This incident at Al Molo reminds me that maybe these DCCs can be avoided, provided that the cashiers know how to do that and remembers to do that. I think it doesn't really matter whether it's carbon copy or thermal copy.

I thought the DCC currency selection should be either before the slip printing, or right after. Now I know it doesn't matter if the terminal returns to idle after slip printing, because there is a way to call your transaction back and then select the currency.

So now I wanna ask, whether the terminals at Coyote, Greyhound Cafe, elc., all have this feature to select currency (that you have to initiate a transaction type, provided that the guy knows all the necessary passwords and things to the terminal, called "offline opt/out" or simply "opt/out")? I still think in a place like HK, blatant violation of Visa/MC rules isn't that possible...

Hostels.com
 

Hostels.com engages in something very similar to DCC, except rather than switch to your card's currency, they switch arbitrarily to USD. (Which, for many people, will be the same thing. For many others, it will be even worse than DCC.)

Their main pages have a currency drop-down which allows you to choose many currencies. (However, they hide the fact that they only allow payment in three currencies.) So, you can look up a hostel to book in Australia, have it set to AUD and see this:

"12% Downpayment / Deposit: AU$53.28" next to the "Book now" button.

Clicking that button takes the user to the payment page, on which it is stated "12% Downpayment / Deposit: US$45.38"

This is, unsurprisingly (as hostels.com is run from Ireland, apparently a world leader in DCC), about 5% higher.

It is possible, and it does happen. There's little one can do to avoid DCC in all cases except by using AmEx or a card denominated in the transaction currency, paying cash, or successfully filing a Reason Code 76 chargeback.

I can't speak for Coyote but percysmith tried to get the cashier at Greyhound to press cancel - and she did if I remember correctly - but to no avail. The damage had already been done.

I have seen the cashier call back the transaction for currency selection at Chungyo Department Store in Taichung, but in my experience the ex post facto DCC opt-out is rare.

I thought post facto DCC opt-out is rare too, but now I believe maybe this is the way to get the things right at Coyote and Greyhound Cafe.

The "cancel hitting" trick is definitely a way to go for the pre facto DCC opt-out, but I believe a lot of the terminals in HK can use post facto opt-out. Imagine in a restaurants, waiters all go to the same terminal to swipe cards, and there is no way everyone can wait for the last guy to come back with the marked slip, select the currency, then do their own swipings. Instead, the terminal should've been designed to be able to call back previous transactions when things are not so busy.

In situations like this, if you lay your eyes on the terminal, you would feel like you've already got into trouble. I sincerely feel that doing a post facto DCC opt-out can solve this, provided that the cashier has all the needed password or something to operate the terminal to do a "DCC opt-out" transaction.

Zyxsly: some do allow post facto opt out: Orreck Hang Seng Rainbow Restaurant

But not all: my Global Payments Taj Exotica Maldives (supervisor has no way to opt out of my first DCCed transaction, the first transaction must be voided and another re-run).

I haven't travelled internationally in a while so this is the first that I'm hearing of this.

I understand that a lot of time the lender would rather just refund the difference and eat it than bother with a chargeback, especially if it's a relatively small amount. I also understand that this is not particularly satisfying -- obviously no one wants to go through a lot of phone calls to get 50c back.

When there is a problem, in addition to the disputing the charge, is it possible to report the merchant directly to Visa? After all, it's Visa's rules that they are breaking, not the lender's.

Yes, it is petty to have to call up and ask for a refund or chargeback when the discrepancy is $0.25-$5.00, especially when the issuer isn't the one responsible for forcing DCC upon the customer. Those of us who care about the matter try to stop DCC at the time of the transaction to avoid having to make the call to the issuer. However, the issuer has the ability to file a incorrect currency code chargeback. If the issuer refunds a credit in lieu of a chargeback, it is the issuer's decision. This of course is a suboptimal resolution since the merchant doesn't have to deal with the paperwork of a chargeback, and the issuer is taking the loss of the DCC amount by issuing a courtesy credit.

