alexmt "US$xx.xx OK?"
Majuki "Press OK"

Add my Maldivian "Print next receipt?" as well please.

HKG Do is going to Rainbow restaurant in Lamma tonight, I'm not sure if the visitors want to card it (cos whoever does will end up with a lot of loose change - I already have a bagful of banknotes from last night). Maybe LKF bar crawling after if they are so inclined, but a void will be hard to do (clubs and bars are a place is definitely use AE if I'm overseas).

Not expecting DCC for next four trips:

- BKK is as compliant as TPE (meaning they offer it, but they give you quote slip and honour whatever choice you make)
- SIN probably flogs merchants for non-compliance (same as late luggage in Changi)
- Hokkaido doesn't seem to get DCC when we there last May
- Hanoi doesn't DCC when we we there last June

Well, given I'm male, but one of the most obviously genderqueer/genderfluid people you'll meet - very few people have the nerve to call me sir or mister for fear of offending me :) I actually had person once call me sir, then immediately apologise. And I'm like "gender is crap, I don't care what pronouns you use."

But other than that aside, no, most merchants I've experienced are okay with turning off DCC. Only in Ireland is DCC a huge problem, and there just use Amex/Discover, to be honest.

That said, I've also never been refused a signature transaction and some of those other goodies. Been forced to hand over my passport, but not refused.

I think your case was the worst because "Print next receipt?" gives no indication that DCC is about to happen. At least those of us with USD denominated cards don't have to worry about DCC in the Maldives.

While I have yet to go to Thailand or Singapore, I remember the reports, including yours, indicating Thailand is like Taiwan with the quote slip and honoring the choice. I would expect the penalty for forcing DCC in Singapore to be a S$1000 fine and three lashes. :D

My experience in Japan has been limited (fewer than 10 transactions) since the only trip I have made outside of Narita was a prepaid tour, but I've never seen DCC. This includes two times at the ANA Crowne Plaza at Narita Airport and two purchases from airport newsstands.

I haven't been to Vietnam, so I can't comment there either.

Please keep us updated on the DCC situation for the HKG DO. We went to Paisano's in Soho, and I didn't want to risk it. I ended up using my Octopus Card to pay for the meal. Perhaps I'm being overly paranoid, but I feel like places like that with tons of expats are ripe targets for DCC.

I don't have a problem with picture ID verification, and I'm not well read enough to know where it is the law versus a store policy. For instance, Spain requires (required?) photo ID for signature credit card purchases to curb fraud. It's easier to let them glance at the passport than fight over that. (I need to save some energy in case I need to ward off DCC. :D)

The easiest thing to do is use AmEx - I've done this before - or Discover, but I prefer some of my other cards for the various rewards programs. I tend to find that Visa provides a better exchange rate than AmEx, but this is far from conclusive.

Hang Seng DCC (Rainbow restaurant) - currency selection finalised *after* signing
 

http://www.hongkongcard.com/webedito...049_51022.jpeg

(courtesy Oreck, redacted copy published with his permission).

Offered rate: $6.487. Visa rate: $6.7695. Scalp: 4.17%

We had a combination of overseas and local (my) cards paying for the HKG DO dinner tonight. I glanced at the first slip to come back (slip on right) and started foaming in the mouth:

Me: (In Cantonese) (Pointing at the verbage) "This shouldn't be here! We don't want this! Can we make it go away???"
Waiter: "Tick it and its HKD"
[Huge amounts of arm waving on my part]: "It never is tick HKD and you get HKD. You must press a button. Do we have to press a button?"
Waiter continued: "There is no further action required. It will be processed as HKD."

I just blew up like Fukushima Daiichi Plant One at this point. I demanded to see the card terminal to have this voided. The waiter and Oreck followed me reluctantly.


I should note Oreck's position on this - he understands there may be some scalping involved, but he does not want to take issue with it. I respect that, it's his financial prerogative, and I admit to somewhat hijacking his transaction to pursue my own research for this thread.


