Peso Exchange

Talk about making me sick…….This story is being written right now on a throw-up bag in an airplane headed for Mexico. OK this is what is making me sick…..On our way down to Mexico to Roberto’s Bungalows. I thought I would get some pesos at the airport to tip the folks in Mexico upon landing…. like the taxi dude, baggage guys, car rental people, and restaurant folks…kinda to make me feel not so like a Gringo…So I see the sign at the airport in Phoenix and I decide I’m going to get the jump on the Pesos. It seems as though they have decided to make the trip to the money exchange as far as California to Mexico….I start on the journey to the exchange booth…..down the longest runways inside the airport I have ever seen.  The people walkers at least made the journey a little quicker especially when you walk on them.  I finally got to the money exchange booth. When it was my turn I stepped up to the booth window and the lady in the booth smiled at me and asked…”what can I do for you?” So I tell her I want to buy some Pesos….so I look up at the chart on the wall above her and I see a bunch of numbers…..they really don’t mean anything to me until she tries to help me make some sense out of it all.  I figure that I will probably need about $50 bucks worth of pesos to start my trip so I tell her “how about $50 dollars worth please?”….and she says… “well it does cost $5.95 to exchange the money and if you want to sell back the Pesos when you come back into the states it will cost you another $5.00.”  This was definitely a marketing thing they do to make more money. So I figure what the heck….if it’s going to cost that much to change my money…why don’t I just get $500.00 dollars worth and I won’t have to deal with it till I get back.  So I tell her… OK give me $500 bucks worth of Pesos. She starts to smile and she hands me a bunch of paper bills and I go away smiling.  So now it’s back to meet up with the other folks in my party…when I get there they ask me how many Pesos I got for my money and I hand over the slip the nice lady gave me.  Now remember she said I could bring back pesos any time for 30 days and get my fair exchange back. Well my wife and friends laugh at me and tell me that I just gave up 60 bucks extra to buy my Pesos and I’m not really happy.  So knowing that our plane was soon to take off….I headed back to cash in $450.00 worth of my Pesos.  I get on the people mover and I am going about 30 miles an hour on my feet.  I get back to the money exchange booth and I wait my turn and when I get to the window I explain how I feel like I was took…. and she asks me what can she help me with….I tell her I want to change my Pesos back in for dollars and she says….sorry it’s too early…I say what?  To early…you told me I could change back the money back anytime up to 30 days and get a full refund…Well the nice lady says….”Is there something I can help you with?”  I am MAD now and the lady is in a foot thick glass booth… and she can say and do anything she wants…She smiles and ignores me and I want to keep talking to her, but she moved away from the window and will have nothing to do with me….now I have to get back to the plane or miss I’ll it…I really wanted to do something about the rip-off, but I had to go. I guess the lesson cost me $60 bucks and a real red face, but I sure won’t exchange money at an airport again…