I have, a couple of times. Usually something like "we can do the conversion for you so you know exactly how much you'll be charged" or "... so the bank doesn't rip you off".

Some places even have signs to that effect. These signs are invariably in English, regardless of the local language, which tells you exactly who they are targeting.

The bit with the surcharge was meant to be amusing. If I take 5 credit card transactions during tax season, that's a lot. And the first time I did, it was the client who insisted I add my fee back on. I don't like surcharges but at least there's an economic basis for them especially for small retailers. The ftf's are a total rip off as the banks have nothing to do with the exchange; it's done by visa or mc and while I don't like the 1%, they may be justified. The additional ftf by the banks have no justification whatsoever as they have nothing to do with the transaction. It's pure greed on their part.

Now that we've settled that back to dcc. Yes I did hear the woman in Louis Vuitton many years ago ask a clerk how much a price quoted at the time in French Francs how much that was in real money and I think you know how naive Americans are about currencies and many can't understand why people don't take dollars. Of course it riles me up, too, when a person say in Euroland is buying something and holds out a bunch of coins and says take what the price is (in almost all cases the merchant is 100% honest but still how hard is it after a day or two to learn the currency?)

About three years ago, I did an organized coach tour of Ireland and became very friendly with a couple with whom I ate dinner every night. Now the birthplace of dcc was Ireland where it was born and raised. So it was the night before we were visiting Blarney Castle and on every one of these tours that includes kissing the Blarney Stone (if you can climb the steps and can get over the fact that little Irish boys make wee wee on it) and a stop for lunch and shopping at Blarney Mills (where of course nothing is a bargain but you know women have to shop while the man pays). Anyway, we were discussing money and I made the point of my earlier visits to Ireland and Blarney Castle and how they had to watch out for dcc.

Anyway, during the break I was curious as to what was going on with dcc, not that I would buy anything there so I hung around the cashier. I was surprised that unlike my previous visits to Ireland, the cashiers now at least always asked if the customer wished to pay in euro or in whatever their currency was that came up on the terminal. In several cases customers asked which is better and in each case, the excuse was it is better to pay in your currency as yuo lock in the rate. I don't think it was my perogative to say anything to anybody when along came the couple I just spoke about buying souvenirs and sweaters and the like. Well the clerk asked them whether they wished to pay in euro or dollars and the lady, remember I had discussed this just the night before and told them just like Nancy Reagan to just say no, immediately said dollars. The clerk said good choice. I looked at her husband and just couldn't believe it.

Many people just don't care and/or just don't get it. That is what keeps dcc going despite what the travel books and the like say. Americans are tired of being bombarded with 24 hour clocks, with signs on the highways in kilometers (we're only 70 kilometers from... and looking at the thermometer on the coach and seeing it's 18 degrees and having no idea just how hot it is. At least if their purchasses are priced in dollars, they can handle it!

And that's the problem right there. Many people don't care. On the university study abroad to Romania I was just on I encouraged everyone I know to get a Schwab account. Almost everyone either exchanged cash or used their debit card. One person was quite happy his bank "only" charged $3 per ATM withdrawal and 3% FTF. When I pointed out Schwab was free he said "who cares? $3 and 3% is so tiny anyway". Terrible for a business student to not realise how huge that is!

The bank doesn't rip me off so you can instead (or in addition if your card has a FTF)? :D I still make an attempt to educate the customers, but it's hard for some of them to say no in these situations. However, usually if you can get it into people's heads that they're being ripped off or that the merchant cheated them even by a little amount it is instinctive that people will do everything to make sure they're not fooled in the same way again.

Fair enough. :)

I still do this in Australia with the $2 coins thinking that they're $1 because I am used to the £1 coin of the pound sterling which has a similar shape, color, and size. In the days before the euro - and certainly this was before smartphones or access to information instantly - most people didn't have access to the interbank exchange rate. If they were changing a currency every couple of days, it is reasonable that they didn't have time to get familiar with it.