In this event, no scalping took place.
At the Rainbow cashier desk, a lot got cleared up:

1. The cashier does indeed make a currency selection at the terminal after seeing the cardholder's tick box.

2. The cashier printed a courtesy copy of Oreck's slip (similar to my Maldives Taj Exotica courtesy copy but called a Reprint slip here) which had no DCC verbage and showed HKD charging very clearly (slip on left).

3. The cashier noted there has been similar concerns/objections from previous customers over their DCC offering, and they have taken steps to ensure cardholder choice is respected.

4. The cashier that had the cardholder ticked nothing, the card currency amount will be presumed to be selected, which is non-compliant but not the biggest DCC sin in the world.

I withdrew my objection and advised Oreck to sign and keep the cardholder and Reprint copies, which he did.

Another FTer at the DO also paid using her USD card. I demanded the Reprint for her also which was also HKD-only

So, with respect, I hope you apologised to the Rainbow staff (and Oreck)! :)

christep: I didn't apologise explicitly to the Rainbow staff.

They explained their system had caused previous objections by other visitors. And the waiter did misstate what their cashier was going to do.

I conceded they were right after all after hearing the cashier's explanation and advised Oreck and ColoradoGal it's safe to sign the DCC slips.

I don't feel an unconditional apology is called for because their waiter did misrepresent what was going to happen. But I did advised other FTers in the restarant and publishing their system online here they are ultimately compliant.

I did let Oreck know his slips were going to be used in this DCC thread.

I can picture you doing this. :D It's similar to my behavior at Hong Kong Disneyland, but at least there the girl said, "Here.. I pushed this button. Here is the Hong Kong Dollar receipt." She handed me the thermal paper receipt which did show HKD.

I think the response to the "tick [ ]XXX and it's XXX" should now be a request for a courtesy copy/reprint of the receipt. It's like your case in the Maldives or my case at Chung Yo Department Store in Taichung (after I dragged my wife and the sales assistant to the cashier). Just having the box ticked on the carbon copy receipt without any other reassurance makes me nervous. Fortunately in HK at least the carbon copy receipts present a solid case for a chargeback provided that the issuer will follow through with the chargeback.

It's good that Rainbow honors currency selections, but I feel like this is far from the norm, and far more cases are like Greyhound Cafe than Rainbow.

I'm happy that Oreck allowed you to take control of the transaction, but it does bother me when people who know they're being taken for a ride don't object. I equate it to the Chinese tea ceremony scam where some even try to justify it after the fact. "Well, I had a nice time, and I even got some tea out of it." With DCC there are four groups of people: Militantly Anti-DCC, Passive Anti-DCC, Ignorant about DCC, and Pro-DCC.

You and I fall into the Militantly Anti-DCC category. We try to educate as many people and merchants as possible about avoiding DCC. We will make a scene at merchants for even attempting DCC and escalate as need be, involving managers, voiding transactions, fiddling with the terminal, calling the acquirer, etc. If all else fails, we follow through with a chargeback via our issuer.

The Passive Anti-DCC people are the most frustrating. Those are the types who are with us in spirit - they agree that DCC is a ripoff - but they don't want to make a fuss over things. They opt out of DCC wherever possible, but just accept it whenever they get struck with it even knowing that they're getting a marked up price.

I would say the largest category is those who are ignorant. These people can even be persuaded by merchants to accept DCC. However, most of the time there is no need. They passively accept DCC by not ticking the box or knowing that they have to opt out. I'm sure many in this category would be upset after getting educated about DCC, but the trouble is educating enough of them to reach critical mass. Right now merchants can argue, "See... a large percentage of people accept DCC, so it's a service our customers value." However, silence these days does not mean consent. If each customer had all of the objective facts and then made a clear and conscious choice, I think DCC acceptance rates would be a fraction of what they are today.

Finally, there is the Pro-DCC camp. Now, these people aren't necessarily in favor of DCC. Actually, I think they could be ardent opponents of DCC if you could communicate it clearly. But these are the types who make the comments "Why can't they show the price in real money?" "How much is this in real money?! I don't know how much this is." "Oh, you can accept USD? Now here's a merchant who understands the value of the dollar!" (...and how to profit off of a customer of this type. :D)

The above is, of course, not logically accurate. A large percentage of people accepted it because they didn't mind it. That's way different from it being a useful service.

