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Comment by zaik | Hacker News Reader

Who charges their buddy 15 USD exchange fees on 100 USD? :(

He literally put 100USD in front of me, said he forgot to get more yen before his trip, and asked for a favor. Am I really in the wrong from your perspective?

Yes, the move to do was to take a pair of scissors to cut down the 100 dollar bill to fair market value, and give the remainder back to your friend.

If I was in that situation and I’d help my friend not try to make a buck off them when they are down.

Between electronic transfer and just settle the debt later, isn’t really an excuse…

Please explain how the situation I described is me "trying to make a buck". You're saying he regretted the terms he presented, and is forever resentful that I didn't drag him to a bank to look up the exchange rate at the time?

The economic term is "price gauging".

You charged a $15usd (~15%) fee when your friend was desperate and willing, when the standard fee for such transactions is at best 0% and worst 5%.

It very much depends on the people and the relationship. Through many years, I've swung a few hundred$+ in either direction with a bunch of people, thousands with a couple.

I much prefer zero stress - if money is tight, we just don't do expensive stuff, or steal the bill before they have a chance to pay. Mostly that means we stay cheap until we can safely cover multiple people if needed (running your safety-buffer low enough that you can't do that is a terrible idea anyway).

The economic term is "price gauging".

OP increased the cost of forex from 0-5% to 15% when his "friend" was desperate.

Yes

It would be more weird if you or your friend insisted on nickel and diming each other over a favour that would undoubtably be returned in the future.

You could have given him the bill for his immediate expenses and later give him the difference. Or pay him a beer or a lunch to make up for it. I'd never take advantage of a friend in need like that.

And as you said, "it was an easy 15 bucks". You were very aware of what you were doing: easy money off your "friend", instead of friends not minding a few dollars missing here or there.

For people I am good friends with we don't sweat owing each other 15 bucks here or there because it all evens out in the wash.

Sure thing, but do you see these as "easy money" or simply doing a friend a favor?

From one George to another, this is the way. My close friends don’t bother with Venmo or the like.

I don't know what kind of friends you have, but mine take offense to being offered something they didn't ask for, like they are beggars or are owed something.

He stayed with me for a week last year. We had a big bbq. I stuffed him full of akaushi beef. I didn't ask for a dime, nor would I ever.

I guess you maintain friendships with an excel sheet handy? good for you I guess

I did something similar for a US tourist who was making me ashamed of being a US tourist. Got on a boat tour, bar is cash only, he only has dollars. I traded him something like $100 worth of yen, I told him the exchange rate, and that he was paying above it. He didn't care, he just wanted to buy some drinks

That's the wrong read. It's more that it's easy to understand. "I will give you a 100 dollar bill, please give me a 10,000 yen bill."

He must have been a very itchy man.

Does seem within the range of “hit me back when I see you next week, buddy” though.

shoobiedoo was now stuck with a locally useless $100 American. So, he was actually given a hassle to resolve of getting it converted back to yen.

If the guy was so hot to not lose a dime, he could have said, “Loan me 10k yen right now, I will pay you back ASAP”.

If the guy is in Japan with American currency, he likely knows the exchange rate and exactly the terms he was getting.

yep. at that time, I would have had to take it to the exchange, with my passport, pay a fee, and barely break even. I really didn't think that needed to be said, but people always come out of the woodwork to convince themselves they are morally superior

No I wasn't saying that. It's close, but you mentioned something about making money on the trade, so I just added the observation. It's totally dependent on the relationship, really!

It might have been a gift by his friend. You don't know the details, maybe the friend is more affluent, maybe op had already let him stay in his apartment and given him food and this was the friends covert attempt to even the scale without directly offering money.

In 2021, USD to JPY exchange rate ranged from ~102 to ~115, and the average was ~109. The actual exchange rate could be a bit less depending on where you make the exchange, so 100 USD to 10000 JPY doesn't seem like that much off.

(For example, I noticed that if I buy something from Amazon or try to pay for something using Paypal, the exchange rate they offered me is consistently worse than the market rate if I elect to pay with USD instead of JPY. The difference often adds up to a few dollars, even accounting for foreign transaction fees that my bank might charge.)

You mean the cost of a couple of beers at the end of the day?

OP clearly stated the situation was of a mutual benefit - friend got their Y now and don't need to bother with doing an exchange, OP got a few spare bucks which was a such big sum what it literally sat in the drawer for 5 (five) years.

This is the kind of handwringing over $100 ethics I come to HN for!

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