<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Rates of Exchange Roil Travels in Euro Land

Anne Bagamery, International Herald Tribune
Friday, January 4, 2002

PARIS. Any banker worth his Palm Pilot knows that in confusion, there is opportunity.
This lesson was driven home Thursday for William and Wende Young of Canandaigua, New York. The debut of euro notes and coins this week left the tourists with a wallet full of very expensive new money - and not happy about it. Their experience in changing their dollars may serve as a cautionary tale.

The Youngs, both 67, took $500 in cash to the Change Master exchange bureau on the Avenue de l'Opera, near the Louvre museum, to exchange it for euros. With the euro worth around 90 U.S. cents, they expected to get back something more than E500, even allowing for fees.
Instead, Change Master gave them back E419.74 - the equivalent of an exchange rate, before commissions and fees, of $1.06.

"We were in shock," said Wende Young, a radiologist ...</font>