YuropFlyer

Thanks, that does explain a lot. IIRC they were "Great Wall" visa gold cards..

It's really about time China is opening her currency a bit further.. I know it's not like completely fixed, but they're really moving slowly.. unfortunately with DCC, it seems to be going into the wrong direction.. I would love to pay as easy in PEK or SHA with my Visa as a I can in SIN.. I love the swipe and done till 35S$ they got there.. (that would also make DCC impossible, as they simple DON'T give you any choice, so it has to be in the local currency)

drewguy

Not sure Wikipedia as a source is the best. I'm not sure things balance out, because it depends on the balance of "trade"--if US holders spend more in England (say) than British tourists spend in the U.S., then there's a transfer of revenue to the British acquirers over the U.S. issuers, and that's before any rate/markup issues come into play.

As for the antitrust point, the question wasn't the rate itself or the disclosure, it was whether V/MC and issuing banks had colluded on implementing the charges. DCC could create the same liability if they all agreed to allow it.

True, there was a separate disclosure issue in the case, which wasn't antitrust but rather truth-in-lending. But I'm not sure that the CC disclosure of DCC is better than it was with respect to FCC (although perhaps the disclosure rules don't apply to disclosures overseas).

The issuers who should care the most are the ones like Capital One and others that offer reduced/zero FCC because it takes away their competitive advantage in this area.

Chinatrvl

Has the situation improved vastly?

I did some 'checks' with my German credit card the last couple of weeks at different hotels and airlines: All hotels including Holiday Inn Express and one Chinese Hotel (they spoke barely English), knew how to avoid DCC and it didn't take longer than 5 minutes to get it right.
China Southern, Xiamen Airlines and China Eastern all gave receipts without DCC without asking.

Anyone else has recent experiences?

767400

Could someone type out a phrase in Chinese that I can print out and take with me that states something like I want to be charged the local RMB currency.

I plan on printing out some flash card that I can take with me with some key phrases.

Thanks!

percysmith

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china...sion-3.html#41

767400

Thanks, missed that part as I was scanning through! ^

mnredfox

Good luck, and remember to pay close attn to the receipt and bring the instructions in Chinese.

percysmith

I needed to pay RMB30,000 (~HK$36,600) food, beverage and accomodation coupons package for my mother at her golf club in Dongguan. Dad's away visiting suppliers in Europe.

Given I have a HK$1.6/mile Shanghai Commercial Bank Mastercard spending offer I was keen enough to join her at 7AM for this morning's game (4AM start from HK).

It was a killer - I had a late night with my girlfriend the night before. Essentially I got home and started packing my bag for golf. I was told I slept through the 7th and 8th holes. But a potential 13,725 extra Asia Miles (Mum's best card is HK$4/mile Citibank Premiermiles (see my Asia Miles best cards list)) was enough to make me put myself through this.

After the golf game Mum found her membership manager (a sales manager really) (also called Percy) and in his presence I handed my Shacom Mastercard to the cashier. I told Percy I want RMB billing and he assured me it was. When I insisted, he repeated the same to the cashier.

We had to walk over to the V/MC terminal, and not long I received a text from Shacom saying "YOUR CREDIT CARD XXXX FOR OUTSIDE HK TRAN.APPROX.HKD37955 ON 2011-09-11,ANY ENQUIRY PLS CALL...". And lo and behold I got DCCed (slip 1 from left):



The exchange rate of HK$1.265/RMB is 2.64% higher than the Friday HK$1.2325 RMB sell rate from HK Association of Banks. Moreover, we lose all overseas spending promotional earn rates once DCC is applied (HK$1.6/mile overseas --> HK$8/mile local).

I asked the cashier whether she was given any option to select, she said no.

My Mum is an archtypical impatient Hongkie and was already pissed at me for "wasting Percy's time". I immediately told the cashier to reverse (slip 2 from left) and used the next best card I had (an Standard Chartered AE, HK$2.5/mile, slip 3 from left). Mum got her coupons and marched off to shower after the game.

I was very sore after having left 8,235 miles on the table. I walked back to the cashier and found Percy still there. Having lost my impatient Hongkie mother, I asked if I can fiddle with the card terminal.

