My ~20 lady colleagues took the opportunity of a last minute schedule change to go raid a Galleries Lafayette near the hotel we are staying for our offsite (Montparnesse)

We (they) caused such a fuss at that small Lafayette branch some staff from other departments came around, chuckled and took snaps of them. They were acting truly Chinese.

I moped around (nothing for my SO) until a colleague told me our dotted line manager had a exchange rate problem on her credit card. Didn't take much to figure this was a DCC.

She explained she tried to use Unionpay as advised by me and my other card-loving colleagues, but when the cashier couldn't make it work (it was a small Lafayette after all) she handed over her Visa. But i havent warned against DCC cos enough nagging has been done by other overbearing colleagues on this offsite. She was duly asked HKD or EUR and chose the former based on occasional reports about high exchange rates by HK banks (HK banks don't bother to explain where card exchange rates come from nor make customer education campaigns warning against DCC).

I took a look at the slip and the POS it came out off - my heart sank. Its another integrated POS again looking very much like Harrods from last year. My dotted line manager held no slip of exchange rate quotation in advance so I assume it's one of those rate and/or home currency amount displayed on the POS for acceptance or rejection. My manager chose to proceed with the purchase, tho if she is aware of the problem she might have stopped the transaction there and then.

The slip stated clearly Global Blue was the perp and the markup was 3%. I think this is too late notice.

The scalp appeared to be 2.5% at first, but the EUR really gained against the USD (and thus HKD) overnight so the real scalp is probably 1.22% over our after-fee rate.

This is trickier than Harrods due to the language barrier (and why the DCC perps need to be fxcked with some cudgels up their anxses). My manager asked the cashier who DCCed for the charge to be refunded and charged in EUR and the junior cashier wisely went and grabbed his senior colleague. When presented with the request, he seemed clued in and warned us the refund will only me made in Euros. I asked him to confirm this means no HKD refund can be done and he said yes.

Even tho I have no Lafayette VIP I decided to give the matter another push and took the manager and her slips down to the service desk, which doubled as the global blue service desk. Although he wore a Lafayette uniform I am ready to believe this guy worked for global blue - he pointed to the EUR amount in the slip, then told me to go talk to my manager's bank. I don't get to see the DCC perp face to face much so I loudly thucked you-ed him within my manager and her boss's earshot and motioned my manager to get her VAT refund.

My manager appeared to want to take the matter no further so I am not considering a chargeback. If it was my charge I would for the last (Global Blue) representative's response alone.