Originally Posted by
GUWonder
foreign bank card-using visitors are prime marks for this kind of sleazy stuff
Why would they care , cause foreigners dont vote for US senate, they just come , pay and leave
Originally Posted by
GUWonder
I've been rather amazed at where DCC has been popping up in the US -- it's showing up even at places where encountering a Canadian or Mexican bank card is very rare..
When i realised how much money i was wasting in the process , it's not hard to understand why this system is broken
In my case i decided to skip having a regular single currency card from my local bank and opted for multi currency cards from fintech companies when travelling abroad
As USD is very popular is not hard to find a provider which offer cards with USD or others as currencies available with your card ..... So , i can exchange money at rates similar/close to mastercard/visa interchange rates for low cost into lets say GBP or MXN and then use it when in the London or Mexico City
In very rare cases terminals might recognize that my card is foreign and try to charge me another currency but since i use only the local one if available it will be declined, and i can quickly spot when merchant is cheating on me
Originally Posted by
GUWonder
The US Treasury, the US Federal Reserve Bank and even some other parts of the US Government could put a stop to this kind of fleecing activity in the US, but the financial services industry lobby is strong and has allies in other sectors of the economy that are more than capable of frustrating any efforts to try to regulate away this sleazy DCC stuff across the country.
It is not just a lobby anymore , but rather a oligopoly (in case of CC) or mafia/cartel in general like the 5 big NYC families (banks , CC issuers, payment networks, payment terminals providers, etc...) as all benefit from that and have zero interests to stop it
In poland , banks only started to move their @$$ and offer similar services (multi currencies card) when they realised that people had possibility to choose and were massively leaving the matrix.