Taking the issue up with the payment networks won't get your issue resolved if you've been hit with DCC. While the networks provide feedback forms for US merchants, there isn't a systematic way to report merchants worldwide. Even if you do report the merchant, what action will the networks take? This is no different than some merchants refusing a transaction due to not having ID (where local law doesn't supersede network policy) or merchants overseas refusing swipe-and-sign or non-PIN transactions. (This omits all of the unmanned terminals that only support offline chip-and-PIN transactions.) All of these things are in violation of published Visa/MC policy, but the payment networks do little to punish the merchants.

Some on here have even speculated that the networks approve of DCC as a way to increase merchant acceptance of credit card transactions. If the merchant and acquirer are taking a cut of some of the 4-5% markup.

Does AMEX offer FTF free cards? I would like to have one to avoid DCC, but also would like to avoid any FTF. How hard are they to get?

For the US AmEx cards, the Delta cards, Platinum card, and Centurion card have no FTF.

IIRC the Fidelity AmEx also has a 1% FTF that is more than made up for by the 2% CB for all purchases.

Another good choice. ^

While many card issuers and their banks may not charge FTF, the exchange rate is often warped @:-)

BTW, had to think of this thread this week, all retail counters at MUC now have a stupid sign explaining the great features of being able to pay in your own currency :td:

Just checked my statement from Chase.

The Al Molo Harbour City charge, through a Global Payment terminal, is DCC-free.

Got my currency confirmation slip showing HKD, through post facto DCC opt-out.

So I really think the Global Payment terminals in HK have this feature to select currency, but managers or cashiers don't know how to run opt-outs, or aren't given the credentials (or didn't ask for them) needed to run opt-outs...

I'm glad you didn't get hit with DCC. It's difficult to prove that all Global Payments terminals have this ability, but what's the use if the cashiers don't know how to opt out? Even with percysmith talking to the manager and cashier in Cantonese we weren't able to opt out at Greyhound Cafe. I specifically asked if there was any input they could do to select the currency after the fact, and they said no. They then humored us by voiding the first transaction and allowing us to see if there was any option of intercepting the DCC after inserting the card. There was a prompt that said "ENQUIRY", but hitting cancel during this window did nothing.

I'm beginning to think the only thing that can stop this madness is to get the merchants to start seeing Reason Code 76 chargebacks. On principle I should have let the Greyhound Cafe charge go through and been the second Reason Code 76 chargeback after cxua. Perhaps if we keep peppering these merchants with chargebacks they will find a way to disable DCC on request or start respecting cardholder choices.

Hostelworld, which owns hostels.com, is one of the more bizarre and egregious there is. I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but if you choose to stay at a hostel outside of the three currencies they allow payment in, you will pay their lousy exchange rates on your deposit. It is NOT DCC, as they convert to one of three currencies you can choose from, not to the cardholder currency. Given many hostels book exclusively with them, you really just have no choice. I've chosen to consider it simply a hidden booking fee and, since it amounts to about 0.5% of the total stay, just deal with it. Obviously, if you're staying at a hostel in one of the currencies they allow payment in, use that currency.

That's EXACTLY the point. It's so they can say to Visa and Mastercard "LOOK, we're totally compliant, the customer ticks the box they want, and the merchant follows this long, convoluted process on each sales slip to honour the customer's decision - totally compliant" with them knowing full well merchants won't complete the process - simply having the process makes them compliant.

The Visa/MC are stricter than that. They specify that the customer has to be presented with a clear choice with no preferential treatment given to DCC. That would knock 90% of the DCC offerings I've seen out of compliance:

• Automatic opt-in to DCC - no currency preference or even an implicit currency preference (such as writing in a tip in local currency) results in getting hit with DCC
• Confusing/convoluted methods to opt out - eg) Print next receipt?, ENQUIRY?, USD/HKD 0.122 OK? - where you have to press no/cancel or some other non-intuitive button
• Flag of card's currency takes up 90% of screen with a big OK button and a message "For HKD press HERE" shows up at the bottom in 8 pt font

The vast majority of DCC offerings I've seen wouldn't pass muster with Visa or MC if they actually cared about enforcing their regulations. But it's just like in the EMV thread. We read reports of some European merchants saying, "Sorry, no 'American' cards accepted." Others say non-PIN/non-EMV transactions are refused even though there are accept-all-cards policies. Some merchants stateside will refuse to complete a credit card transaction without ID which is against payment network policy if the card has been signed. Rarely do the payment networks enforce these rules.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again... I think the biggest culprits here are the acquirers. They stand the most to gain from the DCC scalp, and they are off the hook when a customer files a Reason Code 76 chargeback. It's the merchant's problem in that case. However, in the vast majority of cases where customers are duped into accepting DCC the acquirer makes a healthy profit on the exchange, throwing a pittance to the merchant for helping perpetuate the scam.