However, the whole game has changed recently. A couple of years ago, the rare times I saw DCC it was around 3% and most people didn't have fee-free credit cards. If my credit card charges 2.7-3% and the DCC charge is 3%, do I really care? If have to be charged by someone, I might even prefer to give the merchant's bank the 3% instead of my credit card's bank.

Since then, three things have changed:
1) More banks (at least in the USA) are offering credit cards with no foreign exchange fee.
2) More banks (esp. in Australia, though I've read of the USA too) are charging a foreign transaction fee even if the transaction is in their own currency, which makes DCC an addition, not an alternative, to the issuing bank's charge!
3) Most importantly, DCC charges can be 5%, which is way above what any credit card charges and therefore totally unacceptable and uncompetitive in all cases.

It will take time for consumers to realise that what used to be an innocuous choice has become a major rip-off due to those three factors.

Just saw my first DCC attempt in Australia.

At Sydney Airport Domestic Terminal, when I tried to purchase some pasta, the ANZ terminal, after "cheque, saving, credit" selection screen, prompted something about FxRate, and gave me two choices of Yes and No. To select No, I had to click "clear", and then click "Enter" directly below to accept $A amount.

To add to the confusion, the "cheque, saving, credit" buttons are other three buttons directly below the screen, so the DCC part take you to another section of the keypad.

Compliant, but a little bit tricky.

Other than that, haven't encountered DCC anywhere else (over 100 transactions).

It's about 2.5% foreign currency conversion fee for Canadian cards generally.

Fortunately Canadian banks don't seen to apply foreign transaction fee yet, unlike their US, Australian and (increasingly) HK counterparts.

But still, in oreck's case he would be most likely 1.67% out of pocket.

Many if not most Americans when they travel are shocked to find out the US dollar does not reign supreme. They expect everybody to be able to express prices in the only currency they understand or wish to understand namely US dollars. When they pay cash, it is too much for many of them to take a few minutes to learn the coins and be able to count out small amounts, can't get it through their heads that in most countries today, the smallest paper money is 5 units of whatever. And for the most part never think clerks are trying to rip them off (in fairness to the clerks, often students, they are just doing what they're told). And when a clerk tells them they can pay in US dollars so they'll know exactly how much something costs, they are amazed at the courtesy being extended on a credit card payment. Simply the way it is.

Can you name and shame the establishment? Was it a franchise restaurant or single location? This seems like the terminal at the cafe in Brisbane, which was also ANZ. It's definitely counterintuitive having to press clear. Also, did they had you the terminal presumably for you to enter your PIN? I think that's the only thing that saved me at the cafe in Brisbane since I had full control of the terminal.

I would still echo your sentiment that DCC is rare in Australia since I've had at least 100+ transactions there over the last four years and have only seen it twice.

I am willing to give clerks the benefit of the doubt, but it's on a case-by-case basis. As I said before, it's just a brain trick, and when someone is presented with a receipt in the home currency usually doesn't stop and question why. If I were naive, I'd probably sign the receipt (and even sign in a tip in a USD amount) without even thinking about it. I would stop to question, "Wait... I'm in the UK. Why am I getting a bill in USD when the native currency is GBP? What's going on here?" In fact, you're more likely to leave a better tip without pausing to do calculations.

I bet if you gave 100 DCC-naive Americans a restaurant receipt with DCC abroad that was presented in the familiar US format of having a line to sign in the tip, that close to all 100 would sign it and probably sign in a tip in the USD amount too. Even if DCC verbiage were included at the bottom with a 5% DCC markup, I imagine you'd get few to question the charge. Learning to spot DCC and methods to thwart it takes experience and an ability to watch for details.

unless you use a prepaid AX (for USD only)/Sears MC/Marriott Visa (all of these 3 have no FX fee for CAD denominated cards.)
Paypower prepaid does have a foreign transaction fee but this can be a good thing (I have been able to pull USD at a CIBC machine in YYZ that charged bank rate, that is, before my paypower was cancelled.)

