I have experience seeing merchants' expressions in the US when I try to pay with a $2 bill but I was curious about how overseas merchants would react. I traveled to Central America (El Salvador) last week and decided to see what would happen. It was a supermarket and the bill came up to something like $5 I took out 2 $2 bills and a 2010 native american dollar coin. The lady took a look at both and her eyes nearly popped out of her head! She went to see the manager who informed her that they did not accept either one! So I had a good laugh about it with my kids and paid with a $5 bill. Anyone else ever try to do something similar overseas?
From what I heard, since they also use the dollar as the national currency, they have been targets of counterfeiters (just as we have here) and are just trying to protect themselves.
This is likely the case. It is not uncommon for merchants in other countries who accept US money to refuse the "old style" notes when the US has changed designs. You can try to explain to them that the old ones are still valid but you will get nowhere.
I'm guessing here, but many countries demonetize old currency, so when they find out that we have changed ours, they naturally assume that our older style currency is no longer worth anything.
It wasn't meant to be funny. Black market money changers give a much better rate than the official rate. At least, from personal experience, they did in the Philippines all thru the 80's.
My story is directly opposit - you could find a $25 US bill on black market in Russia in early 1990s. 25 is a usual denomination in roubles so somebody found a way to exploit it.
I admit I thought you were trying to give a negative impression about the country that I did not appreciate. As I mentioned, the dollar is the national currency so there is no need to exchange dollars for the local currency.
