Originally Posted by
daveland
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....
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!"