The last part is where I take exception. It's not just Americans who fall for DCC but many nationalities. Traveling overseas can be stressful for some people with too much that is foreign, so when somebody offers you a taste of home, even at a high cost, you take it. It's just like after traveling abroad for awhile I find myself making my way toward the nearest McDonald's. The fact that the clerk said, "Good choice!" is absolutely disgusting. It reminds me of the timeshare sales pitches where they use every trick in the marketing playbook to get you to yes and make you feel good about your purchase as a new "owner" even though you just got ripped off big time. The best defense is continued education and to say, "You just got hit with DCC, and the merchant told you you made a good choice because he got a cut of the commission on your purchase above and beyond the price."

This is the biggest issue. It's the individual small fees where people don't realize in reality how much they're getting ripped off. I started doing the math 6 years ago on a long trip abroad, and that's how I discovered FlyerTalk. I was upset at paying 3% FTF for everything, including 3% at ATMs plus $5 per withdrawal. I was shocked when I sat down and did the math and was paying anywhere between 6-10% to get money out of an ATM. I realized that was no better than the currency exchange places and figured there had to be a better way.

This is largely why the DCC scam is allowed to continue. In most cases, you've got a small purchase, and the absolute value of the DCC markup is under 1 USD. In this case, a card issuer is likely to credit directly rather than file a chargeback. Most people would say, "Come on. It's only $0.29. Who cares?" However, there are cases like hotels or larger purchases where things don't quite add up, and then you realize you've been charged a 3% DCC fee on a $2000 equivalent hotel bill which makes things $60 higher. (Add in another 3% fee if your card charges one.) This is what will get a lot of people to get it. If you're going to accept the "great" exchange rate, why do you still get slammed with a 3% FTF? What convenience or service has the merchant provided you exactly? You just paid 6% more on that purchase! This is pretty effective at riling people up.

The first time I went to Europe in the late 90's, I kept a Forex printed sheet. I had one black cab in London offer to take USD as he was going to Florida soon. He then said the rate was 2 USD to 1 £. This was, of course, a big ripoff. I pulled out my printout and got the correct rate.

Yes, some people are ignorant, but it's certainly not country specific.

"Today, of course, every last smart phone (even the old pre smartphone mobiles) has a calculator and even has a currency exchange key but they're too lazy to use that."

Calculator, yes. Currency exchange function (in the sense exchange rates are pre-loaded) no.

But most importantly (unless you're a spending manufacturer always needing to do sums on the fly) practice in doing quick calculations - rare.

Roaming data rates and people's further laziness in not setting up data overseas <-- further problem.

Here's another one - Doubletree Guangzhou (acquirer bank of china) http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...p?id=12533&p=5 #42

Apparently per hotel manager, cancel has to be pressed before transaction completes. Cashier on duty didn't so that so HKD was charged even tho RMB ticked.

Manager promised to comp by exec room upgrade and wine for august stay tho, so chargeback not contemplated.

It's similar to the Frankfurt Marriott where the general manager made it right by posting a handsome number of Marriott Rewards points in my account or offering to credit the difference in EUR to my card. I just took the points and chalked it up to experience for next time. ^

similar I guess to why supermarket brand ice cream for sale in the UK at just over £1 before VAT (at their retail price, not to mention the volume discount) sells for S$6 in SIN at one supermarket.

Many places have free wifi and many currencies are pegged or in a very small range (i.e. if I see GBPUSD at a rate like 0.568 then I know something is wrong.)

Not consistent. Let's try airports around Asia:

HKG, ICN: yes very good
SIN: good but it drops a bit
CTS: only in certain areas. I remember going to the airport pharmacy, flipping on Google Translate to translate throat lozenges into Japanese, realising my wifi's dropped out and having to backtrack to the check-in area to get the translation and entering the pharmacy again
BKK: you have to find the service kiosk and get the access code strip. Even if you do find the service kiosk, it's slow
TPE, BOM, HAN, SGN, DAD, REP: not available except in lounges or restaurants. They really like locking down their wifi.

