Just went to a CIBC deposit $400 USD in travellers cheques to give some funds to Sunir as he heads off to BarCampOrlando. Somehow my $400 USD turned into ~$382 USD. Unconscionable.

There are really only five banks in Canada. Oligopolies are bad.
On a somewhat related note for anyone out there building web applications. A similar kind of levy may be exacted if you are collecting dollars in your non-native currency. If that’s you, you may want to have a look at this post I wrote about service to currency exchange and web services. Bit of a plug for a service provider we use, but also a smart way to save some money.