Originally Posted by
PLin
I’m currently in Zurich, Switzerland and had brunch at a cafe yesterday. When I paid the bill, the terminal displayed a choice for USD or CHF (Swiss Francs). I told the server to process it as CHF, and he quickly processed it as USD anyway. When I asked him why he did that when I clearly said CHF, he said his boss instructed all the workers to do that automatically. The owner of the cafe told the staff that they lose money when processing in CHF. In reality, the cafe gains extra money from forcing the customer to use DCC. I showed him the DCC Wikipedia page, which says that Visa and Mastercard prohibit merchants from forcing the customer to use DCC, and he said he would mention it to his boss later.
In this case, DCC resulted in me getting 0.93 CHF per 1 USD rather than the current intrabank rate of 0.98. The total bill was only $70, so DCC caused me to pay about $3-4 more. I’m tempted to do a partial dispute with my credit card bank. I’ve been in 4 different countries in Europe this past month, and no other merchant has forced me to use DCC.
I was in Prague a few weeks ago, at a small Vietnamese cafe (part of a chain, apparently). I paid with credit card (of course) and was surprised to see DCC was applied - the printed receipt said "I was offered the option to pay in local currency but I chose to pay in US dollars". I certainly did NOT have any opportunity to select either option, they just ran it as DCC without asking. The staff there (just a couple kids) claimed total ignorance, I explained what DCC was, pointed to the receipt which incorrectly stated that I was offered a choice, and told them I didn't appreciate them stealing from me. They professed surprise and claimed the register system was new, I know nothing, the boss isn't around, etc.
This was at a cheap semi-fast food place, our total bill was around 20 Euro (even with the sneaky DCC slipped in) and the DCC gouge was probably less than 2 Euro...so I didn't make a big stink over it, although it did piss me off and I did give them a short lecture. They promised to take it up with the manager the next day. Yeah, sure. I let it go.