The dispute should be the full amount because you're contesting the way the transaction was processed. While you were in your terms overcharged that's not actually how the transaction was processed. You're seeking to get the merchant to run the transaction in local currency and have Visa or MC do the exchange instead of the merchant's acquirer. From the merchant's perspective, the transaction amount will not change, even in the case of a full chargeback. (Whatever penalty, if any, the acquirer may impose for a chargeback is a separate matter and hopefully constitutes a learning lesson for the merchant.)

You are so lucky.;) I had same dispute with Chase Hyatt Visa, Chase told me to work it out with vendor.:mad:

I usually just phrase my disputes somewhat vaguely, leaving Chase to sort it out with the merchant. I usually contact the merchant first and give them a few weeks to work it out before disputing.

Something like this:

"I provided card information to the merchant to provide payment for goods or services, however, I did not authorize the merchant to charge me XXXX USD on XXXXXX date."

I suppose it's kind of disingenuous because the wording makes it seem like the merchant wasn't authorized to charge at all, but it usually works to get the chargeback issued so the merchant is forced to respond.

Hit with DCC at a small SE Asian restaurant far off the tourist path in Dubai today, where westerners are very rare. I entered my PIN, handed to the unit back to the server, who seemed as taken aback as I was, handing it back to me, "Do you want Dollars?" Screen gave both the Dirham price she'd entered and a Dollar one (of theirs): push green for Dollars or yellow(!) for Dirhams.

I've seen a few implementations of this. The most straightforward has the terminal operator make the currency selection with the function keys up at the top of the terminal. Others will hit you with DCC if you press the green button - as an aside, I've seen the behavior of cashiers in the US who keep pressing the green button repeatedly while waiting - and you have to press the yellow or red buttons (usually marked something like cancel) to opt out of DCC. I would consider these terminals marginally compliant but setup in a way that tricks you into DCC.

If I have control of the terminal in these transactions, I don't immediately hand it back to the staff until I've seen whether or not there's a DCC prompt. Fortunately there was a prompt in this case.

Glad to say I haven't run into ANY DCC here in India. Not even the option to select currency. Whew. :)

Sometimes, finding places that accept CC would be the harder part (especially since the last times I went there, cash was king, though I'm not sure about now...)

Beware of chain hotels with HDFC card terminals. I've resorted to only using Amex at Indian chain hotels now because of how frequently I've had issues with DCC and front desk staff outright ignoring my currency choice.

Is Unionpay an option in India?

I have seen DCC in India all over the place, mainly in tourist traps (DEL duty free, Kashmir 'Emporium', mid sized hotels etc). Many times the terminals are hard coded with no optional button to opt out.

Thus far, been hit with DCC at the following places in HK: Al Molo in TST, Yung Kee in Central, and Tai Fung Lau in TST.

I keep disputing them and getting refunds but I wonder if Chase is going to get upset that I'm disputing these (I imagine they can't be happy with disputes period). These are a very small sample of my total number of transactions so I'm hoping they won't mind.

I doubt Chase cares too much. That's why you're using their credit card for the protections it provides. The real question is whether or not they're pursuing a full chargeback or issuing a courtesy credit?

At the above three locations did you try to work with the merchant to see if there was an ability to avoid DCC, or did you [X] the box that was never honored? There are a few places where no matter what we tried we couldn't get out of DCC (Greyhound Cafe), but other ones were possible to avoid as long as you were proactive at the merchant/restaurant.

I withdrew 30k rupees and barely touched them. Card was pretty prominent in most decent restaurants and shops, of course the tiny stores and street vendors didn't have card. I left India to find out that the made the 500 and 1000 rupee notes worthless so now I have 30k rupees of paper which worth nothing.

Only thing with card acceptance is that some places will know if your card is foreign for visa/MasterCard (especially online delivery companies) but paying with Amex fixes that.

I ran into Paypal DCC scam again. Their online system does not allow me to switch off DCC at all. Customer Services said it's a known system glitch that they are still fixing.

It seems this blogger shared the same experience as well: http://milelion.com/2016/11/18/bewar...ings-with-dcc/

Fellow FlyerTalk member encountered DCC at an independent ATM near a supermarket in Inverness today. As with other ATMs, it was easy to opt-out, but the rate was awful:

http://i.imgur.com/ZzKrgJgt.jpg

MasterCard rate: 1 GBP = 1.245043 USD
Offered rate: 1 GBP = 1.3352 USD

DCC markup: 8.855% :td:
Amount saved by opting out of DCC: $4.41