pickup the ATM fees. If the card got hacked there is normally no more than a few hundred dollars sitting in the account

 

[DandyDon]

Those photos help a lot, Chuck. Thanks.

one is CI Banco which has decent rates

Google is quoting 1 CAD = 0.80 USD at the moment, so 80% of 19.20 = 15.36, so that looks like expected. Google is quoting 1 CAD = 16.57 MXN at the moment.

the second is another exchange place that always has worse rates, like 0.20 pesos difference on the dollar - looks like trhey really don't care for Looneys

That 14.70 just wrong, but I guess they think it's worth a try.

Zoom would probably be best if you had time for the first transaction to go thru.