"The vast majority of DCC offerings I've seen wouldn't pass muster with Visa or MC if they actually cared about enforcing their regulations. " it'll be nice if some EU jurisdiction can fine Visa and Mastercard for their negligence much like Italy fined Tripadvisor. The only lcpurt action I know is the Australiab ACCC buttfxckedly suing V/M for not allowing more of it! But such devine acts cannot be worked towards, only prayed for.

Guess I got lucky, that the staff at Al Molo knew how to do this, and I insisted seeing the confirmation slip.

To me, it's very probably that Greyhound Cafe/Coyote guys didn't learn how to operate the opt-outs. Of course the acquirer is the main culprits here, but since some of the Global Payment merchants know the stuff, I still blame the ones that don't do their homework.

My guess now is that all terminals in HK, if they cannot disable DCC preemptively, they should have the feature to opt-out later by calling the transaction back. I remember at Al Molo they keyed in the trans/batch/or whatever 6-digit number of the transaction, and pressed some selection keys, then I got the confirmation slip showing only HKD.

BTW, their markup was 4.2%, stated on the currency selection slip.

Consumer groups love DCC because merchants love DCC. Remember banks are bad and merchants love you lots.

Yep, I had explained in this earlier post about the winners and losers of DCC, at least for US issued cards. In the worst case, everybody except the customer is a loser. In other cases like HK, the card issuer can be the loser as the issuer misses out on currency exchange fees. (In the US almost all cards charge FTF, so the issuer would win in the case of DCC.)

But I agree. It would take some serious court action to smack the acquirers into shape. However, it's unlikely to happen as DCC is rare in the US, and those who've encountered it say that it is easy to opt out in the US.

If anyone's wondering, DCC is finally being implemented in Japan. I just got hit with it a couple hours ago. Fairly easy to avoid, but I have no idea what I would've been taken for because all it prompted was 外貨決済(DCC)対象カードです はい\いいえ (Essentially "This card can do payments in foreign currency (DCC) yes/no"). Pushing "no" produced a DCC-free slip.

Where in Japan? It seems like this disease is spreading... :mad: What if I didn't have access to the terminal in Japan, and the cashier didn't know what it was and just pressed accept?

it was a secondhand electronics shop in downtown Tokyo. Not surprising, since it's a shop a lot of tourists seem to shop at. The only advice I can give with regards to the second point is that the terminal will always be visible and somewhat accessible to you in a Japanese shop (at least the chain where the DCC was attempted), so just watch the screen.

Here's an example of how clueless cashiers can be, earlier today I had to re-run my card because the cashier accidentally hit "no" for signature verification (if the signature matched) - they don't read the prompts at all. Thus, who can trust them to offer the DCC choice?

You sadly can't trust cashiers to get the DCC choice correct. Even if the cashier is an hourly low wage earner at a chain store or restaurant with no immediate vested interest in whether or not you accept DCC it's still impossible to control the transaction completely. Factor in that there might be language barriers - note the recent example from jamar - where you might not be able to explain to the cashier that you want local currency. It's just like getting into arguments with merchants about magstripe only cards in EMV countries. It's a losing battle.

You try to stop DCC in its tracks at the time of the transaction. If unsuccessful, you deface the receipt and file a chargeback.

I should note, however, that there is one circumstance where I would possibly accept DCC. If I were stuck with nothing but my Canadian credit/debit card I would take it over the double-whammy TD slaps on foreign transactions not in USD/EUR/GBP/AUD- for transactions in other currencies, say in JPY, TD first converts to USD +2.5% then to CAD +2.5%, effectively taking a little over 5% as a FX commission. Direct conversion to CAD only happens with those four currencies.

