ATM/Bankomat Fees Beware!

I have been noticing this trend at ATMs around the world, which is very concerning for frequent travelers. Previously, it was just privately owned ATM/Bankomats that had high fees or offered not so good exchange rates (or both). But now even the major banks are taking part in this swindle. I just had a $12 international transaction fee on top of the $6 ATM fee taken from my withdrawal in Poland. IF during the ATM withdrawal I would have taken the banks offered exchange rate for USD, I would have lost a further $31 in the transaction! So that would have been $49 USD less than what the google exchange rate said I would pay for this amount.

Be extremely careful now at any ATM in checking what exchange rate the local banks are offering! Seems like the banks want to give you the option to conveniently withdraw the cash in your home currency, while offering a horrible exchange rate for the service (fees will still be added on top of this). I noticed this at a number of ATMs during my last and current Round-The-World trips! USA, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand seem to all be offering a variety of exchange rates, so I just select to withdraw the amount in the LOCAL CURRENCY, which should result in getting the interbank rate between the two banking institutions. If I'd selected to already have the money withrawn in US dollar the overall fees would have been over 12%!!! Some ATMs I saw even worse exchnge rates of 30-40% below the actual exchange rate, so you have to be very careful and calculate exactly how much it will take to withr the amount you would like.

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I now prefer to charge many of my travel expenses, with just some cash in Euro or US Dollar as backup, using ATMs a lot less frequently than I used to.