Originally Posted by
lamphs
Resolved...sort of...
The difference between dealing with Barclays/MC and Chase/VISA was day and night. Barclays - person #1 had no idea what I was speaking of; put me on hold and conferred with person #2 - the answer was that there was no way of disputing the charge - 'it is what it is...the transaction was completed and it is the merchant's choice as to how to process the card'. Eventually spoke with person #3, who questioned why I would even be familiar with the MC reason code and she still would not accept the dispute. After pushing more, she asked me how much I thought the difference was between THB and USD. I estimated 5-8%. She told me to give her a number, and I did. She credited my card 'as a gesture of goodwill' for the number I gave her. She was not pleasant at all about it.
Chase - rep immediately knew what I was referring to (without providing a reason code); recognized the practice as being against VISA rules; and credited my account (two transactions). The entire call took less than 4 minutes.
I think enough of us on here have raised complaints with Chase that they now know. For Barclaycard, that would be enough for be to cancel the card on principle (after getting the credit). I would definitely encourage you to file a complaint with MasterCard not only for
the merchant (if it requires a selection perhaps select the one about the merchant adding a surcharge) but also the
card issuer. I would say that Barclaycard was adversarial in your interactions and could benefit from some remedial training on the issue. While I haven't raised a complaint with the network about a card issuer, I did raise a complaint about a merchant requiring ID for a properly signed MasterCard as a condition of card acceptance. Within two weeks the signs/ID requests went away at that merchant.