I have US based Visa credit card issued by Chase that I use quite a bit for travel related expenses. Hence I have to be on the lookout for DCC. ;)

Singapore, I forget the particulars but a UOB ATM at Harbourfront (I think in the MRT fare area) offered DCC.

I was in Ukraine last weekend and came across an interesting DCC example at a PrivatBank (ПриватБанк) ATM.

Put my GBP debit card in the machine, asked to withdraw a few thousand UAH. Offered DCC, as expected. But it was changing it to EUR, not GBP. So my bank would still have to do a conversion. Rejected this and was offered it again. Refused a second time, next screen informs me there is a 150 UAH (~£4.25) fee for no-conversion. So I cancel transaction.

Another nearby ATM (IdeaBank) offered no DCC and had no charge - just the way I like it.

Otherwise I used a GBP credit card in bars, cafes, restaurants and shops seeing no DCC anywhere. Contactless and phone payments are very widely accepted, with some more expensive stores preferring it to cash.

I think you'd have a valid chargeback case.

The wrong card currency was identified, which should mean that you always are entitled to a correction of the currency to UAH if you used DCC. Also, it's not permitted to use fees or discounts to convince you to use DCC, so the fee should have been returned to you if you didn't use DCC.

I recently saw advertising for the Travelex prepaid card and I just realized something: with a currency conversion fee at 5.5%, use of such a card may be one of the few times where DCC makes sense. Assuming the DCC fee is below 5.5%, of course.

That said, there are much better cards than Travelex (even just paying the 3% FTF on a regular debit or credit card is better), so I imagine most people wouldn't even consider getting one. Not to mention that DCC in general is a horrible concept that shouldn't be encouraged at all.

A small hotel in Spain. Booked through booking.com, but full bill to pay on checkout. Very clear € bill. Very clear € instructions given. Very clear € on pin machine. Charged in GB£. Disgusting print out from terminal - "0% commission over wholesale rate". Actually a 6.5% markup over mastercard's daily rate. Charge back effected via NatWest. No replacement € charge made yet, but I'm happy if the hotel does that. It was a very small B&B type place and the owner appeared to not be overly commercially aware, so it may be Banco Popular (the terminal provider) over charging, or the owner is a good actor.

ETA: The MasterCard charge back code is now 4834 - p.168
https://www.mastercard.us/content/da...back-guide.pdf

Last week I was at the same station again and this time the agent handed me the terminal to operate. Sure enough a DCC question popped up where you had press the red button for no. The charge came in EUR and all was good. When I told the agent about the previous time she immediately responded with "that is why I tell my boss to let the customers push the buttons on the terminal" she was very inquisitive about DCC and didn't know that a mark up of 5% was involved. She mentioned that customers from the Gulf and the US preferred to be charged in their home currency.

From what I've read, it still seems to be 4846?

My guess is they don't know they're being ripped off.

Looks like DCC will no longer be allowed for prepaid Mastercards starting this summer: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel...-a8867606.html

That's not what that article said. :(

That's a tiny subset of MC prepaid cards. Certainly nothing of this sort is offered in USA. :( DCC is not allowed only if your prepaid MC contains local currency. To avoid DCC in Mexico, for example, your card must contain MXN. A USD based MC prepaid card is still subject to DCC. :(

The Travelex prepaid card is available in the US but the ~5% currency conversion fee (IIRC) is likely worse than just accepting DCC in some cases.

Thank you. ^ I didn't realize it is available. I suppose I never looked into Travelex as their rates and commissions are universally poor.

You still need to carry a card with local currency to avoid DCC though. If you carry a card with GBP and EUR but charge is in CAD, you are still subject to DCC. :(

This leaves other questions.

Let's say a prepaid multi-currency card allows you to deposit MXN. Will the terminal know if the MXN balance is zero, and should this matter to the terminal?

Let's say that you don't have any MXN, but you have EUR, GBP, JPY and USD. Which currency should the merchant offer conversion from? All of them?

During two months in Brazil I've seen DCC only in Cielo POS terminals. They provide clear instruction for user and most vendors either asked me or selected BRL without reminder. There is another problem in Brazil, especially outside SP & RJ - at many POS they do not accept credit card (Bilhete Único top-up in São Paulo metro for example) or have surcharge for them (there is no or smaller surcharge for debit cards).

Looks like Visa has come out with something called the "Visa Multi-Currency Solution" with their latest rules, which seems similar to what MC offers. DCC is also prohibited with those cards:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...45b81bdbda.png
Other DCC rules seem to have been extended to "ATM Acquirers" (vs. just regular stores), but of course, the preexisting rules aren't exactly followed all that well in some countries as it is. We'll see how that goes I guess.

With a general prohibition, it should be easier to get a chargeback done as you'd only need to show that you have the right kind of prepaid card.

It seems on paper to be more customer friendly, but like you said there are some merchants/countries that already don't follow the merchant acceptance rules for Visa or MC.