It's the pasta counter at Sydney Airport domestic terminal. I had the full control of the terminal because Australia uses PINs now, and it's a fast food counter that they have the terminal right in front of you so you do the inserting.

As long as it's not forced, I'm OK~

Is this DCC?
 

On Jet Airways website buying ticket SIN-BOM with AMEX:

It certainly looks like DCC in this case based on the wording. AmEx doesn't support DCC, so even if they give pricing information in USD, the charge will go through in INR. The fact that they mention Visa/MC don't have to worry about this indicates that if you use a Visa or MC you will be hit with DCC. It's impossible to know what the markup is without a comparison.

Perhaps others can help out here, but I don't think it's a case where the transaction is happening in the US but the acquirer is overseas. In that case I believe AmEx wouldn't do a conversion either since the native currency for the transaction would be USD. (However, some banks still nick you with a FTF even though the transaction never leaves the US because of the foreign acquirer. This doesn't matter if you have a 0% FTF card though.)

Amex = no DCC.

As simple as it is..

Sure, but the question is whether or not Jet Airways is trying to force DCC if you use a Visa/MC to book on its website. The language certainly seems to indicate that it's happening unless you use an AmEx, which implies that the native currency for the transaction is INR and is being dynamically converted to USD if you use a Visa or MC.

Air New Zealand's NZ website has DCC functions and you can opt out pretty simply. The full fare economy for 2 from Queenstown to Auckland is 466 NZD which is roughly 366 USD, and NZ's DCC quote in USD is in the amount of 376.

The currency choosing process is easy as press 1-2-3.

Living in Australia with CSP is so easy and DCC free. No forced DCC so far, and for over 100 swipes, only two came up with DCC options and you just hit CLEAR to avoid that. Having to sign almost every time is a little bothersome in Australian standard because people here just pin in, and merchants sometimes don't have a pen for me to sign.

Vending machines don't work so far with either US card I have. I'm gonna try my Amex Plat today with a vending machine to see whether that'll work.

Couldn't they still do something akin to DCC if they also have an acquirer in your country?

For example, a company has websites in the US and Canada, and you use a US-issued card to buy something on the Canadian site priced in CAD. Upon realizing that you are using a US card, they convert the price to USD and have their US acquirer charge you. This isn't strictly DCC, because each merchant is billing in their own currency. Does Amex ban this as well? If not, it may be what some of these airlines are doing.

The only case I've seen of this is where transactions never leave the US but are still counted as "foreign". There is no DCC markup in this case as the transaction is priced in USD.

What you're describing is probably technically possible, but I wonder if there aren't fair pricing laws or payment network regulations that might come into play in that case? That is to say, I don't know if they can add an arbitrary markup to the USD price in the scenario you're describing.

Back from Malaysia just now.

Experienced DCC at most stores and restaurants, could opt-out always, but the sheer fact that default is the CC's native currency (and not Malay currency) sucks. I have a card which is (almost) always forcing PIN, so I get the terminal handed to me - I can imagine if you've a signature card like many US-cards still are, and they do the "currency choice" for you, many will fall for it. DCC is annoying, and in my eyes it shouldn't be allowed to be set as the default choice ever. Even if you can opt out of it, it's just a scam.

Also, ZRH Airport Duty Free now apparently is actively trying to scam customers, not passively as before. When the customers in front of me this morning didn't know what to press, the scammer told them to press their own currency for "better rate". Very bad move ZRH :mad::td:

Did you tell the cashier off?

I'm usually doing this (if I see DCC being happening and I get a reasonable chance to help the people from being scamed) but in this case, I was simply too tired to actually have my body reacting on it (or the scammed guy was too fast of pressing it) - plus I guess that staff wasn't really understanding what she was doing (her ability to speak the local language and english too, imho, is rather limited from my experience at ZRH duty free (almost all employees are foreigners of some kind, it's low-paid jobs you'll barely find any swiss to do them)

I hope at ZRH there's the ability to opt out for those that know about the DCC scam? I would think that in Switzerland people tend to follow the rules, and it's not like some other countries where the cashiers will willfully disregard the currency choice.