This was fairly well-hidden in the cardholder agreement and I only noticed when looking to make sure that the 2.5% listed currency conversion fee was just for forex and not for all foreign transactions. Of course, actual Canadians have more choices than I do, and thus would be able to avoid this problem with a 0% card from Chase. Sadly, the DCC-proof AmEx would be even worse for Canadians because AmEx Canada converts all non-USD foreign currencies to USD before converting to CAD, making it not worth it unless buying something where purchase protection was necessary.

Do terminals in the US even ask this anymore? I've noticed on a lot of independent merchant terminals in the US it just seems to print out two receipts which both have signature sections on them and one of them has to be signed. By this point the transaction seems to be over from the terminals point of view.

Terminals aren't always particularly clear though, I know in Marks and Spencers in the UK, the POS just asks "Is card valid?".

I haven't seen many of them them ask for it. You're definitely correct that most systems print out two receipts simultaneously, the merchant copy and the customer copy. This setup is especially common in restaurants. You could sign your name as anything (or not even sign), and they transaction will have already gone through.

You said that Red Lobster and Olive Garden used to pull the DCC game but don't seem to anymore? When they did do this, did your receipts already come out in GBP or was it the HKG style of "enter tip in TXN currency" variety of receipt?

It would say something like "Thank you for allowing First Data (I think) to convert your USD XXX transactions into XXXX GBP at the conversion rate of XXXX". You never had any choice in the matter and when I spoke to staff they seemed as clueless as I was and didn't seem to think the transaction had been done any differently to a US card. I just gave up in the end and usually paid by Amex and occasionally Diners Club (As transactions have a habit of getting lost and never making it onto my UK Diners Club account, especially in the early days of the Discover/Diners network merge).

That's sneaky and definitely non-compliant. I'd put that up there with some of the merchants in Mainland China. :td:

I imagine the waitstaff would have been clueless because most of them wouldn't know what to do in that situation. Perhaps at the Times Square or Florida locations they would have seen this before, but I can't imagine a waiter at the Olive Garden in Kokomo, Indiana would know anything about DCC or have even swiped a non-US card before.

Thinking about it, I expect DCC to actually become more prevalent in the US thanks to EMV. :( There's a good chance that we'll have the largest set of signature-only terminals in the world (restaurants and the like) so there's less chance to opt-out since cards will still leave the cardholder's possession. And that has to be tempting for some companies out there, especially those who do a lot of business in tourist areas.

Well, nothing prevents DCC in a swipe-and-sign environment either. Apple Pay and the like could reduce the prevalence of DCC since DCC isn't allowed for contactless payments with no cardholder verification required.

I maintain that DCC isn't that prevalent in the US to begin with, but my spouse isn't letting me use her Taiwan issued Visa debit card to find out. She let me try one purchase at Mitsuwa, but there was no DCC.

It's easier in an EMV environment though because there's no need to keep a BIN->country association list constantly up to date; just check the Application Currency Code on the card. Also, it's probably not prevalent now because a lot of businesses have some really old terminals that probably can't even do it in the first place. :p

Then again, it's probably way easier to enforce proper DCC here than elsewhere so even if it does become more prevalent at least opt-out should be easy.

Since when did DCCing magnetic stripe cards ever prove too difficult for the many merchants of Ireland? LOL

Well, I'm thinking about this some more and perhaps more merchants will enable DCC as they swap out for newer terminals with the EMV change. However, over on the other thread, we've postulated that merchants here will be slow to change out their terminals, especially in venues like restaurants that are considered 'low risk' for fraud.

I think there is a lot of cultural difference as well. In Ireland, for example, I doubt most people feel much remorse for scamming Britons and Americans with DCC. Same for outsiders in Hong Kong and China. Canada, however, or the UK I doubt would find forced DCC to be nearly to acceptable of a practice. The US, however, is one country where I'd think forcing DCC would be considered downright patriotic "this is Murica and you're gonna pay us the way we want to get ar' 'Murican dollaz"

So I'm surprised it isn't more widespread.

