Do atms in foreign countries give U. S. Dollars?

You should be able to use your card, but you will get local currency.

Your ATM card will work. And no, you will get local currency.

If you really need U.S currency there are tons of places to exchange it.

Thanks everyone. now i need a coversion table to take with me.

I’m sure there’s an app for that.

@pdworkin Just got a big dose of ‘wow, it’s 2009, isn’t it’.

Definitely will be local currency.

Don’t even need an app. Send a text message to Google (466453): “1 USD in Pesos”. You’ll get a text back a few seconds later: “Currency Conversion: 1 U.S. dollar = 12.7957416 Mexican pesos”

Thanks for the conversion advice. john

@MrItty Or just search it on Google.

Mexico = Peso (MXN)
Jamaica = Jamaican dollar (JMD)

@erichw1504 yes, but everyone has cellphones that can SMS. Not everyone has cellphones that can browse the web. :-)

@MrItty No, not everyone has a cellphone, let alone a cellphone that can SMS. But I bet you a lot more people have access to a computer with an internet connection.

@erichw1504 Wikipedia disagrees. Phones. Computers.

Update: Some countries actually have more phones than people.

@erichw1504 Clarification: “Everyone (who has a cellphone) has cellphones that can SMS.”

And I thought he was wanting the conversion table while at the ATM. Thus, cellphone much more handy than computer.

@daemonelson I said people who have access to a computer with an internet connection. Not necessarily own one (i.e. libraries).

@MrItty Yes, pretty much all cellphones can SMS, but not everyone has it activated with their plan.

Local currency only and not at the most favorable exchange rate. Your bank will also hit you with a “foreign currency transaction” fee.

@erichw1504 The wiki page @daemonelson linked to has its sources at the bottom. The statistics are calculated by internet usage, not computer owners.

“We believe that a definition must be as general and as simple as possible. For analyzing and comparing Internet users on a global scale, IWS adopts as its benchmark a broad definition and defines an Internet User as anyone currently in capacity to use the Internet. In our opinion, there are only two requirements for a person to be considered an Internet User:
(1) The person must have available access to an Internet connection point, and
(2) The person must have the basic knowledge required to use web technology.

That’s it. No need to make complex something that is really quite simple. In many Third World countries one same Internet connection may be shared by many individual users. Due to this reason, Internet users might outnumber the amount of Internet access subscribers and also outnumber the telephone lines available in each country.”

@MrItty You know what? My point was that @john65pennington obviously has access to the internet right now since he posted this question and all he wanted was to bring a conversion table with him. So, I figured he could just look it up on Google instead of texting it.

Conclusively, I am better than you. ~

@erichw1504 and my point was that if he wanted to konw the exchange rates at the time he was making the withdrawl, since exchange rates change day by day or worse, then going to google.com is not helpful.

@MrItty It is helpful if he has a phone with internet access.

You won’t really need a conversion table. What you’ll do is enter the amount that you want from the ATM, in pesos, Euros, or whatever it is you want (in the local currency) and the transaction with your bank will be seamless. (Your statement might be somewhat perplexing next month, but the math should be simple… and correct… and cheaper than going to a currency exchange booth.)

You might want to be able to do the currency exchange when deciding whether you want to pay a certain price for something, though.

@MrItty, that was pretty neat advice. So what if I don’t get the “perfect” exchange rate? As long as I’ve got a phone that can do SMS wherever I’m at, that is wonderful advice to get me in the ballpark.

(And it only took until I was entering the third digit of 4 6 6 4 5 3 that I was sending to G O O G L E.) Excellent. New contact.

@CyanoticWasp yes, but if you don’t know what the conversion ratio is (or at least an approximate), how do you know what amount of Pesos (or whatever) to request? You know you want “about $50”, for example. If you don’t know how the dollar relates to the foreign currency, you have no idea if it makes more sense to ask for 20 pesos or 200 pesos.

@erichw1504 and now we’ve come full circle. Yes, some phones have web browsing. Many more have SMS. That was the original point of my post in this side-tangent. :-)

@MrItty But, not all phones have GPS capabilities.

@MrItty, @erichw1504 I’m so confuddled.

The ones at the Frankfurt airport in Germany do. They’ll give you euros, dollars, pounds etc.

Since this question appears to be answered mostly, I just want to give you a tip:

I would be careful about using your ATM in foreign countries. A lot of banks have fees for using other ATMs—I mean, I get a $4 fee each time I use an ATM that isn’t Bank of America, even if it’s just across the street! Debit cards are also a lot more risky because if someone steals your card number and PIN, the money they spend is gone, never to return. I would suggest using a credit card and cash over using an ATM.

@erichw1504 what does GPS have to do with this conversation?

@ParaParaYukiko but if you’re out of cash… don’t you have to get more from the ATM?

@MrItty Yes, of course, at some point you will need to get more cash. I would just use them sparingly and carefully. If you use a credit card it is possible to get the number stolen, but at least you would be able to get that money back from your bank. Not so with debit cards, as I mentioned in my last post.

@MrItty Well they’ve got to find the ATM first.

@erichw1504 you mean there are places in the world that don’t have a Bank of America every other block? :-)

@MrItty Hah, that’s true.