Originally Posted by
Majuki
Beyond that, the predominance of USD denominated cards in the US makes it less lucrative for a small business to enable DCC on a standalone terminal. For instance, at a souvenir shop in NYC, what percentage of transactions will still be from USD cards versus a souvenir shop at a major cruise port city in Europe seeing cards denominated in local currency, especially for places not using the euro? You also mentioned not seeing DCC on Toast, Square, and equivalent terminals, which are ubiquitous in the US at small and independent merchants.
Finally, customer service attitudes, the indifference of many retail employees, customer facing terminals in retail settings, and self checkout options all favor the customer's ability to avoid DCC. When my sister-in-law saw DCC in a couple of retail environments with her AUD card, it appeared that the cashier didn't have any control over the currency selection. I say this because I asked her to wait for me to take a photo, and the cashier seemed to be waiting for input on the customer's part. One of the few cases where the customer wouldn't have access to the terminal would be in a restaurant, but customer service (and the prospect of a bad tip) would avoid DCC there. It's not like elsewhere in the world where from our own experiences staff seem to be trained to direct or force DCC upon customers. We've seen multiple posts here of people asking employees to opt out of DCC proactively, and the employees feigning surprise by replying, "Let's see what happens. Oh, it looks like it charged in your home currency. I can't do anything to fix it."
This makes sense to me. In the USA in general we probably don't have the percentage of foreign currency cards showing up like parts of Europe where people are crisscrossing borders more easily and frequently. Also had not considered customer access to the terminal. In the USA we still do a lot of "hand my card to a stranger' vs "bring swipe device to the customer" so in a restaurant it would be weird -- the serve coming back to you to ask your currency choice but then selecting it on your behalf.
Originally Posted by
CorSter
As a very frequent cross border traveler, my experiences with DCC in the US have almost exclusively been at large, national retail chains. The TJX chains immediately come to mind as my most recent experience but it happens at others as well. These are all situations where it's easy to decline as the option shows up on the customer facing digital signature pad.
Also makes sense to me that large chains would bother with it to make a few nickels per transaction at large scale which would turn into real money, and corporate standards rolled out, etc.