kebosabi

Let's look at the real life scenario when a merchant tries to sign up with a local bank to accept VISA. Trust me, I've worked on this in real life:

Merchant: I want to accept VISA to help my business. Can you help me out?

Bank: Great decision! Here's what we have blah-blah-blah

Merchant: Ok. Sounds fair.

Bank: Oh, have you considered you may have foreign customers?

Merchant: Hmm, never thought of that

Bank: Well, you should in this global economy. The reason why we say this is because we have an agreement with VISA to allow customers to choose their home currency at the point of payment. So let's say an British tourist comes into your store and he uses his VISA card issued in the UK. Our machines, with our exclusive deal with VISA, allows us to show them their amount in British Pounds. It's called dynamic currency conversion and it's another level of service to help your business. (conveniently omits any discussion about the details of DCC and how it really doesn't help the British tourist)

Merchant: Oh cool.

Bank: We usually charge a fee for this service, but since we like you so much, we're going to actually give you a substantial discount on your fee for this if you agree to stick with us for [insert some contract date range].

Merchant: Sounds like a deal to me!

Bank: It definitely is! (for us!)

RTW1

That´s exactly it..... both parties, the merchant and the card processor, benefit from DCC.
Look at AVIS which is actively pushing it by making it the standard in your profile.

Jaimito Cartero

Most intelligent merchants, billion dollar hotel chains, mostly, are going to understand it. There going to be fighting chargebacks and rerunning receipts on a regular basis. They're not going to do this unless it's real money in their pocket.

yOyOYoo

I'm headed out to the Bahamas in two days, I guess I may be running into this issue as well. Thanks for bringing this thread back to life!

I will try to ask to pay in local currency.

kebosabi

Of course, this is if you consider most mom-and-pop stores or front-line employees who do not have an MBA to figure this out as well.

Have you tried explaining the intricate details of DCC and how credit card processing works to a 75 year old youth hostel inn keeper in the Chung King Mansions or the minimum wage earning cashier in a major Portuguese supermarket chain in Lisbon, Portugal to be adept at these things? You usually get blank stares.

It's faster and less stress to:

1. Always don't select DCC (primary stand ground)
2. Accept that $hit happens when the charge comes out wrong; don't get frustrated over it
3. Keep your foreign credit card transaction receipts
4. Mail copies of any objectionable ones to your issuer when you get back to your home country (secondary stand ground)
5. It'll eventually clear itself out

Just like my experience with an Indian Restaurant in an upscale area of Delhi, India. Took a while, but it eventually came back correctly.

gil123

No- You should NEVER select DCC. That's the whole point. And unless you notice how the charge is going through at the point of sale, you won't necessarily notice anything on your credit card statements. Checking my Chase card, both the charges that went through in XCD and those the merchant converted against my will to USD show up as USD without the conversion noted. And to be honest, your average American on vaca in the Caribbean probably does appreciate seeing it price out in USD (or wants to be able to pay in US cash), not caring if he is losing some in the process. But for the rest of us, we should have the choice and not have to dispute with the card issuers every little transaction.

kebosabi

Sorry that was a typo. Should be "don't"

Always keep the receipts as proof. If it's somehow not doable, take a good photo of it with your digital camera.


Accept that $hit happens. 50% of the time it works, 50% of the time $hit happens. And when $hit happens, faster and less stress to create a template like this:

and mail it out to your credit card issuer. It'll be resolved as that and it has worked for me.

Keep it simple but concise. Bullet point what needs to be done, point out the irrefutable proofs, and it'll be re-credited back to your account.

MilesTalk

Just ran into this in Aruba with several merchants. Not ONE had any idea how to charge me in local currency. They were all small enough charges that I let it go, but yes, this is very alive and well. Same crap in Dublin earlier this year. It's just all automatic and the clerks either stare blankly or even get agitated (if they are busy) when you question it. Certainly for a larger charge like a hotel bill or car rental, I wouldn't let it slide....

kebosabi

Now consider this the other way around.

You are a Starbucks employee in Manhattan. A Japanese tourist asks for a latte and whips out his/her Mizuho Financial/ANA VISA card issued in Japan. You get the card and swipe it like any other card. The swipe process realizes it's a Japan issued card and for "convenience" the bank has defaulted non-US issued cards to be charged in their home currency. So the receipt defaults to JPY and spills out a receipt for her to sign. He/she then asks for it to be re-processed again in USD instead of the default JPY DCC option.

What's the likely outcome?

Blank stares from the clerk who is just following the screen prompts and have no idea what to do because all he did is swipe the card just like any other credit card and long lines of agitated customers thinking "oh for crying out loud, nobody f--ing cares about your problems about few dollars and cents more, DCC or whatever brainy-a$$ technical mumbo jumbo, would you hurry up and get going and stop bothering the others in the line, or if you have problem just pay cash! Sheesh!"

jamar

Yep- this was the sort of reaction I got the first time I raised the DCC issue with a restaurant in China. Clueless stares. And it turned out that two things had to be done to be able to not be charged in home currency for that particular merchant's acquiring bank (HSBC):

1. Must use an EMV card.

2. Must press "Cancel" when the terminal is connecting to HSBC to ask for their DCC rate. It will just back out of the whole transaction if you use a mag-stripe card.

