Well, doing a bit of traveling here in Poland and just got hit 3 times for DCC charges. I don't remember this being nearly as much of a problem back in 2009-10 but I was here again about 14 months ago and was DCCed at a gas station in Zgorzelec.

In the most recent cases, two from gas stations and one from a well-known international pizzeria none of them gave the option to select PLN instead of CAD. In the case from today which is freshest in my memory, there were no indication (as usual) on the hand-held PIN terminal that I would be billed in anything other than PLN and of course the cash register showed the bill in PLN.

PKO Bank Polski seems to do most of the processing of credit card transactions in Poland and in all three cases, one in Warszawa and two in Szczecin, there was never a choice to select local currency on my part.

In the case of one of the gas stations (named after a Dutch crustacean) two days ago I was there for a fill-up and was specifically asked if I wanted the transaction in PLN. Today, a different cashier said nothing and without warning until the final receipts were given to me back with my Visa, I was slammed with the DCC and of course on a 85L fill up this can be prohibitive.

I called my bank in Canada (you know who you are RBC) and of course they did their usual denials and recriminations. They have the worst charge-back department known to man. As before, I get the usual well if you entered in PIN then there's nothing we can do... story. I offered to explain to them in both official languages that the PIN had nothing to do with the amount entered on the cash register and that at no time at all was a currency amount ever shown on the client PIN handset. In fact, when I wanted to do Paypass, the gas station refused. It was a bizarre experience.

So now, I was told by some guy at RBC that I should 'scan' (because I always bring my scanner with me when I travel) the receipts for the three transactions and they will 'look into it'. I told him that was not interested in really disputing the entire amounts (I pay my bills) but I will not be hosed for some fraudulent DCC. At the very beginning of the conversation he had even asked me if I knew how much the overage was for the DCC and I told him that this was something he should be determining himself given that if I had proceeded with the transactions correctly, the currency would have been converted by Visa themselves.

In these cases it seems like having a Chip & PIN is worse than the US-style magnetic strip cards. At least with mag strip there is a better opportunity to dispute the charge where the bank cannot turn around and claim that you entered in your PIN and so 'their hands are tied'. Maybe I should start looking at using my Discover and Amex cards which are without chip? At least neither of them have foreign currency commissions.