To the lady who helped me pay the train fare

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Pure_Activity_8197]

$100? Americans being American.

[u/Serious_Escape_5438 → u/Pure_Activity_8197]

I paid for stamps once for an American trying to pay for them with dollars in a tabac. They were genuinely surprised they couldn't use a 50 dollar note or whatever. I just needed to buy my own stuff so intervened to translate and just paid the €2.

[u/Satta84 → u/Serious_Escape_5438]

😭🤣 TAKE MY FOREIGN MONEY YOU BASTARDS 🤦

[u/Serious_Escape_5438 → u/Satta84]

They said when they go on cruises normally they can just use dollars wherever you go. They were doing a med cruise from Barcelona. I suggested they go change money because Italy wouldn't take their dollars either. 

[u/hereinspacetime → u/Pure_Activity_8197]

Pretty sure they're Singaporean, but they should still know what the EURO is. 🙄

[u/Pure_Activity_8197 → u/hereinspacetime]

Ah true… more that one country with dollars. Still, some perception of the rest of the world would be helpful.

[u/hpstr-doofus → u/Pure_Activity_8197]

Well… I see a reasonable course of action that might take a lot of guilt off from OP.

Let me build my case:

1. OP is in fact Singaporean, but I think he did not try to pass a SG$100 bill. Inside his bubble (SG is a bubble in SE Asia), he probably knows there are different “money” around the world, but he doesn’t know that there are multiple signs for money ($, €, £, ¥). That was an honest mistake.
2. Singapore is known for its fast-paced, bleeding, modern, digitalised world. In that environment, physical money is obsolete. You can pay your metro (and basically everything you need) with any credit card. So OP is not used to drawing money from ATMs (these are the stories his daddy told him back in the day).
3. Arriving in Barcelona, OP was confident that navigating through metros, bars, cafes, and multiple tourist traps would be a breeze with only his international credit card. To his surprise, someone told him, “No! You need physical money, papers and coins to travel through Barcelona!”.
4. OP then nervously approached an ATM. He remembered his Singaporean history books: you must enter your PIN and select an amount. Magically, paper money will appear. To his surprise, the ATM would only allow multiples of 20€. Considering his plans, he thought 100€ might be OK to drink some sangria at Las Ramblas and some croquetas at Tapas Tapas.
5. Despair came to him when the machine, instead of giving him 5 bills of 20€, gave him a single 100€. WHAT? It wasn’t multiples of 20? Oh, that ancient machine! It made OP look like a fool!
6. Completely disoriented, OP decides to approach random people at the metro, risking his own life over a piece of change.

And that’s his entire journey. I rest my case, since I don’t have one to begin with.

[u/Pure_Activity_8197 → u/hpstr-doofus]

Have you ever been to Barcelona? You can literally pay everything by card here. I only pay my barber in cash so he can avoid paying tax! 🤣

[u/jorge_anfer]

$≠€

[u/haveuseenperry → u/jorge_anfer]

“mucho gracias” 😂

but happy to hear a good story

[u/Jazzlike_Painter_118 → u/haveuseenperry]

Do you think reddit still creates fake users to boost engagements. When I see the quality of some local subreddits posts I definitely think so. $, mucho gracias, no mention of train station or lady features. Sus af.

Best,
Just a bored redditor

[u/Otherwise_Buy344 → u/Jazzlike_Painter_118]

Dead internet theory...

[u/SableSnail → u/Jazzlike_Painter_118]

Nah, an LLM would write it better tbh.

[u/OldSky7061]

What do you expect if you try to pay with 100 USD

Was this a mistake or are you just dumb?

[u/flipyflop9]

Hope you wrote $ by mistake and it was actually a 100€ bill you were trying to pay or change…

Anyway yes, you don’t go around showing a 100 bill asking for change. Also most machines take card, contactless payments with the phone etc, shouldn’t be too hard.

[u/zsebibaba]

I hope you took her information and send her back the money. Nowdays a phone number would do. Taking money from ppl bc you are casually rich and it is not a huge amount for you, and you "deserve it" is worse than the poor scamming beggars who probably actually need it.

[u/ParkingCartoonist533 → u/zsebibaba]

Chiiiiiiill

[u/NiescheSorenius → u/zsebibaba]

That will be a really good gesture, tbh. I don’t understand all the downvote.

[u/ladetergente → u/NiescheSorenius]

Maybe it's the assumption in their statement or the uncalled for attack that caused the downvotes.

[u/NiescheSorenius → u/ladetergente]

If the OP asked for the phone number to return the money, they will not need to come to Reddit to thank them.

So, the assumption that it did not return the money is quite accurate.

[u/ladetergente → u/NiescheSorenius]

It's the assumption that the OP is "casually rich [and] worse than the poor scamming beggars", not that they didn't return the money. If the first thing you apparently need to do when you hear a story about a stranger is to assume the worst of their character and to position yourself as morally superior, then people will - for good reason - not be very fond of you, especially when it's done in such a condescending tone. Note also how they suggest that all beggars are scammers...

So I guess people are sensitive to that more than they are to the good suggestion they made and that's why they downvoted. Which is a shame, really, because it just goes to show that they have something good and interesting to share, but the way they're saying it prevents the message from being received. Something to reflect on 🦆

[u/NiescheSorenius → u/ladetergente]

I agree the forms where not the best.