Yes, it's possible to opt out. Basically, 95% of the screen will be filled with one button (DCC) where you've your own (foreign) flag, your currency with the scam amount in HUGE letters, and all kind of "hints" that you should chose to get scammed or else.. oh yeah, and then there is very tiny button on the side which says "CHF" in very small print. Unfortunately I can't show you a picture of it as you will understand, but it's probably "conform" with DCC rules, but it's a very terrible way to scam tourists coming to my country. If I'd be in charge, I would have the guys responsible for the DCC scam and it's introduction (at least on the "please press the big button to get "best rate") fired on the spot. Unfortunately, banks here are a disease like in most other countries.

I'm familiar with this design, and I've seen it in airport shops before. The entire setup is setup to trick you into accepting DCC. Most people don't even stop to think why the price is showing up in USD/GBP/EUR in a country that uses CHF. Immediately the price is familiar to them appears and makes reasonable sense.

It's probably not really compliant because of the emphasis given to steering the customer toward accepting DCC, but the payment networks have shown no interest in enforcing their own policies.

Perhaps I'm coming from a place where generally you do not expect help from strangers (up north you might even get into trouble for helping a stranger) but I find we don't stop strangers falling into tourist traps.

Even my attempt to prevent oreck's DCC transaction wasn't universally well received. I will try and advise if I have some proximity to the guy, but under many circumstances I'm really minding my own business.

Just got back from my 4 day stay in London and Dublin earlier this week and the DCC horror was much less than I thought it would be.

Was only in London for one day, didn't present the card at the hotel since it was a prepaid stay they said they didn't even need an authorization.

Only used my card twice in London, at a tube ticket booth and at five guys burgers in covent garden. Both times I stuck my card into the handheld reader, then a few seconds later the clerk presented me a recept to sign that had the charge in pounds. Easy and no fuss.

Then 3 days in Dublin and I only saw DCC a few times. First was at a Bank of Ireland atm at the airport but it was easy to avoid. I had two buttons I could press, one to debit my account by 20 Euro and the other to debit by about 25 dollars. All I had to do was press the button next to the Euro denomination.

Then at the hotel when taking my card the hotel clerk handed me the keypad and said press yes if I want to pay in US dollars, press no for Euros. Was easy there as well. The two other places where I encountered DCC was at a gift shop and the zoo and both of those played out the same way with the clerk handing me a keypad and saying to press one button for dollars, the other for euros, and didn't seem to care one bit what choice I made. All the others, supermacs fast food, Nandos restaurant, guiness storehouse, all only charged in Euros and at first when I handed over my card for lunch at supermacs and said to charge in Euros the clerk gave me a confused look until the person next to them said that their terminals don't have that capability and only charge Euros, so after that I never bothered to mention charging in euros. Most of the places just charged in Euros anyway.

I really did have thoughts based on reading this thread that I would have to argue with clerks about why I only would pay in Euros or Pounds but none of them honestly looked like they cared which choice I made so I reckon you all are talking it up worse than it is haha, which made sense if you think about it. If you are an hourly employee at a restaurant or shop, hotel, etc and get paid the same no matter which choice the customer makes why would you care? Just tell the customer press this button for your native currency, this other one for Euros. I imagine it is only when you shop at a small non chain store where the person operating the register is the owner or otherwise someone who would directly benefit by using a ripoff exchange rate where you would get arguments and deceiving instructions.

DCC was much less a problem than I thought it would be which was very pleasant.

Recidivist - Global Payments Taiwan
 

http://www.hongkongcard.com/webedito...5456_72270.jpg

http://www.hongkongcard.com/webedito...5442_37120.jpg

What's the corporate equivalent of being removed from the gene pool? I've probably spent more time fighting this great vampire squid wrapped around the face of the travelling community. Even more than BoC probably.

