Venice Currency Exchange
 

Please Please Please!!!!! Do not change any foreign currency at this company. They are nothing short of thieves!!!!! The current rate from pound to euro is 1.31. I was misleadingly given 0.80!!!
After demanding my money back the cashier refused telling me the contract was complete. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!

See, had you come here before your trip we could have advised you on how to best get Euros.

Why didn't you just use an ATM at a bank?

Guess you didn't read that list of exchange rates, either. Sorry, no sympathy whatsoever.

There have been about a thousand threads here on how to get the best rates of exchange and al noted that changing cash at a bureau de change is the worse way to do it - and that between poor exchanges rates and fees you usually lose 10% or more of the value of their money.

Why not follow the suggestions here to use CC whenever possible and get cahs for walking around from your checking account at an atm?

OP only created an account to whine. I doubt he will be back.

Didn't you look at the listed exchange rates before doing the exchange?

As long as they listed their exchange rate where the customers can see it AND went by that rate I don't think you have any legal reason to complain.

You can't expect to get the bank exchange rate at a small exchange place. They want to make a profit after all.

It would be illegal for rates not to be posted, although sometimes those places post the advantageous ones because customers don't know enough to know the difference in buy vs. sell rates. SOmetims there is a flat fee or commission added on to the rate, also, you have to be clear on whether it is the whole fee or not.

However, given .80 is the inverse of 1.30, I am wondering if this isn't some misunderstanding somewhere, as that is a bigger markup than I've ever seen at one of these places. You never get bank rate at those places, though, so that is unrealistic to expect, they aren't charities but businesses. But sometimes they have a flat fee, also, regardless of the amount that could cause such a thing to happen if you only exchanged a small amt. I know once I wanted to exchange my koruna for euro at the Prague airport and Travelex had some deal like that, where I'd lose about 1/2 of what I had to exchange it, so I just kept it and bought something I didn't really want at the airport. Of course I asked what I'd get before I did any exchange and then decided for myself.

<<However, given .80 is the inverse of 1.30, I am wondering if this isn't some misunderstanding somewhere>>

Considering OP said the "pound to Euro rate" was 1.31, that diagnosis may be right. There's no way you get 1.31 pounds for the Euro . . .

I read that as 1 pound = 1.31 Euro