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.