Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) and Chargebacks
 

Hi

2 days ago i rented car from Avis Miami USA ,upon rental Avis agent preauthorize my credit card in my home currency which is Saudi Arabian Riyals ,this process called dynamic currency conversion in which Avis will get more money by exchange rate conversion ,the agent didn't tell me about this and i am not agree to this process i am in USA i want to be billed by US dollar.visa company regulation says

from here http://usa.visa.com/personal/using_v....html#anchor_4

so i am wondering big company like Avis doing these this which is usually done by small hotels to get few extra dollar , i will return the car 2 days later and i will fight to be billed by US dollar , any advice please.

more about dynamic currency conversion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic...ncy_conversion

When you return the car, tell the check-in agent that you have a billing issue. They'll give you a temp receipt to take to the rental counter. Go to the counter and tell them to bill you in USD and it shouldn't be a problem.

Currency Conversion
 

Based on your post, it seems that you went to the counter for your car hire. I travel quite often on business and see Dynamic currency conversion quite a bit. I also rent from Avis Budget and can tell you that when you go to the counter to rent and you have a credit card in a different currency they do ask. Perhaps you missed it. I know I often miss half of what they are saying simply because I am in a rush and not paying complete attention. I also looked at some of my rental agreements from past rentals and it is included in the details and we are asked to initial various parts of the agreement and to sign it. Since I do travel quite often I like the ability to pay in my own currency. Sure, the companies charge a fee but I am not aware of any offering by any company including my own bank or any credit card company: Visa, Mastercard, American Express or any currency exchange service: bureau de change, Travelex that offers this service for free. World currencies fluctuate on a daily basis much like the stock market. Companies need to charge a fee to cover their expense and any fluctuation in the market. I am fine with this because if they do not do it, the credit card company or my own bank will and they will charge me a fee. I prefer to know what that cost is up front and make the choice instead of finding out when my credit card decides to tell me what it is after I return. I can tell you that you should be mindful of the exchange rate before you agree or disagree. Like all businesses, there are good guys and bad guys. Most big companies like Avis provide good service because they are looking for you to continue to rent from them. This is more of a customer convienence service. If you do not want it, then simply say no. Since you say you were not asked or maybe you did not hear them (you did agree based on the agreement you sign at the counter) you can simply go into the office when you return the car and tell them you would like to be charged in US dollars instead of Saudi Riyal. They will change if for you as they have form me when I requested. If for any reason the person cannot, simply ask for a manager and they can do it no problem.

thanks

i will try, but i have checked the agreement and i discovered i was agree to this process sadly it is first time to happen to me.

thanks

i did the reservation in advance through orbitz.com in us dollar, the man in counter was very busy and hurry saying there is lot of jobs today, he didn't tell me at all about this but i signed to agree to the process as i checked the contracts after that, i know it was my mistake but i think he should tell me,

actually Saudi Riyals is linked to US dollar and the exchange rate are fixed for years, and my credit card bank is giving excellent exchange rate,i rented a car from tomorrow for ten days and i avoided Avis and i choose Advantage rent a car,no more Avis it's not only a matter of money is how they should deals with us.

feedback:

today i return the car and i went to avis counter complaining about what happened, they void the Previous contract and made new one and billed me with USD ,NEW CAR TODAY RENTED FROM ADVANTAGE and i told them bill me in USD.

What's really dishonest with AVIS is that they say on the rental agreement that "you have been given a choice of currencies and that you agreed to be invoiced in your home currency". Well if you book on their website, are a preferred, you go straight to your car and the first time you see anything is the contract in the car. They don't ask you when you're doing the booking, you aren't given any choice at any stage in the booking process and the only way to resolve it is to go back to the counter when you return the car. That deletes one of the main advantages of being preferred and requires you to add 15-20 minutes to your return time, whilst the agent figures out how to cancel the bill you never agreed to in the first place and bill you according to the rate you did agree to.
For heaven's sake if I am quoted a rate in USD, then bill me in USD. It shouldn't be that difficult!

100 % agree, it's annoying that they even rip-off their preferred customers like this. I don't care which insurances, extras and currency conversions they sell at the counter, but it's annoying for a regular customer.

Again, there's a historical for this: Until a few years ago, it would have cost you more to be billed in USD than in your home currency, because credit cards tended to charge for foreign currency, not foreign transactions.

That's when Avis instututed this and lots of people loved it.

The problem is that now many cards (but I don't know if all cards) charge for foreign transactions, not foreign currency (or else a few don't charge for either). So it's no longer any help to be billed in your home currency.

But Avis is known for their IT problems. So you have to contact them, and they have a special office where they do this. It took a few weeks when I requested it, and I got a call from special office to confirm that it was what I wanted.

But this is far from the only thing their IT system makes unfriendly. If you choose to decline insurance coverage, it's enormously difficult to include insurance coverage on particular booking. If you want to use one credit card for business and one for personal rentals, it's so difficult that people who want to do that have left Avis (or else use Avis only for personal and some other rental company for business, or vice versa)!

So all sorts of things that "shouldn't be that difficult" are indeed difficult at Avis.

