For sizeable, sophisticated merchants like Marriott I think it holds true. Marriott will be crazy if they allow DCC and let Bankcomm keep all of the boot, presumably aware that in their overseas operations the boot is shared.

I'm disappointed Marriott uses a compulsory DCC on its properties. It's certainly grounds for complaint and Marriott should know better. This is Marriott Beijing right? Marriott Puxi doesn't do this http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china...ersion-12.html

However for smaller merchants I still give them the benefit of the doubt. Small (and I'm presuming owner-operated) merchants like Secrep Recipe are treated no better than retail customers in a Chinese bank. Like visitors, they might not know the have unwittingly scammed their customers in the first place. And if the bank simply replaces the card terminal, telling the merchant "system-wide upgrade", not disclose the DCC and keep the level of merchant fees the same, the merchant might not be any wiser than the foreign customers who use their 国际卡 at its terminals.

Even if a small merchant becomes aware its bank is scamming its customers (getting over the Lost In Translation barrier), its options are very limited. They don't know which banks don't DCC or have optional DCC (again, limited disclosure by banks, and unlike us they can't apply for a 国际卡 to find out on their own). Changing banks is a PITA anyway (I tried for my co's WOFE).

It might be easier for the front line staff to suffer complaints than to do anything about it. Or take away the 国际卡 terminal altogether. I don't think they'll try disclosing it - how good will your English (and French, German, Japanese...) have to be to disclose "our Visa card terminal has Dynamic Currency Conversion that we can't switch off" (and the 老外 then asks "why?").