On the Road

Travelers’ cheques will cost you 1-2% to buy in the first place and then, depending on the policy of the country, may cost you more to cash them. Thus they can be a costly way to do things.

Depending on where you travel it may also be difficult to find somewhere to cash your cheques. Small towns don’t always have banks that accept them and if they do it might be they only take one particular brand. In the end it can mean that you convert so many of them at once that it comes to the same thing as travelling with cash.

Traveller’s cheques have two distinct advantages over cash to compensate though. Firstly, they are less desirable to the casual thief who would have no idea how to profit from them. They can’t be cashed without identification and a signature to match yours. So they’re less likely to be stolen in the first place.

Secondly, once stolen/lost they will theoretically be replaced at no charge by the TC company. There’s no mention of how many times they will do this but you can bet it will get harder each time.

In fact in some locations operators like Thomas Cook and American Express have been known to refuse to replace the cheques. Generally this happens in fraud capitals like Bangkok or Bombay. The bottom line is that they will eventually play ball but you may need to hound them relentlessly. They will interrogate you, insist on police reports (in some places next to impossible to get) and put you through all the hoops possible before giving in. Yet I’ve seen two cases where they refused to honour their agreement.

The basic reason for their doubt is that there thrives in many countries a black market for stolen traveller’s cheques. They can be sold for around 40-60% of their value to very smart operators who have enough contacts in the banking system to cash them even after reported stolen.

Many travellers do the traveler cheque scam to raise some money. It’s the same reasoning that lies behind shoplifting from Walmart. Fuck the big corporations; stealing from them is no sin. Buddha wouldn’t agree as one of his basic tenets was ‘right livelihood’ but if you’re comfortable in considering yourself as a thief then good luck to you.

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