Currency Exchange Involving Iraqi Dinar

From the first day I landed in Iraq I have heard people talk about currency exchange involving Iraqi dinar. They were buying up Iraqi dinar in some scheme of selling it back for many times what they paid for it. In short, it was their ticket to the big times.

In short it was a rumor. In stupidity, these people were spending thousands of dollars thinking they were going to make a mint in a currency exchange involving Iraqi dinar. I would watch in amazement as they bought these from Iraqis coming in on base. Several things happened.

A lot of the Iraqi currency they were buying were worthless counterfeits. These people never once stopped to realize that they were being duped. They even got mad at me when I told them that what they were doing was stupid.

Then Iraq decided to change their currency in order to stop the counterfeiting. People thinking that the Iraqi dinar was going to make them a ton of money were left holding an empty bag. The Iraqi dinar they had was worthless. The Iraqi dinar was not even worth the paper it was printed on.

They could, if theirs was not counterfeit, exchange if for the new Iraqi dinar, but the Iraqis on base wanted a commission for exchanging the money. These people did not even break even. They lost out big time. Plus they had to hope the Iraqis came back to work. Many did not. Three to four thousand dollars for them is a year’s pay.

Now some people who believed that the new money was going to be worth something later down the line, bought thousands of dollars worth and then tried to carry it out of the airport or mail it home. Iraq changed its policies and began stopping people from taking the money out of the country. The Iraqis now check the mail and then they give you a good body search when leaving to catch a plane to go on R and R. I used to joke that they felt me up better than my wife.

And then some believed they would be able to take the money and exchange it themselves. But things got bad and Americans were no longer allowed to go downtown or leave the base. It was too dangerous. This whole thing about currency exchange involving Iraqi dinar was a hoax if you ask me. I do not know of anyone who ever got rich off of it.

The bottom line is, if it sounds too good to be true then it is.