(This is for Europe) A way around this is to simply display the card currency amount. Don't display the exchange rate, not at the selection rate anyway. Takes more mental math to work out and a lot of travellers fail at this.

(Not valid in rest of the world because exchange rate is mandated to be published. But another trick can be to state the exchange rate in the way contrary to usual practice in the merchant jurisdiction (direct --> indirect or vice versa) and challenge cardholders to do inversions in their heads)

Wifi is never reliable.
AT&T has this world data package, for $120 you get 800MB for a month. It's good because it is not charged by days, and it is calculated across different carriers (good for hoppers in Europe).
Anyway, I didn't see one instance where DCC will be beneficial to the customer...

But I could never spend that much in a month travelling on local SIM cards and I get far more data

+1

T-Mobile has included global data with its postpaid plans. It's great if you're just in an area for a few days and/or getting a SIM card in the local environment is too difficult.

While I'm sure someone somewhere could provide a DCC case that was beneficial to the consumer, the vast majority are not. The proper way to think about DCC is that you are unlikely to get a better exchange rate from DCC vs the Visa/MC rates and far more likely to do worse.

+1:D

This is quite useful, although the speed is 2G, but you can get all the exchange rate with EDGE anyway.

Actually, the $120 rate I listed is the top tier. The lowest is $30 for 120MB.

The problem with local SIM is that you first have to be there once to get the SIM, so next time you can do the swap on the plane. And if you are traveling through Europe, getting local SIMsssssssss can really be a challenge.

Also, if you use iPhones, swapping SIM cards can cause some technical issues on iMessage and so.

That's why I have a China Unicom iPhone for China, a 3HK HTC for HK, and a AT&T HTC for USA. I also have a AT&T hotspot, and I always activate the $120 for 800MB before any week long vacation. That will survive the internet surfing of me and my wife for about 10 days.

I'm in a similar boat. I use an unlocked HTC One from T-Mobile USA, and I maintain a Taiwan Mobile and Optus (Australia) SIM card. With T-Mobile offering the global data, it's certainly more convenient than stopping and getting a SIM card at every country. In some places like Macau or the UK there are prepaid data SIM cards for purchase in vending machines. In other places it's difficult or impossible for foreigners to get SIM cards (think Japan), and it's certainly a time sink if you're visiting a different destination every few days. I've also received bad information from vendors at the airport and run down a €30 prepaid balance in a few days. There was a vendor at Frankfurt who said my prepaid card was €1/day for 1 GB HSPA+ plus 4¢/minute calls to the US. It seemed too good to be true, but I was elated when it worked... for two days. After it quit working I went to another shop where the person said the data package was only 200 MB/month. :mad: I ended up having to buy another SIM. So, in that sense, the T-Mobile package has been great for international traveling and a quick way to get information like exchange rates or pending credit card transactions to see if I've been hit with DCC.

roaming data is a bit like DCC in the aspect that if you're fully aware, and willing to spend a bit of time on the problem then you can probably make savings.

It also penalises impatience - I was chastised by my boss for trying to buy a SIM card from K-Books in ICN...took forever because the sales girl had to link the SIM to the BP I flew in on (must be OZ. They won't sell me the SIM if I present CX boarding pass).

I now more often then not rent a HK$60/day (US$7.7) modem from HK before departure - but that's preparation also.

The only difference is how we perceive the value of the thing we're paying for.
With roaming we see it as a value-added service, for which we either get fleeced by our local phone carrier for roaming or we take the time to make the alternative work.
With DCC, we had a working, relatively low cost solution which is being taken away from us by underhanded means.

http://loyaltylobby.com/2013/08/14/w...ith-sim-cards/

As laid out by Visa/MC, it really never will be. There's never any meaningful competition if you have one DCC provider competing against the card association, and by a combination of misrepresentations, social engineering and outright non-compliance, cardholders rarely make meaningful, informed choices anyway.

