We’re getting hammered on foreign transaction fees!

So I checked our account today and saw that we were being charged a foreign transaction fee each time we make a withdrawal at the cash machine. Trying to see how to get around this but something you need to consider when traveling.

We will need some Euros when we arrive in Italy, so I went out to find a place that will exchange Pounds for Euros. Found a place that sends Western Union payments so I thought they must be legit. I walk in and ask for Euros and the younger guy turns over to the older guy and starts to have a long conversation in what sounded like Arabic. I imagine it went some thing like this:

“This guy wants to buy Euros. Do we have Euros?”
“We have, but they are in the back. Should we give them to him or just tell him to go away?”
“If we tell him we don’t have Euros, he might be a cop and then he would get suspicious why we don’t have Euros.”
“Didn’t you pay the police protection money this month?”
“I thought you paid it. Just give him the Euros and get him out of here. ”

And with that, the older guy went in the back, got the Euros came back and handed them to me.

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