Travelled all around Montreal and Ontario and not encountered DCC. Until I came to Niagara Falls and a restaurant processed my American card as USD with DCC without ever informing me. I am going to make a dispute and see where TD Bank takes it, but I find that to be a disgusting business practice.

Which restaurant? How was it without ever informing you? Every restaurant I've visited in Canada in recent memory either has pay at the table or customer facing pin pads. Are you saying they did back office DCC after the transaction completed?

I'm enjoying using the CSR with contactless extensively here in Australia. It avoids DCC, if present, even if it's rare here.

It was Napoli Ristorante. It was pay at the table, but the waiter took my card as I held it and put it in himself (even though it was contactless), then put some stuff in, handed me the terminal, I put in the tip and agreed to all in CAD, the rest was handled by the waiter. Everything up until then was done in CAD, the receipt printed out with DCC.
The process looked the same way as every other restaurant with pay at the table, but this time there was DCC involved. I don't know at which point it was turned on.

No way is that setup compliant. I always hold onto the terminal until the transaction has completed, suspecting something like this might occur. This confirms at least one setup, but it seems post facto DCC. What about the signature receipt? Did you protest after seeing the DCC line?

I've been seeing this more and more and am tired of signing credit card receipts "Declined" and then protesting to bank/credit card company to get what is admittedly not very many dollars back. Had it happen at an ATM in Sicily two weeks ago (EURONET ATM). I'm sure I declined it as I've done many times, but I knew something was wrong when it didn't print a receipt when I asked it to. I then logged into my bank account within an hour, saw an outrageous charge in USD, and immediately sent email to EURONET asking them to reverse and then charge in Euro's. They refused and insisted that I agreed to what they called a convenient and competitive rate. I asked appeals process and they told me to go to my bank which I will do when they open tomorrow.

Is there anyway I can get banks/credit card companies to set my account to refuse any foreign transaction that comes in USD? That would seem to solve the problem.

BTW...I have literally been yelled at by restaurant managers and front desk clerks when I tell them that I did not agree to DCC (as they are handing me a receipt to sign that says I was given a choice and I agreed to it). They insist that this is they way they always do it and that I don't have a choice. I'd really like the transaction declined if possible so that it will force them to start from scratch and do it in local currency.

There isn't to my knowledge a way to refuse transactions that come in from overseas in USD. There are international locations that use the USD as their native currency, officially and unofficially, without DCC being applied. There are also multinational companies who will have a US storefront but process their payments, regardless of currency, in their home country. This is the case with some airlines, and I was once hit with a 3% foreign transaction fee due to this before 0% FTFs became a common feature of US cards. There is no way to determine which transactions are coming through as DCC versus not and systematically blocking foreign USD transactions might decline transactions that you do want to go through.

There are several protective measures that you can take. For hotels, rental cars, etc. never select the express checkout/return option. Insist on a return at the front desk/counter with the transaction processed at the time you depart. This avoids back office DCC. For restaurants and retail transactions, use contactless/mobile payments as much as possible, which deflects 99% of DCC. (There was a single report of this not being the case at the Zurich Airport a few years ago.) When checking in to a hotel, rental car, or anywhere else the merchant does a preauthorization, have it go on an AmEx. AmEx does not support DCC. Upon checking out/returning the car, tell the cashier that you would like to use a different payment card. Furthermore, if AmEx, Discover, JCB, or UnionPay are an option, especially in high risk DCC locations, use those payment methods. Even if the rewards earning is inferior, DCC would erode any marginal gain in rewards.

As a last resort, request that the merchant void the transaction and rerun without DCC. If the merchant feigns ignorance and/or suddenly seems to lose all knowledge of the English language, cross out the DCC verbiage on the receipt, circle the local currency amount, sign the receipt DCC REFUSED, and take a photo with your phone to assist in the dispute process. File a chargeback with your card issuer saying that you were refused the option of paying in local currency.

Fortunately there have been fewer reports recently since people have wised up to the DCC scam, and there are viable countermeasures that were unavailable even a few years ago. There have also been a couple of merchants who got sick of receiving chargebacks so disabled DCC on their end.

Speaking of avoiding DCC, is there any consensus on using PIN preferring cards vs. signature preferring if for some reason neither contactless nor AmEx can be used? Or does that more affect the ability to dispute it later on? (I'm aware that this might not be an option for most Americans.)

In theory, a PIN-preferring card would prevent the situation Barciur mentions up-thread since PIN entry should always be the last step of the transaction. In a restaurant, so would not handing the terminal back until the slip prints--which is what most people here do regardless. At a hotel or other place where the terminal sits behind the counter, though, a PIN-preferring card forces the clerk to hand you the terminal. If s/he's already DCC'd you, you can simply cancel the transaction and force the clerk to run it again in local currency if s/he wants to get paid. With a signature card, the clerk can just hit OK, which runs the charge and leaves you to deface the signature slip and dispute.

