Please list best places to change money. The Commercial money changers near the Ponte Vecchio charge particularly high Commissions - up to 19.9-% unless you make a big stink about it.
NOT Clearly marked ! Advise of best places please !
You should be using an ATM machine. Notify your card provider that you will be using the card in Italy or it will be rejected. If you do not have a card that can be used in an ATM machine you might as well resign yourself to being gouged by the exchange rate.
Use ATMs for cash
See the recent post on this forum about ripoffs at "Cambio" outfits and read this post:
It is worth noting that none of this is exclusive to Florence.
I don't know anywhere in Europe - or anywhere else - where little store-front "Bureau de Change" are not total rip-offs.
I'm floored that anyone would use a money exchange place at all. ATMs are the way to go. The least amount of research prior to travel shows this to be the case. Unless this was an emergency situation and you had no choice, if you get ripped off at one of these places, you have no one to blame but yourself. Sorry.
It's like people who use their credit cards to take cash advances. Makes no sense at all.
Edited: 3:08 pm, December 27, 2012The same thing happens in Asia. It is risk with travelling and is why you should only change money at bank.
I dont know if the USA has something similar to this, but in Australia you can buy a debit card from Australia Post which locks in the exchange rate before you travel. For example, I can put $1000 aussis dollars on the card and it will change it into Euro at the exchange rate that I purchassx the card. Hence I can benefit from a good exchange rate without carrying a whole lot of cash and not incur additional fees when I withdraw from ATM as the money is already in Euro.
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Last ditch effort might be to try an actual bank though not many of them do currency exchange any longer. Of course, as everyone else has said - your best option is an ATM card but if you are trying to change cash, try to see if a bank will do it for you. You might find one that still does it - there will be some fee but nothing like the rip off fees charged by the Cambio places.
Hi, I found this response on another forum
ATM locator
The Italian Banking Association has an efficient ATM locator on its website at http://faro.pattichiari.it/index1.phtml
Although it's in Italian only, it's very easy to use:
1) Enter the name of the town under "Localita'"
2) Enter the name of the bank which issued your card under "Banca" (even if it's a non-Italian bank, doesn't matter) - Ignore all other fields
3) Click on "Cerca sportelli"
On the next screen you'll see a map with the location of ATM's in the desired town along with names of banks, addresses, etc.
You can obtain the same information also by calling (from inside Italy) 800 002 266 (toll-free), but the service is in Italian only.
Hope that helps as you are better off withdrawing money from a cash point
You can also use Google Maps for ATM locations. Type in the name of your hotel and then click on 'search nearby', then type in 'ATM' and voila, all the ATMs nearby will show up on the map.
