I respectfully disagree. When I go to a cashier at a department store, diner, or to pay a taxi driver, if I'm handing over a fifty, I say "Out of 50." If I'm handing out a 20, I say, "out of 20." This is in the USA, and every place else except Japan. Once or twice in the USA I insisted to a cashier that I gave her a 20, snd she said I gave her a five. I made her pull the cash drawer out of the register, and count it to see if it agreed with her tally. It turned out I gave her a five. It's one of the reasons I state the denomination of the bill I'm handing over, unless it's just a dollar or a five in the USA. If it happened to you, it was as if you got pickpocketed. Pickpocketing happens everywhere, but it's impossible to happen to you unless you are careless or indifferent and let it happen.

It's a very rare thing for someone in Italy to try to short change you, unlike say, what happened to me in a movie theatre recently. I handed over a $50 for a $15 movie ticket. The cashier gave me back $5, and acted as if he was done, and started to talk to a colleague. I guess he thought that if he acted is if he was finished, I would conclude, "I must have given him a $20," and walk away. No words were changed. I just stood there. Finally, he made believe that he was just pausing, then took out the other $35 and gave it to me. This was at a very fancy movie theatre in Marin County, in one of the most expensive zip codes in the USA.

This goes on everywhere. It's not a Roman thing, or a Venetian thing, or a taxi thing. Given that, avoiding being short changed is as easy as not getting pickpocketed. Whenever I hand over a large bill in the USA I say, "out of a hundred," and hold onto it for a second until it is acknowledged. That's it. It will never happen to me, and the only way you will ever lose money is if someone stops you with a gun or a knife and makes you hand over your wallet. And that only happens in the USA, not in Italy. It doesn't happen in a Roman taxi cab.

Just take normal precautions and say, "do you have change for 10?" Actually, they'll probably say no. Even a supermarket often doesn't have change. When you get to the cashier, if you are buying something for 4 euros and hand them a 20, they will ask you for exact change, because if they have to give you 16 euros back, they will be out of change. There's very little change in Italy. A taxi driver will not have much change. Nobody does. Go to the supermarket with extra one or two euro coins, extra fives or tens. If you try to buy something for 4 euros and you hand them a 10, they might not have 6 euros in the register. They will ask if you can pay in "contanti," or coins, because they are running out of cash, and if you reach into your pocket and come up with 4 euros, they will love you. If you say, "here are two fives euro notes, and ten dollars in coin, I'm' willing to exchange it for a 20, they will love you.

In Italy, they are very short on cash. That is everywhere, except a hotel or large department store. If you go to a neighborhood wine shop and bring a 6 euro bottle of wine to the cashier and hand over a 50, It's almost certain that they will take the wine back to the shelf and not sell it to you because they won't have change. It's actually rude to hand a 50 to a taxi driver for a fare less than 40 euros because it's going to pull him from the street as he'll have to stop working and drive around trying to find a way to break it up so he can give change to the next customer.

In Italy it is your job to carry in your pocket the right amount of change, so that you don't stick it to the driver, and make him stop working while he looks for a department store that will have change. Changing a large bill is not easy. If you go to a giant place like Mercato Centrale in Rome, or Eataly, they will be able to change it if you buy something. However, you can't just walk into a bank and ask for change for a 50. Just to get into a bank you have to stand in this tiny, circular isolation chamber that scans your body before it opens up on the inside to let you in.

If you walk to the teller and say you just want change, the teller will get angry with you, because the purpose of the bank is not to help you out for free by being a money changer for you. If you want change, they will tell you to go to a Casa di Cambio (House of Change), that will charge a hefty commission. Some banks in the center parts of large cities like Rome will change a 100 euro note for you if they look like they can trust you, but Italy is a different country.

The things that people complain about are because they want Italy to be the same as home. Don't want your wallet or phone pickpocketed? Don't let it hang out of your back pocket, or sit there in an open purse. Don't want to be shortchanged? Carry close to the exact amount of cash, and as in the USA, when you hand over a large note, say the number, and get it acknowledged before you hand it over. This last step is basic travel sense if you go to Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Miami, etc.