Shocking bus ride

Taking the bus from Malmö gave me quite a shock that I wasn't expecting. I saw a bus driver try to steal from a passenger — behaviour that would be almost expected in a place like Lithuania, but seemingly unthinkable in the west/north.

An Iranian guy, who had not done his research into the currency used in Sweden (or into anything else for that matter) got on the bus and said to the driver: "Hello, I am from Iran and I don't know how much it costs to get on. Could you please help me?"

Following this the Iranian held out €20. Just so you know why this is dumb, note that the currency of Sweden is the Swedish Kronor (€1.00 = 9.44Kr) and euros are not accepted. Obviously.

So I was quite amazed when the driver took the money and put it in his wallet. Not only did he take the money, but then he gave the Iranian 7 kr back as change.

I couldn't stand seeing someone cheated like this — even it if was clearly their own fault being so ill informed — so I got up and told the driver to give the €2o back and also gave the 7kr back too. I asked the Iranian if he had any kronor and he said "no, but I thought the currency of Europe was the euro?"

The bus driver pretended he didn't know the exchange rate between kronor and euro - something that is clearly impossible given that the Swedish economy is closely linked to Europe's.

I paid the 29kr for this guy's ticket so he could ride the bus. When we got to Lomma we would go to a bank, change some money and everything would be fine.

When we got to Lomma we found a bank and asked for the currency to be changed. No chance because they were a cashless bank: a bank without money. Of course, how obvious! We went to three other banks and found the same thing: no chance to change your money here. Sigh.

In the end I just took the €20 and gave him 100kr back. That is 188.85 kr minus 29 for the bus and minus 40 for a currency transaction leaving a little leeway for currency fluctuation.

It cost the Iranian 10 euros to ride a bus that should have cost three, but then again, if you don't bring the right currency, what do you expect? Better than him getting cheated out of the whole 20. I still wish I didn't need to go to the bank to change it myself though — at least I helped someone out that day.