Currently in Egypt and they just asked us to pay in USD cash for an added activity but, not being American, we don’t have USD. We have the local currency and the ability to get that out at ATMs, but no way to access foreign currency. So annoying but they accepted local in the end.
Welcome to Egypt. You were being scammed and people will often try to do that to you. Research local prices before buying anything
How does this scam work? Is it based on the assumption that tourist won’t know the exchange rate and can be easily (and presumably grossly) overcharged?
Yeah, and it happens all the time. Gift shops and local shops will often charge more to outsiders because a lot of tourists don’t realize how much cheaper everything is supposed to be here. Like they’d sell you a water bottle for $1 when its real price is well below 40 cents when calculating the local currency. This isn’t even adding the fact that the USD is worth more than its official price here because the Egyptian Pound is constantly crashing.
Someone in the comments said that asking for foreign currencies is common, but it absolutely isn’t. Everyone trades with EGP and if they tell you otherwise, then they’re jacking up the price so much because you look like a clueless tourist.
As for how many people fall for this, I’d say… A lot.
In this case I don’t necessarily think it was a scam because the conversion matched up with what was shown online. However, they clearly wanted both a more stable currency and to not have to convert it themselves. I understand this but there is no way for me to physically attain another currency since I did not bring any into the country and especially wouldn’t have USD. They accepted Egyptian pounds in the end.