As for contactless, the last time I was in Spain I was offered DCC when using Google Pay at a pub with a VX680 terminal (I know because I took a picture of the "2%" markup that was closer to 10 before declining it), so I don't think contactless is a universal way to avoid it. I've also seen it at a restaurant way off the beaten tourist path in Italy.

I haven't seen DCC anywhere with the physical contactless CSR but I think that's a function of not having been anywhere that tried it since getting the contactless card--DCC is extremely rare in BE/NL.

I agree. I think chip-and-PIN is the better option in most cases. There could be a case where the terminal does the DCC at the last stage after PIN entry, and you might have limited recourse if the receipt says verified by PIN with the DCC verbiage. This would not be compliant, but few situations related to DCC are.

Thanks for the data points on DCC with contactless. Admittedly I've had few card transactions in Spain in recent years. I used Google Pay extensively in Italy in 2017 and 2018, visiting some very tourist places that I'd consider candidates for DCC in Rome, Florence, Milan, and Venice. I did not see DCC once. The few cases where the merchant didn't accept mobile payments I didn't see DCC either. Perhaps I got lucky?

I was given two receipts, one with the standard item list / total / tip / total w/tip / thing and then the terminal print out receipt at the end. I did not get to sign that one - the one which says I agreed to it did not have any signature line. I only signed the standard one in CAD.

I did not protest it because I did not see it at first, which is my mistake. Especially being on here, I should have been very vigilant. To my defense, this was at the end of a 4 day trip to Canada and I had not experienced anything like this at all on the trip and I've dined in a number of places with a similar set up, so my vigilance was soft.

I don't follow this thread so closely these days because I have become used to paying an extra 2 bucks. As much as I dislike the concept of DCC, it's simply not worth causing a scene over it on a $50 dinner (e.g. I'm now blacklisted from a handful of restaurants) or hounding my cc company after the fact.

On a more positive note, DCC is less and less of an issue in Shanghai.

This presumes that the amount prints out on the same screen as the PIN prompt, no? At least in the US, this doesn't seem to happen--assuming the terminal even has PIN enabled at all, which is becoming less common outside of the merchants that support PIN debit.

Ultimately that's what they rely on: people who don't know better or don't care enough (or even want the supposed "convenience").

I guess the last resort is have another pair of hands and video-record every ATM transaction you conduct outside your country.

This doesn't sound like a compliant process at all and would hold up to a chargeback. (I always take a photo of signature slips, even in the US, to prevent any funny business with padding the tip line.) If you did not sign a DCC verbiage receipt, you never agreed to DCC.

Like tmiw said, that's what they count on. In Mainland China I use my affiliated AmEx for Hilton or Marriott hotels and UnionPay for everyday transactions. I've found that restaurants and the like often don't code in bonus categories anyway, so it's not a loss using the UnionPay with 1% cash back. As a last resort, I use cash the few places where it's possible these days.

Didn't we all have a similar conversation a few years back about overseas merchants refusing our mag stripe only cards? "The merchant is required to accept all cards." I can see a similar line of, "When presented with the option, select local currency."

That's how terminals over here are configured--after inserting the card, the screen will say "Total 123.45 EUR / Enter PIN + OK" for PIN cards. I can't recall ever seeing a terminal in Europe that didn't have some variation of that prompt; for C&S cards it's "Total 123.45 EUR / OK?" so a clerk could OK it for you, which the PIN prevents. Even at kiosks where you've completed your order on the main screen and have the total right in front of you, the card reader screen will still display the amount with the PIN prompt.

Even at major chain stores, all the POS does is pass the amount to the terminal--there's very little integration.

Yeah, the lack of standardization in the US is one of the worst parts of the whole thing. It would have been nice if there were some actual mandates, even if that meant stuff like "all PIN support must be disabled on terminals". Heck, there are issues getting stores to print the required EMV info on receipts, never mind everything else. That discussion is probably better suited for the EMV/contactless thread though.

As for DCC, considering how uncommon PIN preference is for US cards, I'm not sure that can really be considered a viable option. The good news is that contactless, more often than not, probably is--at least in Europe. Hopefully the latter continues to be a reliable method of DCC avoidance. ^

That's what my deli purchase at El Cortes Ingles did.
The terminal's user input was malfuncitioning, so it took a while for the prompt to time out and for the transaction to default in Euros.

No DCC option at dinner.

Got DCCed at Hertz in Ireland. Didn't see it on the receipt the guy at returns gave me until I got home. A little over a 5% markup.

Sent a letter to Hertz Ireland and corporate in the US giving them an opportunity to correct before I file a chargeback.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e7ebcf4c18.png

The "I have been offered a choice" verbiage continues to infuriate me in cases where this is clearly not true.

Hmmm...is this the type where they card-not-present charge you in the back end? No payment in card terminal?

"2 A Cardholder must actively make a selection (for example: checking a box or button) and the DCC option must not be pre-selected."

Wonder how that's been complied with in Hertz's proceses. Probably your path to charge back.