The slip pics was sent from an experienced hongkongcard.comer, with the following explanation:

"When I was given the merchant sales slip to tick which currency I prefer, and before the customer slip is printed, the machine awaits the cashier to press enter or clear, wiht no explanation.

I was thinking -
1) enter means accept dcc and clear means decline dcc
2) enter means print and clear means no need to print

When cashier press enter the customer slip is immediately printed without dialing"

I advised based on my Maldives experience with this same giant squid I believe (2) was the case.

Whilst it has not pursued a total relapse of its 2011 state, this is still very non-helpful to travellers and clearly non-compliant:

1. the quote slip is gone;

2. no indication of what choice is being asked for; and

3. the default choice is to DCC.

It's great that you had such a good experience. I've never been to Ireland, so I can't speak for DCC there. I think many of us have just being overly sensitive to the subject where there have been cashiers who have actively deceived us or gone against our wishes and selected the card's native currency rather than local currency. In some parts of the world, the terminals are locked down or provide no option; DCC is forced. Other places you'll get employees who you suspect know what they're doing, but then they attempted to feign ignorance or say the USD/xxx amount is only for your information.

Fortunately in the UK or Ireland there's not a language barrier, and it's great that you were presented a choice each and every time. (I assume this was unprompted, or were you asking to charge euros every time at the places with DCC?) That's all we're really asking for. I think my fear about Ireland was I had read reports that Burger King forced DCC without a way to disable it, so I assumed that the payment terminals at other establishments might be configured the same way.

I think DCC for whatever reason is far less of a problem in the UK. The only place where I've been hit with it has been at a Marriott hotel (before I knew what DCC was). Harrods also has it, but it's easily avoidable as long as you tell the cashier to charge pound sterling upfront.

I guess I have nothing to fear when I make it to Ireland, and above all else I am truly grateful that there is no DCC at Nando's. There wasn't DCC at Nando's in the UK either (November 2011) nor in Australia (June 2014). :D

Congratulations on a DCC-free trip. ^

The only time I actually mentioned to the cashier to charge me in Euros before handing over the card was at supermacs when getting lunch and I got a confused look from the cashier. Every other time I never said anything and just handed the card over or inserted it myself if the terminal was in front of me. Most of the time I was given a recept with the charge in Euros or pounds right there, the few times I mentioned above where DCC was an option the cashier asked me to press yes for dollars or no for euros on the keypad. Never tried to make the decision for me or sway me towards DCC and let me make my own choice with no fuss.

I am assuming they get plenty of tourists who naturally select their native currency without knowing any better anyway so they can still make their money on the scam but thankfully didn't try to steer me towards DCC.

In my recent experience, I've found three common variations of Global Payments terminals when it comes to DCC. I searched and found my post about it while observing the receptionist at the Sheraton in Taipei. The main rule to remember with DCC is that there are no rules. :D The variations I've seen with Global Payments in Taiwan have been:

A. Quote Slip:

1) The terminal will print the quote slip, but it's been my experience that most cashiers don't even give this to you when you proactively ask for 台幣/NTD.
2) You'll get a receipt to sign that will have the DCC verbiage but be denominated in NTD. Be sure the Type says SALE OPT_O before you sign. DCC has been disabled as long as you see OPT_O.
3) The cashier gives you the "No Signature Required" slip with the DCC verbiage but NTD clearly indicated. An example of such a receipt is here.

B. Integrated Quote/Signature Slip:

1) The terminal will print the signature slip with the check boxes. You tick the box, sign, and return to the cashier. The Type will say SALE
2) The cashier gives you the "No Signature Required" slip but the Type will say SALE OPT_O

C. DCC Preempted:

1) The cashier works magic to disable DCC beforehand
2) You get a signature slip without DCC verbiage denominated in NTD only. The type is SALE
3) You get the "No Signature Required" slip that also says type sale. Here is an example from Chung Yo Department Store. Note that the receipt on the left is the quote style, but the one the right was the preempted style. I doubt they have more than one type of POS terminal in the department store, so I assume this is all cashier controlled.

