Oh sure, it sounds dodgy as fuck.
It was seven people, by the article.
Again, I think the denomination of the cash would be the clue as to their real intention. And I would bet towards American dollars.
But even crossing knowingly, there being 4 adults and 3 kids (two of them really young) points towards a very unwise attempt to go on vacation to the US even though the visa was denied, more than anything darker. Which would be stupid and illegal, certainly.
Nesrie
3494
Things might be different now but you used to be able to spend USD pretty easily in Canada. It’s still a little weird to carry that much if you don’t intend to go the US…
What they describe about their facility and the baby is horrific. I don’t care if they were lying or not. We should not treat people like that.
Scuzz
3495
Are travelers checks not a thing anymore? I would freak walking around strange places with that much cash on me.
In today’s political environment it would be beyond stupid and being arrested should have not been a surprise.
nKoan
3496
Travelers Checks are still a thing, but are not as convenient to use as they used to be. Lot of retailers don’t accept them anymore, and you have to go to a bank that hopefully will cash it in the foreign country.
When my wife went to Europe a few years ago, she got a MasterCard backed traveler’s card instead of travelers checks, and used it without fees there (except for a small feed for initial loading of currency). Fees were much less than if she used our card in Europe on each purchase.
Scuzz
3497
When I went to Europe decades ago we did everything with travelers checks. Although often your first stop in a new country was someplace where you could cash some into the local currency for places that wouldn’t take them.
Menzo
3498
In a world where almost everyone takes credit cards for almost any amount, there’s no need for travelers checks or even cash most of the time.
There are a few exceptions. In Germany there are lots of places that don’t take credit - they are really holding on to the cash society.
But I spent a week in Paris not too long ago and didn’t withdraw any cash. In Iceland they use credit cards for everything, all the time. I don’t think anyone ever carries cash.
Nesrie
3499
There are also several cards that will not charge fees you can get specific for traveling abroad.
None
3500
As well, most places I’ve traveled to in Asia are still pretty cash-driven.
nKoan
3501
About 10 years ago, I was in Norway using my card, and they had to break out the old card reader (pre-chip cards in US, but prevalent in Europe) to authorize my card.
Lots of employees at various places didn’t know how to deal with my “old” signature based card.
Anyway, I think that’s mostly taken care of now that we finally have chip cards (and you can attach a PIN, though it’s generally still not necessary domestically).
Menzo
3502
In any case, we’re talking about UK citizens visiting Canada (ostensibly). They don’t need to carry that kind of cash.
But it doesn’t matter. Other than having to declare it, there’s nothing illegal about having cash.
Sadly I think this only applies to folks in the US, but Schwab bank is great for international travel.
The reimburse for ATM fees, and they charge no international transaction fees. In fact, when I’ve checked on previous trips, the exchange range is within 1% of the rate posted on the WSJ currency exchange.
It is only $1,000 to open, no minimum balance and no fees.
Nesrie
3504
Chase debit cards used to be really, really cheap to use in other countries too. I think that might have changed recently, the jerks.
HSBC is all over Canada and the U.S. It’s free to move your money between countries through their account system.
Yeah we have stuff like that for the opposite direction (EU->US). Sadly they had a maximum daily operation without fees ($500) so it was a no-go for us (we would have had to carry some cash for emergencies anyway, and at that point it made sense to go mostly cash anyway). We did get one no-fee, oí exchange, card in case, but used it for one single transaction.
Paying with credit card directly is easy, but it would incur in about 5% fees, minimum, for currency exchange with pretty much any bank around here (some of them also have international transaction fees, but it’s the currency exchange fee that kills you. Note that these fees are not normally spelled out but hidden in the transaction detail -I.e: something appearing as a 10€ transaction when the real exchange if paying in cash converted at a good rate would have been about 7€).
We did research about our 4 active banks with accounts and cards. All of them had hidden fees here and there.
CraigM
3507
When I went to India two years ago I used the Chase Sapphire. It was one of those cards that doesn’t have international fees for it. So it was great for card purchases.
Fortunately I also found a currency exchange with quite reasonable rates at the local high end mall. Was exchanging at 62 rupees to the dollar when the official exchange was like 65, so a small fee, but very reasonable compared to many others.
Like the airport’s insulting 52 rupees to the dollar when the official rate was 67
What rate did Chase use for credit card purchases?
The best I found over here are Inter-bank rates (and those were the limited no-fees card, not the big bank cards) which are worse than the official rate or what you can get with enough lead time through a exchange rate insurance.
CraigM
3509
The official posted rate. So it was a free conversion, so a meal that cost me 200 INR would be paid in local currency and billed to me in dollars as $3.08. So I used the card at all times when possible, cash mostly used for bus and rickshaws, with some roadside stalls as well.
Pani puri from a food cart, and fresh pomegranate were exquisite and worth the conversion friction of cash.
Googling around, it seems Chase Sapphire uses the Visa currency exchange rate, which is not amazing, nor extorting, but you can get a better rate, at least around , by converting cash. Might not be worth it, depending on the total amount of money, but it seems you can get about 0.5%-1% better than the Visa rate.
I’m just very anal about bank fees :P
CraigM
3511
Possible! It has been two years. And we did a fair bit of research at the time to try and get the best rate we could.
However it also seems that there is a difference between Visa US and Visa Europe regarding exchange. I used the Visa calculator and for the US it seems to track close to, if not exactly at, the official exchange rate. When I check for today, a bill that is 200 INR would bill at 2.55, with the official exchange at 2.53 Euro. For USD it exchanges 200 INR for $2.808, with the official rate pegged at 2.803. So this seems to be just a national difference.
