moondog

If you're willing, please use your Visa and fight it upon your return home. Unless you have multiple $1000 dinners in the cards, you'll probably recover around $20.

People like myself will try to help you minimize the amount of time you spend during the process. (Several FTers have contacted me recently, requesting my template, and I was unable to help them because I couldn't locate my documents, but I'm planning on repeating the drill again next week and will save all relevant info for you guys.)

My point is that this is a battle we clearly need to wage. So, let's use our Visa cards liberally, and force our CC companies to deal with the aftermath (I'm pretty sure that the resolution process costs them much more than it does us, unless you make $500+/hour).

jamar

I'm not sure how they did, but I checked my mobile banking when I got the first slip and it already showed up as "DEBIT (pending) $25.57" and "CREDIT (pending) $25.57" when I got the void slip. That and the lady at the register told me "They (HSBC? Someone else?) told us how to do it- swipe the card, type in the amount of money, push "confirm", and then push "confirm" again". The third/fourth step ("hit confirm" twice?) sounds like it locked in DCC because when I went back to look at the machine after seeing the slip it went back to the "please swipe card" screen with no option to choose currency. If HSBC is supposed to be better about this then I wonder what was going on with them.

And the reason I didn't get the finalized sale slip is because they took both copies of the initial sale slip back when they voided the transaction. I really shouldn't have let them do that, but I was eating with my sister and her "typical impatient Hongkie" boyfriend who was already annoyed at me for making a fuss about this and it was already closing time for them.

percysmith

Hmmm...when I get SMS alerts from my issuers about amounts held in foreign currency (non-DCC), normally they report in HKD instead of the foreign currency that was held. This will be rectified when amounts actually get posted.

percysmith

I suppose she called up her HSBC acquirer hotline, as if the transaction required a manual authorisation code. However, I think there's another button she should have pressed instead of the second "confirm" (see this manual http://www.currency-iso.org/tkmpch_d...ung.pdf#page=4)

jamar

Ah. It looks like there's a point where the DCC/local currency choice is made which I definitely didn't see. I should also say at this point that I wasn't too bright here either; instead of watching them do it I handed over the card and waited for them to perform the transaction, expecting it to be the same as a UnionPay transaction where they bring over the terminal for me to make the final confirmation. They just confirmed it themselves.

mnredfox

Wow, I have not. Never have I had the option to circle.

Jamar's posted picture is what I get, and I can almost 100% guarantee you that his/her charge will be in USD to his/her CC bill, NOT RMB.

mnredfox

Please do.

While I fully agree, the challenge becomes when reporting to your CC company what is the problem. You can't outright dispute the charge, you can only dispute the amount as it wasn't charged in the right currency. I called my CC company (2 of them, one of them Schwab) on this and they said they couldn't do anything. They ended up giving me my money back (on their bill) and noting the issue - so perhaps that is enough.

moondog

I had to call Schwab ~5 times before getting someone who had a remote clue about what DCC is. This is the main problem, as far as I see it. Basically, fighting DCC on the spot will suck up ~20 minutes of your time, might not be successful, and will make you look cheap in the eyes of your client.

But, I'm still willing to try (whenever business deals aren't on the line). And, I'll continue to pursue Schwab for any receipts that are large enough to care about.

percysmith

(duplicate post, deleted)

mnredfox

Hence I call this whole thing a scam as it takes advantage of tourists who aren't really keen on this whole thing - which is about 99.999% of them.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china...c-rip-off.html

mnredfox

What was the magic phrase/words you used to find someone who had a clue? If I said DCC I'm sure I would get "huh's" over the phone.

moondog

Guy #5 didn't understand it at first either, but he researched it and called me back a few days later.

He was just more patient (and maybe smarter) than the others.

jamar

Ah. I'm just glad I haven't been in that sort of situation (nothing important on the line). I fought it on the spot because I wasn't going to be going back to the US for some time and had no way of making affordable (no Skype, can't for the life of me make collect calling work) international calls back to Wells Fargo to deal with it (I also have a Schwab account but that one was running low). Also because it's a debit card and not a CC.

It also took me an eternity just to get the transaction reversed. They had to call the acquirer (HSBC this time) to make it work. My sister's BF ended up paying for us all with cash("typical impatient Hongkie" he is he also complained long and hard about me fighting over a few kuai like that).

percysmith

I'm getting so paranoid about DCC that whenever I spend overseas, I have to consider whether I'll have to do this transaction with "others". If yes, then I try to work out a way to avoid Visa/MC - even if this means resorting to cash.

Most recent - on a five-hour getaway to Macau with friends (involving a three-star Michelin restaurant and a helicopter slurge), I had an AE ready for the restaurant bill, in case the restaurant tried to bait me on the MC (even though it earned better rewards).

Only if I can "stand over" the cashier and spend an hour reversing the transaction am I willing to risk DCC overseas. This is rather hard especially considering the rushed nature of overseas visits
(e.g. in the Macau getaway, I only scheduled 10 mins to cab back to the helipad after the long six-course dinner, so there was no time to redo a DCCed transaction).

I'm thinking in some locations (I'm going to Ho Chi Minh City next), I think I'll just have to accept DCC. Unless I cash up excessively and forgo overseas spending rewards.


Welcome to my world. My Hongkie mum would rather forgo a HK$500 (US$64) cash rebate than being made to wait 15 mins for me to deal with a problematic card on an expensive coat purchase. My GF won't either.

I think your future Hongkie brother-in-law expected you to eat the DCC surcharge rather than reverse it.

I observe they behave quite differently if ***they*** are being asked to pay and a 5% "surcharge" was being explicitly tacked on the price. They would bitxh for hours on end with staff.

percysmith

Just wondering, when you got the original (thermal) merchant copy sales slip, was the waiter/waitress ready to hand the thermal customer copy sales slip back to you immediately?