D. DCC Disabled Retroactively (only seen one time at Chung Yo in Taichung):

1) The cashier goes through the process of A or B but doesn't opt out of DCC
2) You get a "No Signature Required" slip in the card's currency with Type SALE.
3) You get a signature slip in NTD with SALE OPT_O.
4) You get a final "No Signature Required" slip in NTD with Type SALE OPT_O.

This scenario is documented here. When I saw the USD box ticked, I started fuming. It's hard to give an explanation for what happened here because throughout many purchases over the last four years I've only seen this scenario one time. A possible explanation is that the cashier screwed up.

The bottom line is that you either want a receipt with the Type SALE and no DCC verbiage and denominated in NTD or a receipt with the Type SALE OPT_O with the DCC verbiage and denominated in NTD.

We can't quite do a matched comparison because this forum member used a MasterCard, so I don't know if the DCC verbiage changes depending on card type. I was wondering if there is also a threshold below which the cardholder verification isn't strictly required? In these cases DCC might be automatic.

I'm suspecting that in this case perhaps the cashier made a mistake? In Taiwan they all seem to be very familiar with disabling DCC, so I'm not saying the sky is falling quite yet. Even if it were, I don't have any trips scheduled back there soon, so I couldn't check firsthand. I also would be unlikely to repeat the situation because I usually don't charge anything less than 300 NTD. Most of my small purchases are cash or EasyCard.

Yeah, many people fall for the trap. It's a natural tendency to go with what you're familiar with, so if you're staring at the option of $7.83 for a burger and fries you're likely to accept thinking that it's a reasonable price. I suspect that 90% of people who are faced with DCC accept it without even realizing what it was or that they just got surcharged.

I realize this is VISA/MC, but I think I'm having a similar issue with Discover.

Yesterday I succeeded in using my Discover It card in Japan at UNIQLO by telling the cashier it was a JCB. And currently I wish I hadn't succeeded. The charge is pending on my Discover account with merchant name "JCB MERCHANT" in a USD value which when converted from my JPY receipt means the exchange rate used at transaction time is 1 USD = 106.97 JPY. The actual exchange rate for yesterday is 1 USD = ~118 JPY.

I'll report back when the charge posts, but so far I wish I had used my VISA or MC because none of the merchants I've used those at have applied DCC.

update: the transaction posted with an exchange rate of ~118.30. Looks like I'll keep using Discover in Japan then!

JCB uses their own exchange rate, see e.g. http://www.jcb.jp/rate/usd11172014.html

(Change the date in the URL to the transaction date.)

You can see that as of 11-17 ('recently') they were using $1 = 116 JPY (the 'mid' rate). Discover shouldn't manipulate that rate any further, so you may need to contact their CS for details. The Discover network doesn't support DCC, and if you're being charged in JPY at all, DCC/currency conversion wasn't done.

So JCB controls the exchange rate in this case, not Discover? Is it the same case for UnionPay in China? We've had discussions on here before that Discover and AmEx typically have poorer exchange rates for non-pegged currencies, but I wouldn't expect it to be 11% higher. :eek:

It's not an issue of DCC, but if that's the exchange rate it's 3x what you'd typically see for a DCC markup. With exchange rates this bad I too would rather take the DCC hit. (...even though I've never seen DCC in Japan.)

Please report back, but is it also possible to show the UNIQLO receipt? I'm curious to see the posted transaction amount.

All my knowledge about UnionPay is about RMB UnionPay cards.

The RMB UnionPay system is something like a closed system that everything charged is converted to RMB using UnionPay's own rate. It doesn't charge extra fees, but the rate includes the pay for the work (artificial but somewhat competitive rate).

I understand UnionPay is invading the rest of the world (like every other Chinese forces), but I don't have any idea how it's gonna build a multi-currency based system out of the current mostly RMB based system.

As far as I can tell, there's nothing interesting about the receipt.

Discover (as JCB) vs Visa vs MasterCard:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/membe...ture9382-1.png