Percy was nice enough to oblige. He asked another cashier (a more senior cashier - looks like a supervisor type) to show me the terminal. I wasn't allowed to walk behind the cashier desk but since the terminal was a detachable "return to base" type I had no reason to do so. She tried charging my Shacom Mastercard again:

BoC Card Terminal Sep 2011 version:
===========================

1. Detach terminal. Terminal displays "中国银行 DCC 刷卡机"
2. Cashier sticks card into EMV chip reader (the terminal has card swipe but refuses to work on my card)
3. My card details are displayed, incl "HKD".
4. There are two buttons on the side of the terminal "国际", and "积分". Senior cashier told me transaction will process only if "国际" is pressed.
5. Enter amount in RMB
6. Terminal displays "Return to base".
7. Card slip is printed unless transation is cancelled earlier (since I've already charged Amex, senior cashier presses cancel).


I didn't have mnredfox's instructions on me at the time, but I'm very sure “汇率查询” was not displayed on my terminal (if it is designed to be detached, then “汇率查询” could not be performed anyway).

Sorry I didn't get to try it when the terminal is sitting on its base, but the senior cashier said it wouldn't matter. The senior cashier also explained she can override DCC on the "BoC terminal before this one, but after they changed it to this one, I couldn't override it anymore". I thanked the senior cashier and Percy for their time and changed.


Postscript - when I came out I saw one of Mum's friends (we call them "uncles" in HK) from an earlier flight also fingering a stackful of coupons. Mindful of the DCC behaviour of the golf club's terminal, I asked the uncle how did he pay. He said he used a Citibank HK Visa card. I told him to look at his card slip and lo and behalf he was charged $37,955 too. This uncle is not as impatient as my mum when it comes to payment - he too went up to Percy and demanded the transaction be redone again using his Unionpay card. I took pains to defend Percy and the senior cashier, explaining the true culprit was BoC and its fxcked terminals.

mnredfox

percy, bummer to hear your story. A good reason why I kept an electronic version of the instructions on my phone, so I always had them.

Over time, my hope isn't that we bust the system (whether from the Chinese bank side or US bank side, moondog with Schwab going I think BOA couldn't give a rats rear if they help us knowing my experience with BOA), but that we educate enough Chinese employees they understand and can do this automatically when requested.

percysmith

mnredfox - there's not much that even the biggest issuers like BOA or HSBC globally can do on its own.

We can't restrict our cards from being DCCed.
Visa/MC International seem to be unable to/unwilling to do anything to police non-compliant firmwares and terminals from being used on the networks.

The only other thing we can *try* to do is have Visa/MC International revoke BoC's (and HSBC China's and Bankcomm's) DCC registration http://www.jcc.com.cy/LinkClick.aspx...edownload=true (p.13). Any good ideas how Visa might be persuaded to do that?

percysmith

Wirelessly posted (Palm850/V0100 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 7.11))

Oh P.S. - this isn't a training problem (the senior cashier knew what I wanted, and was able to comply in the past). This is BoC being allowed to connect fxcked terminals to Visanet/MC network and Visa/MC International not doing anything about it.

mnredfox

While I too wish we could convince US banks and Visa to do our battling which I think they should, since this is such a non-issue with them I think the best alternative is for us to just fight for ourselves. Hence that is the position I advocate.

Do I care about 2% here and there? Not really, but the principle of being cheated is something I abhor.

Chinatrvl

BOC seems to be the hardest nut. I had the exact same problem at a hotel in Hangzhou; however, they could rectify it within minutes. More than once the word "Jifen" fell. Let's make them try 积分...

susiesan

I plan to use cash for most transaction while in China, but I would like to use my credit cards to pay hotel bills as these will be my largest expense. Do the better hotels tend to do this DCC? I do have an AX card I can use and a Visa card, but do most hotels in China accept AX? I have printed the "don't want to exchange" phrase in Chinese and will put it on a card to show to the check out clerk if I have to. And I will say the phrase too and hope they understand my pronunciation. I looked up the tones on the MDBG dictionary website and will practice saying it out loud.

moondog

While I can't speak for all, but the Beijing Renaissance Capital Hotel (where you're staying) certainly DOES, as do all Marriott properties in Beijing. Since I work with those guys, I don't want to set them straight until I can figure out how to crack the 交行 system from somewhere else (I haven't gotten around to doing so yet, in part because I often find myself in Shanghai these days; not much 交行 down here).

But, if nothing changes between now and your trip, you can pretty much count upon DCC there. They also use thermal slips (which, Percy hates).

I'm conflicted here because I can't advise you to make a stink at the Cap Ren, but I certainly endorse a civilized conversation that entails: 1) you addressing the issue; 2) crossing off the DCC language from your receipt, and perhaps asking them to initialize it.

Just speak slowly and be as polite as possible. If you can manage to address this issue without causing a stir, I'll be extremely proud of you. If you can manage to get them to actually fix it (and give us the "secret recipe"), we'll nominate you for some sort of new "FT Hero" status. Godspeed.