converting dollars to euros
 

We just returned from a wonderful vacation in Paris -- our first trip there. Mostly we changed money at the various change offices found everywhere in Paris. After being charged a fairly steep rate at one, we consulted our travel guides which advised that banks and post offices were more economical.<BR><BR>Here's the odd part, the post office would not accept our dollars, saying that the serial numbers were too "current", meaning, I guess, that the money had been printed fairly recently. The language barrier prevented us from understanding the explanation, which wasn't very detailed anyway.<BR><BR>Anyone else run into this???<BR><BR>Ellen

No, because we're getting our money from ATMs.

Ellen,<BR><BR>You've got to be kidding. This must be a troll, or about the dumbest post for a long time. That is saying something!<BR><BR>Duh

Sounds like they were being very careful. It would be rare to find anyone here who has exchanged anything other than travelers checks since it wouldn't be wise to carry that much cash.

Don't know what you mean by "that much cash" but we carry cash as a backup. Have exchanged it at the PO with no problem.

We recently carried about $800 in cash over to Europe split between my husband and myself which we kept in our money belts with our passports and credit cards. Had no trouble exchanging it for Euros or anything else.

no, as I've never tried to exchange cash in Paris, but I think the explanation sounds fairly straightfoward to me. If the bills were very new, they probably were thinking they could be counterfeit, I imagine. They can be pretty picky about currency in Paris, I've noticed, and not just foreign. I had a MOnoprix store in an outer area refuse some French currency from me once claiming they put it in some magic machine that could tell if it were real or not and they thought it was counterfeit. They didn't keep it, though, thank goodness, as I just went and spent it at another store. It was just some 50F note or something I'd gotten as change at another store.