You've got to admire dishonest moneychangers for their slick professionalism. If you don't keep your eyes open, you get stung and never feel a thing - until you run out of money a lot earlier than expected. I head for Agfa or Kodak outlets, where they give customers a printed receipt, but I've still seen a few dodgy ones there too.
I don't know if anyone else has seen any others, but here are a few I've experienced:
1. The ‘silly me, I can't count to ten' scam. This sits at number one. The changer counts out the money - 100,000... 200,000... 300,000, 400,000... 600,000, 700,000. If you're not really listening, or you forget that five comes between four and six, you've just lost a good percentage of your cash.
2. The ‘David Copperfield' scam. This is where they make the money vanish before your eyes. The changer counts out money in small notes. Then, using sleight of hand, he distracts you, palms several hundred thou, sweeps the remaining notes into a large pile, and hands them to you with a smile. The last time I was passed a huge wad of cash, I was instantly suspicious. I sat and began counting. His friend appeared by my side and plied me with questions. Although he made me lose count, I realised I was probably 300 thou short and stomped back to the teller, to make him recount. These guys were keen - we went in as a group of four to change money, and all four were relieved of a considerable sum, and had to demand our money back.
3. The ‘What a butterfingers I am, I dropped a zero' scam. This particular one is really cute. It happened in Sanur last month - in a Kodak outlet too. You're due to receive 670,000. The girl counts out 600,000, then adds 7,000 to the top, rather than 70,000. You have a receipt, your money's been counted, but if you don't notice there's a zero missing from some of the notes, you've just lost somewhere around ten dollars.
4. The ‘Sorry, I haven't got any change' scam. This is small-scale scamming where they round your money down, rather than up (of course), as they claim not to have any change. The guy at the Mercure in Sanur did this last month. I've seen others do it too. Operating on the ‘slow but steady wins the race' principle, he figures you won't complain about such a small sum. He won't get rich quickly, but if he does it to everyone, the money will all add up in the long run.
5. The ‘I want to ruin your holiday' scam. This one probably doesn't happen so much in these days of cash and ATMs. I took my passport and travellers cheques to a moneychanger in Sanur (what is it about Sanur?) We did the deal, and I received the correct cash. Suddenly I realised I had no passport. Maybe I was just having a vague day, I thought, and I've put my passport somewhere strange. Turns out that I didn't put my passport anywhere strange at all. He did - under his counter. Now, that one left a really bad taste in my mouth!
Fortunately, these things don't happen everywhere you go, but they do happen all too frequently. You'll get your money back if you catch them in the act, but better not for it to have happened in the first place. For any first-timers going to Bali, be careful where you change your money!