You can't really put the genie back in the bottle - even if there is some way to compel Visa/MC to turn off DCC support in their card associations tomorrow, they're either in breach of their contractual arrangements or the DCC providers will sue Visa/MC for lack of due process anyway.

You can't really provide effective competition against the two card associations because of network effect so this problem isn't going away on its own.

You can't let issuers opt-out of DCC on behalf of cardholders either, because on the flip side, they will all choose to do so (and protect their FTF/Foreign Currency Conversion fees) which will leave Visa/MC exposed to antitrust charges.

What's left?
I suggested a Visa-operated chargeback mechanism before.
But what's probably simpler is to allow Visa/MC to let cardholders opt-in to no DCC.

It will be like a do-not-call register. Visa runs the site.
Anyone who registers cannot be DCCed no matter what how fxcked the terminal is.

Interesting option, though I won't trust certain competition watchdogs like ACCC going for it though, they're trying to make Visa make DCC more available!

But then again, Amex doesn't allow DCC , right? Where there's a will, there's a way. The acquirers who push DCC always say don't blame us. We're just providing a service many cardholders find convenient and if truth be told, as we've just discussed, many do. DCC in and of itself is not a scam provided I as a customer am given the choice required by visa/mc. In that regard, acquirers who push dcc may have a valid point that they are providing a service for those who wish it and in all fairness even though I hate DCC since I'm a big boy and can do the mental arithmetic on my own when I purchase something for 20 euro, I pretty much know how much I'm spending in USD, there are still those who can't or don't want to handle it. Whose fault is that?

It's the consumer's fault. The problem is that DCC is forced upon even those of us who don't want the service. I think one of the reasons you don't see DCC on AmEx or Discover is that unlike Visa/MC there aren't many third party issuers. I know that Citi and Fidelity have some AmEx branded cards but most AmEx cards are issued by AmEx themselves. I think all Discover cards are issued by Discover, but I could be mistaken. That gives them more control over the end-to-end process and less likely to allow DCC on their networks.

I'm pretty sure someone will think I'm silly for juggling all the SIMs I do. 3HK card for HK/mainland internet (HK$98/day for unlimited unfiltered internet on the mainland!), T-Mobile for US and some overseas voice/data ($50/500MB is a bit more affordable than $120/800), SoftBank for voice in Japan, China Unicom HK card for HK/Mainland/Taiwan voice/internet, Wind for most US/Canada data, and Virgin Mobile for voice and backup data in Canada, and China Mobile for mainland voice and for cheap full-speed data roaming in places like South Korea. I've got half of Asia and North America covered.

Even Discover isn't the sole issuer of cards on its network in the US (WalMart credit cards are on the Discover network, for instance), to say nothing of UnionPay/JCB/Diners Club cards on their network in the US and vice-versa making end-to-end control more complex.

Dude, which is your base of operation...?

Your arsenal intrigues me so much that I really have some questions~

1) Why you have both China Unicom and China Mobile? What is China Unicom HK?

2) I don't know China Mobile has super cheap data roaming in South Korea. How much is it? I think China Unicom has 200 CNY for 200MB data monthly package.

Using China's SIM cards for data can create all sorts of problems. I guess if you have a phone from China now, just try Google "USD to CNY" and tell me whether you are taken to Google or blocked...

I totally support this.

It is totally technologically feasible. I believe terminals all have their home currency information, that is why transactions in some countries tend to raise security flags. If Visa/MC detects transactions in the currencies that are not the local ones, they deny those.

Consumer opt-in is just like DCC, it's a feature, it's not mandatory. If DCC is legal, then this is too.

If Visa/MC don't bother to do this, we can always deface the receipt and do chargebacks.

So, it is not the end of the world at all guys! :cool:

Starting next December, you'll only need one SIM for all of Europe :D

in SIN I know that UOB/DBS/SCB issue AX cards as well as AX themselves.

Yep, but these are the exceptions more than the rule. I would say AmEx and Discover have a lot more tightly controlled network end-to-end than Visa and MC. If AmEx doesn't want to allow DCC for instance, it's more easily enforceable.

