Re: Beware of Fake XP

From: *Vanguard* (reply-to-newsgroup_at_do-not-email.invalid)
Date: 06/28/04 

Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2004 11:40:00 -0500

Tom said in news:%233sHNOHXEHA.3044@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl:
> "*Vanguard*" <reply-to-newsgroup@do-not-email.invalid> wrote in
> message news:xqSdnWU19--Vk0LdRVn-uA@comcast.com...
>> D. said in news:489qd0lbk1mpnl50jc645snuvf7umv4jsb@4ax.com:
>> <snip>>
>>> How much is 20 pounds in American dollars?
>> <snip>
>>
>> A Google search on "currency converter" will find lots of them. One
>> that I've bookmarked is http://www.oanda.com/cgi-bin/ncc. Many
>> sites, like http://www.xe.com/ucc/, don't tell you that they are
>> computing the interbank rate, a rate you will never personally
>> achieve.
>>
>>
>
> Here is a good site for that rate exchange:
>
> http://www.expedia.com/pub/agent.dll?qscr=curc

Yeah, that one, too, also computes the *interbank* rate. Are you a
bank? Is the OP a bank? Not likely, so you will NOT get that rate.

According to the Expedia currency converter:

    20.00 British pounds sterling = 36.76 US dollars

That's a rate of 1.838. Today's interbank rate is 1.8267, so what
Expedia is showing includes a 1.13% premium (fee). Or they could just
be using an old rate; in the past 7 days, the interbank rate has
wandered between 1.84080 to 1.80990 (so 1.838 could be at some time
during the last week when it was a little higher than today). Yahoo's
currency converter (http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert) says:

    20.00 GBP = 36.5820 USD

for a rate of 1.8291, again almost identical with today's interbank
rate, and not what YOU will get.

The easiest way to find out is to just call your own bank, or wherever
you plan to do the actual currency conversion, and ask them what is the
exchange rate and what additional fees they charge. If ordering online,
query their sales (if they actually have a contact) and ask what will be
the resultant charge after the conversion. I'm sure softwarecds.com
will add a HEFTY conversion fee along with a processing fee and whatever
other fees they can contrive. Beware of those currency booths that can
rake in a lot more, especially after adding a processing fee which is
independent of the conversion rate.