Originally Posted by JEFFJAGUAR

I watched very closely last June when checking out of my hotel in Barcelona before a cruise. I got the bill. I handed over my credit card. It was inserted in the pos (it was a c&s B of A rewards card with no ftf). The first thing that happened is a slip came out of the terminal. I am 100% sure that slip had the amount in USD. But I had said right from the start I want to be billed in euro and indeed I was. About 2 years ago, in a story I related, I ran into a problem at a Burger King in Ireland and finally had to submit when the manager, some student from some Eastern European country gave me the bs answer that she doesn't need permission to convert the currency in Ireland. No sense carrying on. I did the circling the euro amount and wrote local currency not offered and had to fight it through the bank (no they didn't charge it back as I wished they would have, they credited me for the 48¢ difference, too bad). In any event, while I didn't realize it at the time, a slip came out of the pos just after the card was swiped (no emv at that time). That first slip seems to be one way the processor initiates a transaction they hope will be a decc ripping off the consumer.

But as I said, the one thing I will not do is pay cash to avoid dcc. If they don't want to do the right thing, I will fight these crooks through my bank.