How ATM Can (AND WILL) Trick You When Traveling

When traveling abroad and getting money out of an ATM in a foreign country , you always want to decline or choose without conversion .

But the story is more complicated .

So you should stick around the video because it's also more fun .

We're the honest guide making videos to help you on your travels .

And we're based here in Prague , a city of 100 sprees and also a city of thousands of A MS that are ready to trick you and get more money than you will think out of your pockets .

Even though we're in Europe , we do not use euro currency in Czech Republic .

We use Czech crowns .

So if you want to pay , you have to have Czech crowns .

Now let me hold it there .

You can actually pay with your card at most of the places .

But if you do want to get cash out of an ATM , you need to follow a certain rule .

Our main focus will be on these ATM S that are not only everywhere in Prague but also everywhere around Europe in all the touristy destinations .

And they have two tricks to trick you and your foreign card .

Let me show you .

The first trick that this am will try to play on you is it will try to make you withdraw as much money as possible .

In this case , between 10 and 20,000 check crowns , which is starting from 400 up to €800 .

And you don't need that ridiculous amount of money in cash on you .

In Prague .

You can select other amount and will get a bit lower but still the amounts are still pretty high .

But ok , let's go with 3000 check crowns to withdraw , which is about 100 and €20 .

And here's the second dirty trick this ATM will try to play on you and it's asking you if you want it with or without conversion .

So you have the choice declining conversion or accepting it .

Now , the right side of the screen may look better for you because there the flag of your home currency in my case , it's British pounds .

So there's the flag .

It also says accept conversion and logically you want to hit , accept when you're getting money out of an ATM .

It's logical but no , if I would click this button , accept instead of decline , I would lose immediately 12.86% of my money because that's the mark up on the exchange rate that is currently issued by the European Central Bank .

And thanks to the European Union , they now have to state it on the ATMs when we were making this video a couple of years ago , it didn't have to say it , but now it does say there , even though it's in small letters , it is there .

And on top of that , this ATM will charge you 99 crowns which is around €4 just for getting the money out .

So in total , you're losing 15% of your money if you click accept and since the markup is in percent , now you understand why the ATM is forcing you to get out as much money as possible .

Imagine if we would choose to withdraw €800 in the beginning , then the markup would be almost €100 just for getting the money out of ATM €100 .

That's insane .

And about the fee , you may say that my bank doesn't charge me any fees for getting money out of an ATM .

Well , this is not your bank fee , this is this Atm's fee and also you may have a bank that will charge you a fee .

So on top of all of this , you may be charged by your bank .

So remember what I said in the beginning of the video , you always want to decline conversion .

Oh , I just saved 13% of my money .

Wow .

Oh , but it's fair to say that this ATM will still charge me €4 for getting money out of it .

Thank you .

So in this case , not only I click decline , but I'm also going to click cancel , please reap your card or device .

It ain't gonna happen .

And these ATM S are all over the place .

By the way to film this montage , we only walked 200 meters .

You want to walk 20 more .

Just as I said , these ATM S can be found anywhere in Prague .

I have actually created a map and new ones are being added to the city almost weekly and you can find them in any touristy destination or touristy city in Europe .

There's more to the story about the euro net at M .

So if you want to know more , you can subscribe to honest guide and we'll tell you what it is .

But let's move on with the story to another .

Am we moved to another am this time a bank , a big bank name and the thing we were talking about with the declining or accepting the conversion is something called DC C dynamic currency conversion .

In a nutshell , you have your account in some currency and the ATM is giving you a different currency in this case , check crown .

So somebody has to do the conversion .

And what the ATM is asking you is , should I do the conversion or your bank ?

So it's always better if your bank , your provider does it .

In case of this ATM , you're not going to be offered , accept or decline , but you're going to be offered , withdraw in local currency is the choice you want to go with because you always want to go with the local currency even though you have a different currency on your card .

Even though we only show you two ATMs , one bank and one non bank company .

We wanted to teach you the system how it works .

So then you can go to any ATM and know that you should decline or choose pay in local currency or withdraw in local currency .

Why said pay ?

Because this situation may also occur when you're paying at a shop , a coffee place , a pub , you may tap your card to the terminal and it will ask you , do you want to pay us dollars or check crowns ?

Well , you always want to go with check crowns , the local currency .

By the way , the way the machines atms are programmed is different .

In every case .

In this case , we found out that if you accept their conversion , which is not in your favor , you don't pay a fee for the withdrawal .

But if you decline it , if you go with the local currency , this ATM will put 125 crowns on top of it , which is around €5 as its fee always tries to trick you .

So the bottom line is you always want to decline or pay in the local currency or the easiest to avoid .

All these tricks is just pay with your card .

Me and I do it all the time and most of the checks they rarely go to ATMs to get cash .

Because most of the businesses , coffee places , pubs , stores will accept cards whenever we show places on our show .

On the honest guy , we never mention you can pay with the card .

Because most of the times you can , if we do go to a place where you cannot pay with card , we will usually mention it to warn you .

Tourist season is beginning and tourists are coming back to Prague .

That's why we're making these videos to warn you and prepare you for your travel .

So when you come to Prague , you can enjoy it and spend the money , not on ATM fees , but on something better , something better .

You want some tips .

Well , that's what the honest guide is here for so you can subscribe and I'll see you next Sunday next week on another episode of The Honest Guide and a check word at the end is which is currency is currency and told me to make this longer because there are all the patreons supporting us .

And I would like to say big thanks to them .

So thank you so much .

And if you want to support us , you can head out to patreon dot com slash Honest guide .

Oh , and when I said the ATM will recognize that I used a foreign card .

Well , let me show you what happens when I use my check card .

Suddenly the amounts offered to withdraw are 10 times lower and they make more sense