Btw, I just watched an Undercover Boss episode about Norwegian Cruise Lines. The guy who's CEO there now bragged about his previous task being that he intergrated Avis and Budget into the Avis Budget Group. (Btw, they're so integrated that at Kansas City Airport the Avis WhereTo GPS directs you to the Budget entrance instead of the Avis entrance! And there are no signs at the Budget entrance pointing you to the Avis entrance, or vice versa. That's integrated??? :td:)

This very annoying issue was discussed before in this thread. I investigated with Avis and it seems that they (sneakily and unfairly) set all foreign credit cards used at US locations to DCC by default, and you have to opt out manually.

While possible, this is tedious and it's a very poor example of customer-friendiness.

The credit card I have to use for my car rentals (because it's the one with the insurance) still carries a 2.5% foreign currency fee, which I find quite high. But my experience shows that those 2.5% are still significantly less than what I end up paying if I accept the DCC exchange rates that Avis would like me to accept. :mad:

or you can use AMEX, there's no DCC with AMEX



You can ask CS to remove "signature on file" so that you have to sign the contract every time, Prefered will of course be pretty pointless then but...

This is exactly what annoys the H out of me. And it's even worse than described above, I have had three different Avis branches tell me on return that they can't change billing currency, it must be done before the rental. If it's a lot of money, and you are angry enough, you can get it back from Avis, but it's a nuisance.

This doesn't work as AVIS doesn't use the standard DCC facility of Mastercard or VISA, they rather convert the amount at some fantasy rate they make up on their own and charge any CC with it, ancluding AMEX.

I agree, most times it's a fairly small amount, couple of dollars or so, so I guess most of us can't be bothered. However if Avis are nickel-and-diming all their customers for a couple of dollars, that adds up to a significant amount. That's why I systematically claim it back. Indeed, the last time it happened to me at ATl, the Avis manager actually gave me a 10$ credit for the inconvenience. However I just wished they would change their practice and be honest.
As to going to the counter each time, what's the point in being "preferred" in that case? Don't Avis value my custom:D

This is correct.

I have a USD Visa card issued by a British bank. When I rented with Avis in the US, I picked up my car from the Preferred bay and drove away. When I got the bill after the rental, the amount on my USD bank statement was wrong, so I queried it. Avis admitted they had converted the USD amount of my bill to British Pounds, and my bank, of course, had subsequently converted the Pounds amount back to US Dollars.... nice little earner, n'est-ce pas? :mad:

Got DCCed with Avis when I returned my rental 3 days ago. It has never happened in my US rental before, this is the first time I rented as Avis Preferred.

I have never signed anything agreeing to this and they forced a 3% charge on my bill. I called Avis CS billing dept and they claim that it's their new policy.

This is cheating because in my reservation nothing is displayed in my home currency including the rental contract I got from Avis. It's the final print out and the invoice that are in my home currency. It feels like being robbed.

I feel your pain. I'm hesitant to use Avis Preferred because of this, although I have been able to get a refund when complaining to Avis Sweden a year ago or so. But "new policy" doesn't sound good. :td:

Do you have the ability to dispute with your credit card? If it wasn't stated anywhere, they shouldn't have the ability to change currency/fees/etc. I'd call Avis another time or two and give them crap and see if Agent Roulette works.

I wrote to Avis Europe and Sweden to complain. I'll call a charge back if I don't get my fee refunded.

Update
 

Got a reply from Avis Sweden:

That is hopeless. I was never given a choice nor I have agreed or signed anything that I'll be billed in SEK. The most annoying part is that I have to say it and sign something that is supposed to be the norm. I have never given a choice to opt out DCC. :mad:

I have sent them a last e-mail giving them either 1. readjust the bill back to USD or 2. refund the DCC charge.

If they turn me down, I'm definitely going for a charge back :mad:

A respond from Avis Scandinavia
 

Well I have started my chargeback, since I got this final answer from Avis:

:td:

So what exactly does page 7, section 10, say???

(Their repsonse was based on that, but you did include that, so it's difficult for us to actually understand what their reponse was.)

Here's the page 7, section 10:

It's ridiculous because I have never seen anything about SEK until I have returned the car. The quote was in USD, the contract I got when I picked up the car was in USD.

Has anyone tried chargeback for rental from Avis?
 

Hi,

I have DCCed by Avis and I have started my chargeback process (after they have refused to readjust the amount).

Has anyone tried this and how did Avis respond?

Thanks in advance!

Why exactly are you disputing a charge with Avis?

What happens is the credit department faxes over a chargeback form, and the location has to provide your signed rental agreement. If you signed for it, or left the counter with your RA, you don't have any grounds to complain.

Avis used DCC without my approval. I have never signed anything agreeing on that. I'm asking my CC company to do a chargeback on the DCC part, not a full chargeback.

Not sure what a DCC is, but....

I had a coupon for $5 on a rental once, that was not taken off the balance. I e-mailed 3 times, each time being told it would be taken care of. I waited a month, and it wasnt dealt with, so I disputed the amount. Only $5, but it is the idea of it that pissed me off. The $5 dispute went through fine, and I received a hand written apology letter from a manager at that particular Avis, along with a $25 coupon for future use.

