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ATMs have made currency management a lot easier for the frequent traveler. But sometimes things can get complicated even so.
The last few months we have been handling Indonesian Rupiah, Singapore dollars, Malaysian ringits, Cambodian riel and now we were facing Vietnamese dong. Usually the ATM’s in this part of the world have a very modest maximum amount of withdrawal, anything between say, the equivalent of 50 to 250 USD, depending on the country and the bank. This is another scam because you can usually withdraw several times in a row, but the bank takes a fee each time.
Anyway, here I am in a hot ATM booth in Saigon, where the machine tells me to enter the amount of withdrawal up to “a maximum of 20,000,000 dong (yes 20 million). Trusting that this maximum amount was something in the region mentioned above I pushed ENTER.
And ding Dong, the ATM spat out the equivalent of 1,050 USD of Vietnamese Dong, which is not a converible currency. Also, you wouldn’t expect the machines to produce this kind of money in a socialist country. Later I had to change back a major amount to USD at the market (the bank refused to exchange it). How stupid can you be?
I’ll update this post later, when I have been able to calculate the damage.