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

We were wrong. Clear simply voids the transaction. The experienced hongkongcard.comer tried pressing clear during the pause in another purchase and the screen shows the transaction is voided at that point (no slip is printed).

The manager aped the cashier for letting the hongkongcard.comer void a transaction and in order to avoid further trouble for the cashier the hongkongcard.comer paid cash to settle his bill. There appears to be no way to avoid DCC on Global Payment Taiwan terminals now.

Was this still at Space Inn, or did the person try this at multiple locations with Global Payments terminals? While I can appreciate the environment might change quickly, it's difficult to think Global Payments completely screwed up all terminals in Taiwan in the last six weeks. I further contend that this might be another implementation of DCC on a Global Payments terminal.

As I said, I won't be able to check this for awhile, but I'll be able to report back during our next trip. I imagine the manager was going ape more over the 60 NTD purchase via a credit card than anything, and I'm surprised they allowed it. Most places I know in Taiwan would balk as such a small card purchase.

No matter we buy a pair of slippers at TWD60, or a bottled coca cola at TWD15, they take cards. They do not care about the amount as they are just the frontline staff members.

I did tried on both their terminals from Verifone acquired by Global Payments Taiwan at Space Inn and resulted the same.

I did some online research and in some Verizone manuals, the enter after the merchant slip is printed means ' Signature Verified' and the Clear or Cancel mean ' Signature not verified and transaction unsuccessful'. As when I pressed clear the transaction was voided, I see no way to opt-out from being DCC-ed.

I am earning 1 Asia Mile per HKD1.67 equivalent in TWD.
I am losing the extra points and being offered a .... rate if being DCC-ed.

Thanks for the update. I use an EasyCard for small purchases, so I never investigated using a credit card for small purchases. Is there an option on the terminal before the signature slip has been printed? Did you see this behavior on any other Global Payments terminals in Taiwan?

I understand the frustration because percysmith has explained bonus rewards for foreign spend only happen if the transaction is not HKD. It is different for US cardholders, but we still have to deal with the DCC fee.

I'm wondering if the transaction completed without cardholder verification. The signature slip is obviously non-compliant considering it already says "I have chosen not to use..." before you even selected anything. It's disgusting. :mad:

Working out a similar problem here http://www.hongkongcard.com/forum/fo...p?id=12138&p=5 #42

I don't think using the mid rate is right. As a USD cardholder in Japan you should be using the buy rate (118.18 http://www.jcb.jp/rate/usd11212014.html)

That still doesn't justify the rate...tho are they keeping 10.48% as a reserve against exchange rate fluctuation between transaction and posting?

Please let us know posting rate.
Also, is there any foreign transaction or conversion fee on your card (none right?)?