Figures.

[bjarvis]

I keep a reserve of Canadian money, Toronto Transit tokens, a chequing account and a credit card from a Canadian bank for my infrequent trips home. My US credit cards now charge a 3% service fee for non-US dollar transactions and the rates by the money exchange houses at the airports and border crossing points are obscene so this is my favourite way of saving a few dollars.

Alas, the TTC is ditching their old transit tokens in favour of a more counterfeit-resistant version. I'm keeping two of the old standard tokens as memorabilia but that leaves me with 10 transit tokens which either need to be used by January 31 or exchanged in person before the end of the year.

I guess I have yet another business side trip to make when I return to Toronto in April.

Comments

[brunorepublic.livejournal.com]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you can only exchange them until the end of February. The TTC is very anxious to get rid of them; they lost a lot of money as the counterfeit tokens are almost impossible to distinguish from the real ones.

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

The TTC's web page on the topic (http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/new_token.htm) says that the end-of-February deadline is for swapping at certain key stations (Yonge-Bloor, Kipling, Warden, Finch), but we can still trade the tokens at HQ at Davisville until the end of 2007.

If I can't get the swapped in time, I'll survive the loss. Perhaps the old tokens might be collectors items some decade in the future. :-)

[brunorepublic.livejournal.com]

Interesting. They really haven't publicized that last little bit at all. None of the information posted in the subway stations mentions it.

[moofedct.livejournal.com]

bikerbearbmw has an account at RBC that has a "US side" and a "Canadian side" to it. Every so often we send money to RBC (I think they charge us $0.20 to process the deposit) there is no fee or surcharge to move money between the two currencies, we pay only the current exchange rate.

Otherwise, we'd be subject to an extra couple of cents to convery the currencies between one another.

TTC tokens

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

mail your old tokens to me. I use TTC tokens all the time, and I'll send you new ones in return. They'll arrive easily in time for me to use them, or at least be able to trade them at an easily accessible (read: I travel through it frequently) station.

[I've only once knowingly had a counterfeit token - and it was a blank disc of aluminum. since it was sold to me by a TTC operator (where else do you normally get 'em?), I blithely and without qualm used it in a subway turnstile. But most of the counterfeits were professionally made - by some company in the States - Massachusetts, I think - which in good faith thought they were making them for the TTC, and sent 'em to some address in Toronto that -er- wasn't the TTC address at Yonge and Davisville]

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

When I lived in Canada, I kept a US dollar chequing account as well as a CDN dollar chequing account at the same bank. It was a blessing being able to avoid currency conversions, esp. when the rates were flailing in the wind at that time.

[moofedct.livejournal.com]

Damnit I want that dollar back to the mid pre-2003 mark of < $0.70! There's a Vancouver condo to pay for, ya know!

US$ accounts in Canajun banks

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

one of the lead items in this evening's CBC radio news was a gentleman in Montreal wanting to open a US$ account with the Royal Bank of Canada. They asked him various questions which I would not have thought appropriate to a bank, one of which was his citizenship. When he replied that he had dual citizenship in Iran / Canada, the account was refused.

RBC claims to be following US regulations by denying US$ accounts to dual citizens of Canada + any of Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Sudan, North Korea and Myanmar.

The CBC News story is here

I'm not sure that this is legitimately the business of the US government. US dollars are not the property of the US government, instead, they are fiscal obligations of that government. As long as the currency is neither forged nor stolen, it is not the business of the US government, I would have thought, if, for instance, (as was the case) I gave my nephew American cash to spend on a cruise this Christmas on a ship flying some flag of convenience (certainly not US, and not in US waters).

The putative bank account would have contained property of a Canadian citizen in Canada, in a bank that is a Canadian fiscal institiution.

A similar instance of extraterritoriality came up a few weeks ago -- a hotel in Norway or Sweden, owned by a US chain, is being taken before the local human rights commission for refusing Cuban guests.

good luck with YOUR bank accounts.