I just discovered this exact problem the hard way today when checking my online account activity. I made two purchases at the Macau airport upstairs food court a few days ago. One was a bottle of water for 20 MOP(=$2.50) and a sandwich for 32 MOP (=$4.00) Each slip had a check box for currency choice. I put an "X" over MOP, put a line through the USD amounts ($2.60 & $4.17 respectively) and also wrote the MOP amount on the blank "total" line, trying to make my choice of MOP painfully obvious. I even verbally told the lady behind the counter to charge me in MOP and not USD. Of course the airport merchants still DCC'd me and although the total 27 cent overcharge is minuscule, it's a form of theft nonetheless. I called CapitalOne and they opted to just give me simple credit as the small overcharge is not worth their time, however I was tempted to force them to push a chargeback on principle & cause some hassle to these airport merchants. I'm guessing they get away with these DCC overcharges all the time, with very little pushback. This why DCC is constantly abused worldwide and it seems these kinds of merchants will be getting away with it scott-free indefinitely.

Yep. The issuers aren't going to press a chargeback with such an immaterial amount. The only way to force the issue is to have such a large difference that the issuer can't ignore it. Of course, this will likely occur on something like a hotel room, large department store purchase, etc. Most of these locations will be able to disable DCC for those in the know. In fact, has there ever been a successful Reason Code 76 chargeback outside of the case that percysmith explained about A Lorcha in Macau?

You did the right thing by calling the issuer. Unfortunately, they get away with this scam because 90% of people are either ignorant, don't care, think it's "cool" they can be billed in USD, or think they don't have a case with the issuer.

HSBC HK opted to courtesy credit the Cathy NS Wong hongkongcard.com at Venetian Macau case http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...p?id=12533&p=7 #64

I say try and drive for chargeback as hard as you can, but accept courtesy credits when chargeback not permitted by bank. If they have to do courtesy credits often enough they may go to Visa and do something about it.

Have been traveling around the French countryside for the last week, eating, sleeping, drinking and (when not drinking) driving (with Europcar rental) with mastercards and visas. No DCC ever tried, not even in the mercure/novotels and Europcar. DCC is still so foreign to them one cashier thought I wanted to pay cash when I told them I wanted to pay Euros.

I do agree with your assessment that DCC is less likely to occur in France than many other placs in Europe. I think it goes back to the idea that the French still consider themselves to be a premier world power and that everybody when in France should do things the French way. Before the euro was introduced that included not taking fofreign currencies in lieu of French Francs and even though many can speak English not giving in to tourists and speaking in English (in most other Western European countries, knowledge and abilaity to speak English is almost (note the word) universal and locals enjoy practicing their English with tourists! Not as much in France so I agree; DCC is hardly ever tried in France (I'm sure somebody will come up with exceptions).

I can: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/franc...lafayette.html

But I didn't have to pay much last time. I did this time. We aren't in paris yet, but will head there in two days.

I had the same experience.

London has very regulated DCC, and I thought Paris is gonna be filled with forced DCCs since Paris is not as regulated.

But living there for a week with constant swiping plastic (alloy with the my CSP), I encountered no DCC at all, even at Ledoyen... Their response to "Charge me in Euros please" is "why not???"...

I guess it's a form of convenience for the merchant. If you are doing business with almost only Euros, why do you need USD in your bank account? You have to exchange them back to Euros in the end and lose some value in it, right?

But some other very touristy countries like Macau, find foreign currencies like USD very attractive, because their economies are filled with them, right?

My parents were in Paris not too long ago, and I told my mom to watch out for DCC. However, she didn't seem to see any instances and was proactive in requesting to pay in euros. Like you said, there are moments of confusion because there are likely those cashiers who have never heard of DCC or aren't paying much attention to the currency of the transaction even when it does occur. If you say, "I want to pay in euros." the cashier might give you a confused look and reply, "How else would you pay?"

It's great to know that the Venetian case resulted in no net loss to the customer, and I think issuers may get on Visa's case if there are too many of these courtesy credits. However, I would say DCC is more of a problem for you to get resolved rather than with US issued cards because you sometimes have bonuses that rely on foreign currency spend. In the US it doesn't matter, at least to my knowledge, what currency is used as long as the category bonus is satisfied.

Goodnight from Guam. :D

I was under the impression that the acquirer takes care of the currency exchange and not the merchant. I assume the merchant would get paid in local currency from the POS bank, and the bank would perform the currency exchange, splitting the profits from DCC with the merchant based on the profit sharing agreement, if any. In fact, this is probably exactly how merchants get tricked into allowing DCC at their establishments, and we've seen this in a number of the brochures made for merchants. This goes back to my winners and losers of DCC post.

I was at T Galleria Guam (DFS) this evening, and I noticed Euronet payment terminals with country flags in multiple languages saying that one had the option of paying in home currency. At the bottom it noted that there was a 3% markup above the exchange rate. While I was waiting in line to purchase I listened for customers accepting DCC, but I didn't hear anything about a choice of payment currencies. Since I have a USD denominated card, I didn't encounter any DCC myself.

Majuki: sounds like the Coach/DFS offering in HK

I agree with this. But why not so much DCC in France, a country deemed not so much in order? If it's pure profit for merchants, why the merchants in the country with the most horrible tourism-related stories in Western Europe get on the wagon?

Please don't get me wrong. It's just for the sake of discussion.

My memory failed me in remembering this post, but it was exactly this terminal style that has the messages in various languages. The difference on the one here is there is no dragon and the English sign has the UK flag. There was definitely Thai, Indonesian, Japanese, and French (with the EU flag). We're here Monday and Tuesday, so I should have some extra time to go back and take a photo.

Probably it's for reasons JEFFJAGUAR outlined about doing things their own way, but I really don't have a good answer for you. It's possible the payment processors in the country don't support it?

I got DCC'd at the Novotel Paris Gare Montparnasse, after the hotel clerk said it was "automatic" after she swiped my US Visa card & almost got DCC'd again at the CDG duty free shop, but at least there they gave us a choice. Otherwise, we saw little DCC in France over the nearly 2 weeks we were there back in March.

I went back and took a picture. Notice the similarities to the picture percysmith took at HKG earlier in the month:

http://i.imgur.com/9HkXZmXm.jpg

This one discloses: Fx rate includes 3.0% Margin

Ok we got hit with first case of DCC - CityPharma

Surprising - it's a discount pharmaceutical chain. A lot of people were inside and my missus decided to join them - I decided to stay outside with the shopping.

She came out white as a sheet:

"There's DCC in there!"
"Really, describe it - till display?"
"Yes, it showed "DCC" in big letters when my card is inserted. I told them euros of course. The cashier told me to key "2" into pin pad"
"Any verbage on the slip?"
"No. Standard euro slip was produced after I keyed in "2""