DCC= Dynamic Currency Conversion. Avis converted the currency for me instead of my visa, and the rate Avis is using is roughly 3% more than my visa. They never ask me which currency I'd like to be billed in, my ressie and my contract are only stated in USD.

It's not a big amount, but I can't stand their sneaky way of billing the wrong currency without their consent.

Did you dispute the whole amount, or just $5?

Thanks!

Check the t&c of the specific contract you signed to make certain that you did not consent. Many of the things people think that they didn't authorize, they actually did.

I did,

I have not chosen a currency that is not used by Avis. From the beginning until I returned the car, all the documents I have with Avis are in USD. I was never given any choice of any currency nor Mr. Nacho has signed anything about any amount in SEK.

Moderator's Note: I have merged the DCC and Chargeback threads because they are all enclusive of the same topic.
Please send me a PM if you have any questions.

Cheers,
IAHtraveler

The problem is that may have been long ago. Are you not Avis Preferred? If you are, how often do actually sign anything? The typical Avis Preferred experience at (at least airport) rental facilities is either:

You see your name on the board along with the space number (or the shuttle driver tells you if on an Avis-specific shuttle bus), go directly to you car, drive off, hand drivers license to someone as you're driving out, but never sign anything.

or

If there is no board, you go to the counter, but your packet is already prepared, they ask for your ID, then hand you the packet and the keys. Again you don't sign anything.

In other words, with Avis Preferred the only signing that you typically do is at most on your first rental after joining the program. You do everything else either online (where you may click a check-box but don't actually sign) or maybe "implicitlty accept" by driving off without quesitoning the volume of junk you were handed in the packet.

(It's only the people who don't belong to Avis Preferred that have to sign on each individual rental.)

Now, ocvasionally at some random station, I may be given something to sign even as Avis Preferred or Avis First. But this is the rare exception, not the rule.

If you read Avis Preferred (or any car rental or hotel quick check-in) contract, you will see that when you sign up you affirm that by picking up the car, you are agreeing to the t&c then in effect (which are always available for review online and in hard copy at the counter). Few really sign a physical paper contract anymore (at most you are electronically signing a reader at the counter)

I just disputed the $5

Yes but then according to the T&C there is nothing saying that there is an automatic DCC when you pay for your rental.

I did go to the counter because Mr. Nacho's name wasn't there. We picked up the car basically the same as if we are not preferred except they didn't ask if we'd like to be billed in USD or SEK. Mr. Nacho signed something but he said he didn't signed anything regarding the DCC (in fact he never signs anything that is not in USD). Also this is our first rental - as a matter of fact they didn't even see Mr. Nacho's preferred card.

I can see there is a case here: I have signed and agreed the T&C for preferred, and there is NOTHING saying about automatic DCC. It's UNREASONABLE that Avis demand people to actively opt out in order not to be DCCed. Also I have never signed or be notified about this when I got the contract - everything I got was in USD. How on earth would one expect that we'll be billed in another currency?

Mr. Nacho rented once in Toulouse, and we used a Danish credit card. The worst is that we never ticked a box for DCC (he wasn't a preferred at that time, and we even had a copy of the contract). They charged us in Swedish krona :mad:, so first they DCCed me into SEK, then my CC converted the charges in DKK. I didn't call a chargeback last time because we got the fuel reimbursed twice, so we got what we should be compensated for.

Just because we live in Sweden, it doesn't mean that we only have Swedish cards. As a matter of fact, Mr. Nacho has similar amount of Danish/Swedish CCs.

It's not a big amount and it's time consuming but I do want to let Avis know that I'm not happy about this.

If it's a small amount, you will have a greater impact sending Avis a complaint on its customer service website and specifying that you are not looking for a refund. Will get this off your chest and it's possible that somebody at Avis will actually look at it. On the money side, it's just a small amount of money and nobody who matters will see it.

I have to disagree with this. In my case, the only way I was able to get it to anyone to actually look at it, was to dispute $5 of my charge. A charge back costs the company. The banks bill the company for a charge back, that they would not have had to pay if they had just refunded the $5. This tends to get upper managements attention, if they have too many charge backs.

+1

That's true, but the issue is, what if you've been Preferred for years, and yhou didn't archive the T&Cs from back then?

In my case, I've been Preferred for about a decade, and I have no clue what the T&Cs did or did say about payment currency back then.

There is no guarantee that the T&Cs online now are the T&Cs that were online at the time you signed up.

In my case, I've been Preferred so long, that it long predates foreign transaction fees. For at least several years after I joined Preferred, the only kind of foreign fees were foreign currency fees. DCC wasn't as "evil" back then as it is now, because it at least allowed you to earn points/miles on your card on Avis' converison fees, which you wouldn't if your points/miles-earning card was the one that added the foreign currency fee. It was only once foreign currency fees were replaced by foreign transaction fees that DCC became useless and "evil". By again, my Preferred T&C were from many years before that!

But in my case, being US-based, I was able to call up Avis and get the DCC removed (though it did take multiple calls and then some time, they did eventually do it). In the US, the department which did was not a department I could call directly (in the end, that department called me and left me a voicemail to let me know that they had made the change).