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Unrelated to the article and discussion of policing, but how does money work in border towns? Do towns close to the border accept both forms of currency? Do peo

by toxican 10y ago

Unrelated to the article and discussion of policing, but how does money work in border towns? Do towns close to the border accept both forms of currency? Do people just carry both? Does using a credit card just do the conversion behind the scenes?

chillwaves 10y ago
Some credit cards charge international fees, some do not.
ahlatimer 10y ago
I can't speak for the Canadian side, but I grew up in El Paso. El Paso is right on the Mexican border with another large Mexican city on the other side, Juarez, and a fair amount of travel in both directions. On the US side, everything is done in dollars. On the Mexican side, pesos or dollars both generally work. I can't answer how Mexicans get ahold of dollars -- it's just never been a problem I've had to solve. I would suspect it's similar to when I've gotten local currency outside the US. There are currency exchange places, though I've only seen them in airports, your CC does the conversion automatically, an ATM does, or you go to a bank.
- pyre 10y ago
  > your CC does the conversion automatically At a markup. This was 1% for Visa and MasterCard back in ~2006 when I looked into it.
mikestew 10y ago
ahlatimer gave you the southern perspective, and for the Canadian side, my experience says that a store will take your foreign currency at (approximately) the exchange rate, but you'll get local currency as change. As you get further from the border, a vendor will still take your funny money, but "at par": my $20 U. S. buys me $20 Canadian in goods. Which currently means I, a holder of U. S. currency, get screwed by 28%. That's the penalty for not finding a Canadian ATM or using a credit card. On the U. S. side, it would appear, according to signs at the cash registers, that many U. S. vendors work in a similar manner. The registers signs disappear within tens of miles of the border.

by toxican 10y ago

chillwaves 10y ago

Some credit cards charge international fees, some do not.

ahlatimer 10y ago

I can't speak for the Canadian side, but I grew up in El Paso. El Paso is right on the Mexican border with another large Mexican city on the other side, Juarez, and a fair amount of travel in both directions. On the US side, everything is done in dollars. On the Mexican side, pesos or dollars both generally work. I can't answer how Mexicans get ahold of dollars -- it's just never been a problem I've had to solve. I would suspect it's similar to when I've gotten local currency outside the US. There are currency exchange places, though I've only seen them in airports, your CC does the conversion automatically, an ATM does, or you go to a bank.

pyre 10y ago
> your CC does the conversion automatically At a markup. This was 1% for Visa and MasterCard back in ~2006 when I looked into it.

mikestew 10y ago

ahlatimer gave you the southern perspective, and for the Canadian side, my experience says that a store will take your foreign currency at (approximately) the exchange rate, but you'll get local currency as change. As you get further from the border, a vendor will still take your funny money, but "at par": my $20 U. S. buys me $20 Canadian in goods. Which currently means I, a holder of U. S. currency, get screwed by 28%. That's the penalty for not finding a Canadian ATM or using a credit card. On the U. S. side, it would appear, according to signs at the cash registers, that many U. S. vendors work in a similar manner. The registers signs disappear within tens of miles of the border.