Galling indeed!
Chase bank in US does charge an out-of-network atm fee and I'm aware of and accept that and have certainly, I'm sure, on occasion, agreed to pay a local atm fee as well (Mexico City come to mind).
It's the absurd markup on the currency conversion that, apparently, they will not allow you to decline that I found shocking.
I'm heading to LHR on Monday, so will report back if I find anything different.
(I also have an HSBC (now CCF) card in France and was actually told recently by friends that I can withdraw from any bank with no fee. I've always thought I can't but that may have just been an assumption on my part. I'm going to investigate that too)
Originally Posted by
Ldnn1
Yes indeed the UK is I think actually quite rare in that basically every personal bank account allows unlimited fee-free withdrawals at any UK bank. It has long been thus. In many other countries there are limitations similar to in France (I also used to have a SocGen account and it was something I had to pay attention to, back in the days when I used to withdraw cash!)
This is all separate to the OP's issue of course, which is about DCC/charges by the ATM provider when using a foreign card. The experience described by OP certainly sounds galling.