I learned about it from an ordeal.

I had a blotched withdrawal at a BNP at Aix-en-Provence, France a few weeks ago.

The machine ate my Fidelity Cash Management Check Card and not spit out any money. A receipt came out with words about "ATM card not withdrawn", "Contact Local Branch" and no transaction printed on the 100 euro withdrawal. It was 12:36pm and the bank was closed till 2:00PM. I went in right at the re-opening of the bank and after some arguing I was able to get my card back with my passport proof in about 20 minutes - I had to as we were on a cruise and we had to return to Marseilles by 4:30pm. I was told the reason why the card was eaten was because I did not take my card from the ATM quick enough. Well, the card never popped out when the screen told me "Not to forget getting your card back" - I could see the card came to flush with the slot where there was a small indent for thumb and finger - it is so small that it probably equals to a woman's thumb nail - that is how small the area is. When I tried to pull the card out, I wasn't able to and the card quickly retracted back to the ATM.

Apparently the BNP at Aix-en-Provence has many tourists encounter similar problem as the teller eventually told me next time to use other type of machines the bank also has. The problematic one is the ONLY such type there but it was the first one you could see when you were looking for the ATMs that can do international withdrawal as each ATM is separate by some privacy panel and you would not know there is a machine until you walk along the whole curved wall.

Long story short when I logged into my Fido account, I found there were 3 line entries: A debit of $130xx as cash advance. A charge of debit card purchase of $1.30 and a credit of $130xx as cash advance reversal.

The next day the credit adjustment fell off. So my account balance was dinged by the 2 debit items. I sent a secured message to Fido to detail the event and request investigation.

We were at Livorno, Italy by then. Fido has Italy toll-free number to call but it seems most pay phones I found do not work at all. I found a net cafe with phone services but the owner told me it would not work to call toll-free. My guess is toll free does not enable him to charge me so he just does not want to offer the service. Eventually I was able to get help from a shopkeeper who called the toll-free line from his shop's landline phone. I got connected with Fido USA and the CSR saw the same thing as I did. He made a notation to my account, transferred me to the card service dept where the CSR told me the credit was in pending stage would take a few days, the debit items were authorized therefore took away the amount from account balance. He said he could not figure out the $1.30 debit card purchase item.

Upon returning to the ship I logged in Fido and did an online chat. The CSR said all items were in pending mode and he would need to do more research then send me an email on the outcome.

I did not look at my Fido account for the next 15 days because net connection was hard to find. (Did not travel with any device to minimize weight as our trip involved train and LCC flights post cruise.)

Upon return I found all transactions related to the ATM withdrawal vanished as if they never happen - this is one thing I really dont like FIDO's accounting - I would much rather to see a history of reversal so one has a record of what has been going on.

Anyway, the online chat rep did send a email - he had talked to a person at PNC bank (the bank that my cash management account is assigned to), that the credit fell off because the authorization code used by BNP was a new one, different from the ATM withdrawal authorization code - therefore it had nothing to offset and fell off. PNC rep said she could not re-instate the credit, but assured Fido the withdrawal debit would also fall off in 4 business days as well as the $1.30 "purchase" which she said was the 1% Visa foreign withdrawal fee.

This separate 1% foreign withdrawal fee would not be reimbursed by Fido based on my understanding.

I have made withdrawals in Spain at Santander bank, as well as withdrawal in Prague, Czech Republic - both banks did not charge the so-called 1% Visa foreign withdrawal fee. In fact I have used FIDO's card exclusively for all our travel needs - none of the withdrawals done in Hong Kong and Taiwan earlier this year, and none of the withdrawals done in Spain, France, Italy last year, have ever had this 1% fee shown up. None of the exchange rates used ever included such 1% fee either when comparing to historic inter-bank mean avg rates found on the web. The exchange rates come very close to the inter-bank rates with may be 0.05% to 0.1% variances sometimes in my favor.

My conclusion is, some banks now start charging the Visa connection fee of 1%. That 1% would not be reimbursed. You would not find that out until after the fact as BNP ATM never displays such a fee at any time during the process. I know now to avoid BNP and specifically avoid certain design of ATMs.