Thorn Tree travel forum

1

The only time we used a casa de cambio was right after we landed in El Dorado Airport when we have to use pesos to pay the taxi driver. After we realized the lousy exchange rate we were dealt with, no more. We used ATM's whereever we go.

For those who will be landing in El Dorado. Do use the money exchange booth when you get out of customs. Turn back and go upstairs to the banks to get your pesos from the ATM's.

2

Cash is really dumb in Colombia. Total rip-off.

ATMs are the only way to go.

Cheers,
Terry

3

when you go to some club in madrid and see a few idiots snorting cocaine there is your reason as to why you get such a bad rate for $ and Euros in Colombia. The idiots snorting cocaine around the world are providing Colombia with huge (bilions and billions) of excess Euros and US$.. and when you got too many Euros and US$ to change into pesos what happens.. .the rate goes down.

so a drug trafficker sends a few million $ or Euros back to Colombia and goes to a dodgy Casa de Cambio to try to offload it.. they offer 10-30% below the official rate to try and get rid of it and in turn the casa de cambio offers 5-20% below the official rate to try and offload it to everyday people.

last year there was an even bigger discrepency due to the americans turning back a shipment of US$ because they thought it was drug laundering (duh!) so there was an excess supply of $ and Euros in the market to get rid of.. you could buy Euros for 28% below the official rate at one point last year. it was like christmas.. i bought several thousand euros.. flew them to ireland put them in the account then sent them on to some other bank and there you have a profit of a thousand or two euros for absolutely no work.

thankyou drug addicts.

when travelling in colombia use your atm and credit cards.. dont change money in casa de cambios.. colombias got enough euros and $ from drugs and does not want much more

4

Are you saying there is a currency market to play in Colombia? That's encouraging given the dismal stock market performance these past months.

5

It's actually a business in Colombia to take money out of an ATM, exchange it to dollars, then take the dollars home to deposit into a USD account. If you time it right you can easily make an instant 15% to 20%. I made out like a frigging bandit last winter...

Cheers,
Terry

6

chasum, surely three weeks is sufficient time to discover that you are in Colombia - not Columbia. Merely as a matter of courtesy...
Have fun with your money...
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