Amex and discover don't support dcc in the first place so your speculations about control of the networks seem to be moot.

In most countries there are probably more non-amex issued amex network cards than Amex issued cards. 4 Banks in the UK issue American Express cards (Lloyds, TSB, MBNA and Barclaycard). I know Australia is very similar along with several others like Russia, India and Greece.

The main reason there is no DCC on American Express transactions is because American Express is usually the acquirer (for its own transactions only obviously) and the network. It would make no sense to have DCC as American Express makes the foreign transaction fee (off the issuer if not an Amex issued card and usually off the customer if it is an Amex card). American Express would be competing with themselves!

Citibank offers an Amex card on AA. It charges the usual citibank 3% ftf (most use the AA mastercard I think). BA has an Amex card, at least one. Pen Fed has an Amex card, at least one.

Now the question of acquirer. Long long ago, once upon a time, merchants signed up with banks to accept whatever cc the bank accepted, then signed up with Amex to accept Amex cards, then signed up with Diners to accept DC until it was purchased by Citibank, then signed up with Discover when it came out.

But then as time marched forward, you signed up with a credit card processor to the point and I just use it as an example people signed up say with square.com and you could take all of them. In a few cases, there might be a slight difference in the discount rate if you took Amex. So when I take a credit card via my square account, for the 3 or 4 transacton I might do a year with or without a surcharge ;)... is square the acquirer? How many merchants, all kidding aside, have signed up with whatever company pushing dcc. Since it's all automatic today I assume that what happens in an Amex transaction the pos terminal will not flash a choice to be made of currency whereas with visa/mc it will.

I know the response is a bit convoluted to say the least but I guess it's not as simple as we would like to believe it is.

Companies like Square, iZettle and Stripe are basically the merchant and are forwarding their merchant account to other customers (with a special agreement obviously).

With a normal merchant account you'll accept Visa, MasterCard and then some of the more regional networks (Maestro, Discover/Diners Club (although acquirers are now automatically including this more and more), China Unionpay, Interac etc.). They will then often automatically sign you for American Express but the difference is that they apply on your behalf to Amex for a merchant account (Amex pays acquirers for doing this), after this the merchant is a customer of Amex. There a few exceptions like the new Optblue scheme but this is generally what happens.

How does the transaction present to the issuer? I know most US cards now have foreign transaction fees rather than currency exchange fees, so I had wondered if Visa/MasterCard present the transaction in the card's currency to the issuer. (...which would make the bank's additional 2% above the Visa/MC rate a true profit grab rather than a value-added service.)

Base of operations is a long story, but here goes:

1. China Unicom HK- it's a China Unicom SIM issued from HK. I get HK and mainland numbers, and I can make calls in the mainland for HK$0.45 (Guangdong)/HK$0.60 (elsewhere) per minute. Internet is HK$78/500MB unfiltered, lasts a week on the mainland. In Taiwan, Japan, and Macau it's HK$68/day. And it can be reloaded with a Visa/MasterCard issued outside HK- or PayPal. I just sold one to a classmate going there for the first time who wanted cheap, easy-to-use unfiltered internet on his phone.

2. China Mobile used to. They closed the option to new customers half a year ago, but I still have it. 88RMB/day for unlimited data usage in HK/Macau/Taiwan/S.Korea/Japan/Singapore/Malaysia/Thailand/Philippines/Indonesia/Pakistan. Now it's 30RMB for 50MB data in S.Korea. (Yes, it suffers from the usual mainland internet restrictions but it's quicker than T-Mobile roaming).

(sorry for the off-topic)

It's ok. I'm wondering is the T-Mobile plan filtered over there too? I wasn't aware that the 3 HK SIMs would be unfiltered, but that might be an option for me in the future. I did have one a few years ago, and I was intending to use it for roaming around China, but I lost the account information and just let it expire. Now the only card I actively maintain is the Taiwan Mobile one since it's such a pain to get. Furthermore, Taiwan Mobile's card doesn't lose its balance as long as you recharge once every six months (300 TWD minimum). ^

Next means 2015, right? I've heard the EU is fed up with roaming. In US, you cross the state line into another state, but still the same country; in EU, you move about the same distance and you are foreign... Kind of interesting.

