Atm card compromised in cozumel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lionfish-eater]

Go into the mega, buy a six pack of barrelitos and a bag of takis, pay with a 50 or 100, take change in pesos. Takes care of two tasks at the same time.

 

[Basscat]

Set up a second account at home with an ATM card just for travel, keep a limited amount in the account, use that card at ATMs located at a bank, and transfer additional funds online as necessary. Works for me.
Only times I've had a card hacked it was an Amazon.com card that I only used for buying on Amazon.com, and another that I never used offline. I've never had a problem in Mexico.

 

[Christi]

Go into the mega, buy a six pack of barrelitos and a bag of takis, pay with a 50 or 100, take change in pesos. Takes care of two tasks at the same time.

That no longer works - hasn't for quite some time. The change is given back in the currency paid in if the change is more than 10% of the purchase. It's a law actually!

 

[BRT]

That no longer works - hasn't for quite some time. The change is given back in the currency paid in if the change is more than 10% of the purchase. It's a law actually!

It may be the law but it worked in January.

 

[Christi]

It may be the law but it worked in January.

January was 8 months ago - what works today is different - and the policy/law changed several months ago. I shop at Mega several times a week and if your change is more than 10% of the purchase, your change will be in the currency paid with. My groceries today were $460 pesos ($35usd) - I pulled out a $100 without thinking about it - and she reminded me (because she recognizes me as a local who shops there regularly) that she would have to give me change in USD unless I paid with a smaller bill - I paid with two $20's and got my change back in pesos. I appreciated her reminding me so I could pay with a smaller bill because i actually needed a few pesos - and that's really all it was.

 

[mediumone]

Set up a second account at home with an ATM card just for travel, keep a limited amount in the account, use that card at ATMs located at a bank, and transfer additional funds online as necessary. Works for me.

This ladies and gentlemen, is by far, the smartest course.

The risk is minimal, the exchange rate is the best, and the cost of goods is the least.

We won't even talk about the legal tender of the country that you're visiting.

 

[tom_n_tacoma]

This can happen anywhere. I go to the island 3-4 times a year and use the machines in the grocery stores and at a mexican bank where I have an account Never had a problem. Here in Tacoma, I've had mine scammed several times. My car has been broken into several times here and so has the house across the alley. Our house on Cozumel has never had any issues.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Set up a second account at home with an ATM card just for travel, keep a limited amount in the account, use that card at ATMs located at a bank, and transfer additional funds online as necessary. Works for me.
Only times I've had a card hacked it was an Amazon.com card that I only used for buying on Amazon.com, and another that I never used offline. I've never had a problem in Mexico.

Along the same lines, for one trip I got a pre-paid/debit card that would let me take cash out of any Visa-branded ATM. I don't recall the details, but it obviated setting up an actual bank account. I bought it on-line, and I think it was rechargeable on-line. This was like eight years ago. It's been a while since I've taken a trip that was too long to just take all the cash I'd need.

 

[Scared Silly]

We were recently in Coz and given the dive shop wanted cash or one could use a CC with 5% add on we decided to take a bunch of cash. Our second day there we went to the shop and paid 3/4 of our bill. The rest of the time we either paid cash or used a VISA. Never once did we need to use an ATM. That seemed to work quite well and give that Coz is pretty inexpensive we did not need to take that much cash.

 

[mstevens]

Since when do you need pesos in Mexico?

When I bought my scooter, they wanted pesos.

When I bought my car, they wanted pesos.

When I bought my house the seller wanted dollars (since they live in Connecticut) but the notario definitely wanted pesos.

There are lots of little places that have trouble accepting dollars. For example, I bought some honey from a guy next to the road in Macario Gomez. When I was reaching for my wallet, he said he couldn't accept dollars because in order to exchange them he'd have to take a taxi to Tulum and that would cost far more than my purchase. (I didn't even have any dollars with me.)

How easy would it be to get through a week in Colorado using only pesos?

---------- Post added August 22nd, 2014 at 10:08 AM ----------

Set up a second account at home with an ATM card just for travel, keep a limited amount in the account, use that card at ATMs located at a bank, and transfer additional funds online as necessary.

You don't even need to do the transfers online. We set up an account to which we can make deposits of checks from a smartphone app. It is purposely not even at the same bank where we do all our other banking. We've written a check from our main account to that one while having breakfast, used the phone app to deposit it, then gone across the street to Santander to withdraw the funds from their ATM. Of course if the accounts are at the same bank it would be easy to do transfers from an app or online, but we wanted a more complete firewall in case of issues.