When it came time to pay, the shoe shiner asked for $3.50! This was a huge gouge. The shoe shiner asked if he wanted wax ( cera) and Deke said sure. When our friend came back to pay, the price had gone up to $80 a month, “for electricity,” although the office had a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.ĭeke once agreed to a shoe shine outside the Terminal Terrestre (the long-distance bus station) without asking the price. The landlord said the rent was $70 a month. Sylavan’s friend, recently arrived from Colorado, was looking for office space. (Sylvan lived for a few years in Thailand and says the gringo, or foreigner tax, is much higher there than in Ecuador.)
When Sylvan protested that the price had gone up $10, the owner denied it. From the time it took Sylvan to pick up the box and take it to the counter, the price changed to $35. The owner, who spoke perfect English after living in the States for decades, said the price was $25. For example, Sylvan Hardy was shopping in a reputable computer store for a wireless keyboard and mouse. The difference is usually small but not always.Īnother manifestation of gringo pricing is the curious way in which prices seem to change almost automatically (always higher) when they’re quoted a second time. If you shop with an Ecuadorian, you’ll usually pay a lower price. When you shop by yourself, you’ll pay one price. Gringo pricing is also common at the fruit and vegetable mercados. You won’t find that in the chain supermarkets and departments stores were items are stickered and the prices computerized.
Some of the most common opportunities for gringo pricing are in small shops and stores where the prices of goods aren’t marked and the proprietor has an opportunity to size up the customer before determining a final price. We use the term only as a convenient “handle” that most expats understand and can relate to. To be fair, what we refer to as gringo pricing can be applied to almost any naïve shopper or buyer of services anywhere in the world.
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