Thanks for the data points. I don't think we've had too many reports from Iceland. The choice was fully within your control, right? Did NFC seem to avoid DCC from showing most of the time? (It's difficult to do controlled experiments unless you're returning to the same merchant and doing a similar value transaction with the physical card.)

Yes, more and more people are aware of paying in local currency. In fact, some merchants have disabled DCC or select local currency, opting out on the customer's behalf. One merchant in Hong Kong told me, "Don't worry. I always select local currency. The exchange rate is not favorable for the customer," after I had requested HKD if there was an option.

The "accidental swipe" transaction was the only time we encountered DCC, which was clearly presented on a customer facing terminal giving two prices: ISK 499 or USD 4.80 (made up numbers). None of that red/green, yes/no button stuff.

My mom used her physical card twice at the same store for small NFC purchases. No DCC at all for those or other tapping. I had no DCC on my two chip insertion transactions - ISK defaulted on those.

It's strange that the swipe transaction resulted in DCC but a physical card (assuming Visa or MC on this) didn't have DCC.

The physical card inserted was a First Tech pin-preferring MC. I clearly recall the "swiped" DCC as I'd forgotten all about DCC until it happened after the first chip transaction.

Restaurants in Colombia seem to now use DCC, at least paying with Visa. It's Chip + Signature, so you don't really have control over the final choice of currency. It also happened when using Samsung pay. I had to ask them to reverse it multiple times, and ask them to use the local currency whenever they run it again. Only a couple of times did they ask what currency I wanted to charge to be in.

Actually a friend of mine suggested to dispute *after* completing the stay. This way you're not disputing about the services provided (or the local currency transaction price) but you're disputing the conversion.

It's the 1% foreign transaction fee even though I was either paying eBay Singapore on ebay.com.sg in SGD site or Paypal Singapore with my SGD CC and bank account linked.

eBay Singapore is billing from USA.
Paypal Singapore is billing from Hong Kong.

But HSBC keeps calling it "DCC FEE" in their statements.

Julien

PayPal - is the underlying merchant Singaporean or offshore?

"DCC FEE" - I railed heavily against Citi HK making a similar conflation https://forum.hongkongcard.com/forumSE/show/21937 #1 . It is lazy, misleading and unhelpful to cardholders.

The Sun has an article out warning about DCC: https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/42735...uld-almost-50/

Since awareness seems to be increasing, is it possible that most businesses will eventually stop bothering trying to attempt it?

Nope.
Tourist traps will remain tourist traps - they don't expect recurring business so there's no fear of retribution from one-time fleecing tourists

And so long as Visa doesn't penalise recidivist tourist trap merchants by kicking them out (or even whole acquirers like Global Payments and Bank of China) MC long will DCC reign.

I agree. This is one area where I am happy that US issued cards, for the most part, chip-and-signature transactions. The bait-and-switch with DCC after PIN entry, while certainly not compliant, would be a tough sell to a card issuer during a chargeback scenario.

Qantas has a DCC option on its Australian site, which is selected by default, when using a non-AUD card. I've included a side-by-side comparison:

http://i.imgur.com/9gHJmo2m.png

The DCC price includes the card payment fee, and the listed conversion rate is 3.99%, currently at 0.828 AUD/USD. However, Visa's current exchange rate is 0.794621 AUD/USD, so the DCC spread is more like 4.2%.

Opting out is easy, but I imagine the default selection of DCC catches people who are unaware of the option.

This, more than any security or acceptance concern, is why people should be protesting chip and signature.

Worse still, contactless is apparently no longer a reliable way to avoid DCC :(

What about a couple of posts above where the terminal does the DCC offer after PIN entry? I think getting a chargeback might be more difficult than with chip-and-signature in that scenario.

True but at least you had to be given the terminal so you can hold control of it. I think it's the same for contactless now when travelling. Insist YOU tap and hold the terminal.