Both of which are rather counter-intuitive (and one of which was the motivation for me to get an EMV card).

Also, on the topic of Japanese tourists:

Both Mitsui-Sumitomo and Mitsubishi-UFJ issue UnionPay cards that would avoid the DCC issue altogether in China. And yet that restaurant where I was first DCC'ed by HSBC showed me a pile of receipts from Japanese visitors using Visa/MC and agreeing to be charged in JPY and I've never seen anyone use one of those banks' UnionPay cards in China. They really don't care, do they?

And a completely different DCC issue I had to deal with:

I also have a Canadian bank account for when I need true Chip+PIN and not just Chip+Sign (as my Citi cards are). Tried the debit card at a restaurant and the terminal gave me a choice of RMB or USD. I don't even get to select the card's native currency? What?

percysmith

1. Try not to take it out on front-line employees (your Starbucks employee) personally. Tho I have no similar reservations on owners and managers.

2. Usually DCC not a choice - see St Regis Shenzhen terminal for instance. In that case the merchant bank (Bank of China) even locked the VOID button to try to lock in their gains.

3. If you are asked whether to DCC or not before given final slip to sign, you might be getting a choice about DCC. Tell the staff no DCC and sign, keep a copy of merchant slip (or your slip if carbon) and check transaction when you return home.

3a. If you are simply presented with a "Mark[X] Transaction Currency" slip but the merchant has already printed his slip, you've been DCCed and should void the transaction right away and present alternate payment.

4. If void not possible/not performed, take photo of merchant slip (if thermal) or keep your copy of slip (if carbon) and raise Reason Code 76 with your bank. Do not accept out-of-pocket compensation from bank (Schwab tries to do this), make them follow through and dispute the merchant bank

percysmith

I don't have such a sympathetic view of staff as you. "Just following orders" and "minimum wage earning cashier" doesn't justify overcharging customers, or at least an obligation to help customers try to get out of the overcharging when it occurs.

That minimum wage earning cashier is still the primary agent of the overcharging merchant. If he feels wronged having to do all this for a customer who stand his ground, this employee should not work in the front office of any shop.

Of course this employee is limited by what the card terminal or POS will let him do. Other FTers in the PRC make Chinese employees go to extraordinary lengths to disable DCC and charge them in RMB. I merely ask the transaction be voided so I can present alternate payment (Amex or Unionpay), and I don't think it's too much to ask the employee to ask his manager to help him if he's not been trained to do this before.


I rather not go file Reason Code 76 disputes with my bank - if only I want to save postage (chargeback disputes in HK must be initiated using paper forms) and two months of back and fro phone calls and letters to and from my bank which is perfectly innocent in all of this (they really don't money when their cards are DCCed overseas). Void and reprocess is still my preferred way.

And whilst most DCC is nickel and diming consider the RMB30,000 (US$4,770) golf coupon my parents and one of their friends purchased in Sep 2011 with a 2.64% (US$250) scalp

Jaimito Cartero

I mostly run into problems with hotels doing this in Asia. I always tell them, "Local currency" when they're running the charge. If they ignore it, I make them void and run it again. If the hotel is rude or uncooperative, I make sure that my TripAdvisor reviews rating reflects this.

Hit them where it hurts.

kebosabi

Why do you think front line minimum wage earning teenagers/20 something employees have a high turnover rate? These people are not going to make a career out of being a cashier for the rest of their lives.

Put it simply "I don't give a flying f---, I'm only here to save up cash for a new sportsbike/help pay for college tuition."

Your complaints may get them to be fired, in the end, they really don't care. They're just going to be applying for new front line cashier job at Watsons or at McDonald's the next day.

Retail environment plays a big factor whether it is appropriate to do this or not. If you're in a small business and if you're the only customer in the shop, sure go for it. The cashier can spend as much as time as necessary to make you a satisfied customer. Say, like an American buying a kimono at a mom-and-pop store in Kyoto. The likelihood of them going the extra mile to figure out the DCC thing is far more better than say at McDonald's.

But in high volume fast paced environment like the Starbucks example, front line cashiers are not motivated or rated by helping an individual customer no matter how long it takes. Instead, they are rated by how many customers they can process per hour. In places like these, the likely outcome is "dude, just STFU suck up the few cent cheapskate, I don't understand all the technical mumbo jumbo $hit, I'm only here to pay for my new bike. Now move the f--- aside, I have to get through all the other irritated customers behind you who are all thinking the same thing."

percysmith

Don't give flying fxck/retail environment - I think with a small amount you can very well eat it. Tho I definitely won't go to that shop again and will trash them on Tripadvisor.

For larger purchases and spending I won't tolerate this kind of behaviour. Took a cashier to the concierge when at Harrods http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/u-k-i...-currency.html