I don't know enough about the cultures elsewhere to say whether or not that's the case. I think the customer service and rules driven culture likely prevails in the US to do the right thing or having cashiers/waitstaff willing to retry the transaction.

Or to put it in another perspective, wait until you see the size of my tip if you don't figure out a way to void this transaction and rerun in USD. ;)

I think the DCC scam is most likely present in areas with high tourist or foreign card traffic SE Asia, Europe, etc. I imagine outside of tourist areas in the US it is uncommon to find a non-USD denominated card in the wild. Even my international friends in college primarily used their US-issued debit cards from a local bank account (and later got credit cards as they established credit in the US). And in the kind of places I now visit, most of the foreign cards are UnionPay or JCB anyway, so I wouldn't see any opportunities for DCC.

In most cases I doubt you'd have issues because almost all major stores have digital signature pads now, and reclusive46 says that's where he has typically seen the DCC offer to appear outside of restaurants. It's just like DFS at HKIA where it was easy to decline if you knew what to expect. It's none of this charade of "check the box and hope the cashier makes some input after the fact".

There may well be cultural reasons as to whether the USA, for example, will deploy DCC on a wide basis. I don't think it started out as a scam; I think when it was introduced in Ireland in the 1990's it was looked on to a degree as a means of helping customers understand what they were paying for something. That was before ftf's so if a bank was getting 3% on the foreign currency transaction, they felt it was a way of getting in on the action, sparing the customer the 3% and providing a service. It became more of a scam when the banks in retaliation converted foeign currency fees to foreign transaction fees. Ouch. But then the processors claimed it wasn't they ripping off the customers but their banks.

But DCC didn't catch on in France because well the French sgtill had and probably retain the belief France is one of the great countries of the world; that everybody should speak French and spend French money while in France. Of course we also have this American exceptionalism here which Obama spoke about; i.e. everybody should speak English and everybody should use and accept American money (and American weights and measures and American 2nd Amendment rights yada yada yada. It is that attitude so prevalent in Murica that may account for the lack of DCC. Of course, the other attitude is capitalism reigns supreme and the idea is to make the last buck on unsuspecting tourists because the American capitalistic society best way to go (ever sit bck why the same medical proceure costs $100 throughout 99% of the workd and $5,000 here while statistics show American medical care is no better than most other places but then again that may cause me to be accused of stealing the topic and I wouldn't want to do that but this thought is there are 2 ways to do things, the rest of the world and America is something that is very prevalent in American mores.

DCC has evolved into a scam when the going rate is now between 4-5%, which is more than the standard 3% currency exchange fee that issuers charge. Since banks were losing out on this, they switched to foreign transaction fees, which we've discussed extensively already, so you're still getting with the 3% FTF even if you accept the 4-5% DCC offer, resulting in a 7-8% markup on your transaction. Back when it was one or the other (and the DCC offer was a more reasonable 3%) it really didn't matter which one you chose, and you might have even come out ahead accepting DCC since the currency exchange fee wasn't calculated as part of your rewards earnings whereas the total amount inclusive of the DCC fee would count. Again, this no longer holds true, but it did in the past.

If anything, I'm surprised DCC isn't more prevalent due to American culture trying to upsell at every possible opportunity. How often do you hear, "Would you like to make that a large for 49¢ more?" "How about adding purchase protection to this today?" "I see you've already got this, but can I interest you in this adjacent service [that's more expensive]?" It seems like every which way they're trying to get you to accept the offer, and some employees even have quotas to meet. The only reason why DCC isn't all over the place is because on average I suspect that few big box retailers see non-USD cards outside of select locations.

I suspect it's a battle between the mighty 'Murican dollar and the belief everyone everywhere should use them (which goes against DCC) and the belief that in 'Murica if you're not 'Murican you have no rights and should be scammed at every available opportunity. Frankly, I'd believe the latter would outweigh the former, but it usually doesn't.

In the UK, I think DCC is rare because 1. there's less utter hatred toward foreigners and 2. an even stronger love of the currency.

On the other hand, in Ireland there's no emotion for the Euro and a strong "let's take the British and American tourists for all they're worth" (the main people who will be DCC'd in Ireland) attitude that appears prevalent.