Before going to Paris, my imagination of DCC in France was as terrible as China's...

Turns out it isn't. The hotels I stayed at all (Marriotts) ask for your currency preference, and merchants rarely have DCC functionality.

I purposely went to Lafayette and did some shopping (galleria, supermarket, etc.), and encountered no DCC at all...

If China's DCC situation is half as good, I'd be OK.

This must be the first forced DCC in my knowledge...

Did you successfully disabled DCC at last? Or what did you do?

I asked the clerk to void the USD charge & she ended up just refunding me in EUR, which didn't undo the DCC surcharge. She seemed clueless about the fact I was still being overcharged, kind of a "deer-in-the-headlights" look when I was trying to explain what DCC really was. She then manually keyed in my CC# instead of swiping and was charged in EUR and not USD. She claimed that swiping my CC caused the auto-DCC as opposed to manually keying it in. As you can imagine, I had a hard time believing that. Moral of the story, beware if you stay in any Novotel-branded hotels in France. About a week later, I stayed at the Novotel-CDG airport hotel and preemptively asked for a EUR charge upon checkout & had no problems.

It's interesting because Marriott properties in the UK are notorious for opting guests into DCC and refusing to disable DCC upon request. It also happened to me at the Frankfurt Marriott without realizing it. The DCC verbiage had been subtly included on my folio upon checkout without any warning. I had already been screwed. My process now is to check in with an AmEx and then settle the bill with my Chase Marriott Visa.

You know what, I think she might be telling the truth, but only the part of the truth that she knows.

Some POS with DCC functionality can work very strangely, and sometimes in a way that doesn't make sense. We have this 交行 machine in Beijing that don't do DCC on chip cards but do really forced DCC on mag cards (swipe).

I think this hotel's machine's DCC is auto-triggered with a swipe reading of the card number, but maybe someone forgot to include this DCC code in the key-in method()... But I think the whole truth should be that DCC can also be turned off for swipes as well, you think so?

MC and visa regs prohibit the use of the dcc scam unless the potential scamee agrees to be scammed. Period. So having terminals that do not give the potential scamee the choice of whether or not he or she wishes to be scammed would not meet mc/visa specs. I can't believe any such terminals exist; of course remember the clerks in most of these situations don't have a clue; don't know this is a scam and are probably told just push the dcc button and of course few of the scamees know what's going on anyway so they get very few complaints.

Yes, that's the rule. But in reality, 90% of the POS in China choose DCC by default and have to be disabled by some tricks, and 10% of these POS even don't let you opt out (see moondog's post about a 农行 machine in Shenzhen).

Clearly all the above violate. But what can we do about it...?

My understanding about this Novotel POS is that its DCC is on by default, and there has to be some trick to turn it off. The staff just doesn't know how to turn it off with a swipe, but knows keying-in won't trigger DCC.

I had no attempts to DCC me on my stay at Novotel Suite Reims Centre four days ago.

I just checked with the missus - even Chanel Rue Royale didn't try to pull DCC on her. So far as we can tell.

The spouse had a DCC attempt of sorts returning to TPE from GUM. She wanted to buy something from Everrich Duty Free, but she didn't have anything except USD. The sales assistant was quick to respond, "We can accept USD!" I didn't ask the rate, but I would have assumed it was highly in the store's favor.

Update on my dispute charge for Grayhound:

Chase said it was a proper transaction that I signed for, service rendered and closed the case. The supervisor did not know what DCC was or cared. He said if I wanted to continue this dispute, I would have to fax or snail mail a letter with proof that I did not receive the service I paid for. Refusing to comprehend the concept of DCC and the markup involved.

What should I do?

I suggest you write a letter clearly laying out the reason for dispute. It is an issue of being billed in the wrong currency, not an issue of not receiving the services you paid for. The majority of disputes are the latter, so when their reps get something else, they may not understand it. A written letter should get read by someone with more knowledge/authority, and be taken more seriously because it shows that you are serious about it and not just fishing for money.

Please keep us updated.

re cxua

1. Yes put it in writing
1a. Attach printout of your slip photo
1b. Print and paste pages 792-802 (or at least 792-793) http://usa.visa.com/download/merchan...n.pdf#page=828 . Explicitly state you qualify for Reason Code 76 chargeback under Condition 5 ("the Cardholder was...refused the choice of paying in the Merchant's local currency")

2. Since Chase supervisor already made a preliminary assessment verbally, name the supervisor, recount the assessment and state the assessment relates to Reason Code 30 (Services Not Provided) chargeback and disclaim that, reiterate Reason Code 76 is the chargeback you're seeking.

3. Send it per the way the supervisor requested

4. Escalate it to complaints dept (is Chase required to have a dedicated complaints department to escalate to in the US? They do in HK)

5. Escalate to CFPB (any jurisdiction?)

I might add that if you want a faster resolution - ie) courtesy credit, you can always try to hang up and call again (HUCA).

However, I'd encourage you to fight this since this is a rock solid case if you send them documentation and follow the steps that percysmith outlined.

Which card is this? If it's the Sapphire Preferred call the international collect number at +16147757050. I've had good luck getting transferred immediately to a human in a US-based call center. Step 2 above is crucial. You're not contesting the product or services provided rather the fact the merchant didn't honor your choice to pay in the local currency.

Who's up for meeting at Greyhound Cafe next weekend? I want to file a reason code 76 chargeback too. :D

Greyhound Cafe DCC
 

cbn, percysmith, majuki - Thanks guys for your info. I will go ahead as advised to snail mail them the documents you've listed.

My original dispute clearly say charge back code 76 incorrect currency. But I'm guessing person who reviewed my case doesn't really understand DCC.

Yes, it's the Chase Sapphire Preferred.

Just to be cheapskate - can you submit by fax? I frequently do - save a stamp and get a timestamp receipt from my (company's) fax server.