There was this really sleazy place in Mexico where a lot of tourists go where they only accepted pacos. For context, most places in Mexico tourist areas will accept dollars (and for the most part give you a fair exchange rate). They would point to an ATM across the street and tell you to get money from there.

I did the needful and paid for my stuff and went back to the beach. That evening, I got an alert from my bank saying that my purchase for airline tickets was rejected due to possible fraud. I called my bank and sure enough, my card was skimmed.

I checked the machine before I got cash to make sure there wasn’t a skimmer. But it turns out that this scam is quite common in tourist areas in Mexico. The machine itself is run by criminals and they record the details of your card by using the machine.

All this to say: I know cash is king but man, it can also be quite sleezy.