Don't forget Wells Fargo, who denied my Propel World application... I think your reasoning in the second paragraph totally make sense.

Good question... Visa should have done the exchanging, right? So, maybe you're right that transactions are presented in local currency.

But I think there is still a difference between authorized and posted. The conversion should be done by Visa/MC when it is posted, so at the time of authorization, there can be things done to deny DCC, right?

And, Visa/MC can always know USD is charged in China, so a no-DCC list can be maintained by them.

Though only China Mobile has operation in HK...

Any foreign SIM cards would have unfiltered internet in China. I am using one right now to have stable connection on my Android device for Gmail pushing to work properly.

It depends on the APN of your phone. If it is not cmnet or 3gnet, you get IPs out of China.

It's like a VPN that is always on. Or like proxy, but un-censored (I've tried proxy servers on IE, and youtube.com still got blocked because the data exchange with proxy service is not encrypted, so the string of youtube.com is seen by the firewall anyway).

Here is the China Unicom HK homepage. Very handy card to have because they have normal 3G, and even though they tell you to set their 3gnet APN you still get unfiltered internet.

there was a typo, I meant "thought, not though"...

It's interesting 3gnet would give you unfiltered internet. Would you try Google "what is my IP" and see whether it's a HK IP or China IP?

I don't know enough about how the payments run across the Visa/MC networks to tell what happens. If Visa/MC present the transaction in the cardholder currency to the issuer, then the 2% beyond the 1% Visa/MC rate that most banks impose is pure profit with or without DCC. Is my understanding incorrect here?

With DCC, you'd still get hit with the foreign transaction fee if your card has one, and the issuer has an interest in you accepting DCC if the card has a FTF because there would presumably be no conversion costs for the issuer. So, in a case of holding a card with a 3% FTF, the bank would get a 2% profit on all purchases made overseas and a 3% profit if you accepted DCC since Visa/MC wouldn't be tacking on a 1% conversion fee. In the case of a 0% FTF the issuer doesn't eat the 1% Visa/MC conversion fee if you accept DCC. Under this scenario, it's in the issuer's interest to have the cardholder accept DCC.

I think such an opt-in "Do not DCC" list would have to be a mechanism created by Visa and MasterCard. I think this could solve a lot of problems for all involved. For those of us who are militant about avoiding DCC and will not hesitate to force a chargeback to the merchant, we could opt-in to avoid confrontations with merchants. The issuers would stop getting calls from us and avoid a lot of paperwork. Merchants who wished to continue screwing their ignorant customers with DCC could continue to do so. Almost everybody wins. The problem of course is you'd never get the acquirers to play ball. They're currently on the take as part of the DCC scam yet they bear NO RESPONSIBILITY when a merchant is faced with a full Reason Code 76 chargeback. It's on the merchant in that case.

The only reason the merchants start accepting DCC is because the vast majority of customers are ignorant that they're getting ripped off when accepting DCC charges and far fewer go through the procedure to file a dispute with the issuing bank. I imagine an infinitesimally small percentage end up in a chargeback situation where the merchant has to deal with the mess. That's why educating everybody who's likely to encounter DCC about DCC and how to avoid DCC is essential. It's also critical to get them to follow up with their banks and dispute transactions where they got forced into DCC.

I think yes, the 2% is pure profit. Because at that time, issuers need to do nothing, right? I don't think there is extra work associated with oversea CC purchases, on the issuers' end. It is not like receiving international wire transfers, right?

Having a No-DCC mechanism in Visa/MC can stop all the hassle after we get DCCed. It's like a Identity Lock which prevent things from happening at the first place.

I have never tried that, but if I go to Ireland for a month, and gather all the DCC slips together, then request 76 chargeback with Chase, what would happen? I need to manually track the Visa/MC rate though...