Speaking of this, VRBO/HomeAway apparently processes payments for UK properties through Ireland, which might result in a nasty surprise for UK residents who are taking a domestic trip. :eek:

On the positive side, they don't do DCC, unlike Airbnb. :rolleyes: (The thing that really bothers me about the latter is that the exchange rates they use are significantly in their favor--on top of the 3% "currency conversion" fee that they charge--so they're double-dipping.)

Earlier this month I dined with a supplier at Beckta in Ottawa and when he tried to pay the terminal wanted to convert the payment into his local currency. Luckily the server intervened and said 'you want to pay in CAD, don't you?'.

Last weekend I was in BCN and DCC was out in full force when I tried to pay with my US issued CSR :mad:. Even the online ticket sales sites tried to dupe you. Miscolored 'cancel', 'continue', 'decline' buttons galore. :rolleyes:

Recently I met a college friend who works for a payment processor and he said that all of them see DCC as a welcome additional income stream. :p When I narrated him some of the examples in this thread he turned serious and said DCC should always be a choice and never hard coded.

As part of this conversation I found this text that makes it clear how misleading the entire topic is:

https://www.globalpaymentsinc.com/en...ncy-conversion

Truly a facepalm moment.

I haven't seen much in the way of DCC in Canada. There have been a number of reports, but it seems like the choice is clearly presented in the few locations that have it.

DCC was in full force in MAD earlier this year too. A friend and I were trying to pay for a meal. Fortunately, I had control of the terminal so I could opt out. However, I pressed the cancel button the first time, and it cancelled out the entire transaction. I've noticed that the DCC offer, at least on the handheld terminals I saw, appears on a touchscreen. It's non-intuitive, and I would assume most people who are unaware get duped.

I’m currently in Zurich, Switzerland and had brunch at a cafe yesterday. When I paid the bill, the terminal displayed a choice for USD or CHF (Swiss Francs). I told the server to process it as CHF, and he quickly processed it as USD anyway. When I asked him why he did that when I clearly said CHF, he said his boss instructed all the workers to do that automatically. The owner of the cafe told the staff that they lose money when processing in CHF. In reality, the cafe gains extra money from forcing the customer to use DCC. I showed him the DCC Wikipedia page, which says that Visa and Mastercard prohibit merchants from forcing the customer to use DCC, and he said he would mention it to his boss later.

In this case, DCC resulted in me getting 0.93 CHF per 1 USD rather than the current intrabank rate of 0.98. The total bill was only $70, so DCC caused me to pay about $3-4 more. I’m tempted to do a partial dispute with my credit card bank. I’ve been in 4 different countries in Europe this past month, and no other merchant has forced me to use DCC.

Why didn't you cancel it and make him run it correctly? Certainly you should do a charge-back on it. If victims don't report fraud, it just encourage those who do it.

Please do a full Reason Code 76 chargeback with your card issuer. Letting this charge and others slide empowers merchants to continue to rip off travelers. To view the issue from another perspective, if you had given the waiter 80 CHF in cash and he had given you 5 CHF in change, would you complain where the rest of your change is, or would you let it slide? Most people would be demanding proper change, so why is it not an issue with a credit card transaction?

For future situations like this, I would force them to void the transaction. If they refuse, deface the receipt completely. Write things like "DCC REFUSED" on the receipt and refuse to sign it. For those places that have a gratuity line (rare in Europe but more common in Asia or Australia), absolutely leave a 0 tip/gratuity.

Same here. Let's just say this friend's "militant" and had he discovered the DCC in a timely manner the LV shop in question will be wiped off the map. Obviously he didn't.

I was in a bit of a hurry to leave, since the wife and kids were waiting. And I didn't have enough cash with me in case he didn't want to re-process it in CHF.


Thanks for the tip. I will call the card issuer when I'm back in the US this week. I didn't realize that there was a specific chargeback reason for "DCC fraud".

Update: I called the card issuer (US Bank) to request a reason code 76 chargeback, and nobody has ever heard of this or knows how to do this type of chargeback . They escalated my request to a team manager, who will be calling me back.

I was pleasantly surprised when from Australia I booked a flight with United and it was charged by "UNITED CONTINENTAL AUS" and did not incur a foreign transaction fee. By contrast, Air New Zealand processes as "AIR NZ CALL CENTRE AKL AUS", despite the fact that Auckland is not, in fact, in Australia (barring New Auckland in Gladstone).

New Zealand is part of Australia http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel...1ff91f91783855

I was surprised that the Travelex ATMs at LHR T2 didn't even bother attempting DCC with my Schwab debit card (though they did show 100, 200, etc. GBP presets as opposed to the much smaller amounts that are more realistic for a country with fairly high card acceptance). The receipt even said that the exchange rate would be determined by my issuer.

Haven't run into DCC with credit cards yet but I've only been using contactless thus far.

I thought those Travelex ATMs did Multi-Currency Conversion (Airbnb-style, with markup)

Pls let us know if rate really is Visa rate.

Online banking shows $26.46 for a £20 withdrawal ($1.323 per £1), which is spot on with Visa's rate for 10/24 per their site.

Something went wrong. They're definitely supposed to DCC offer.

I remember them not doing so in the US when I used to have Revolut as well but I chalked it up to the Revolut having an unusual setup. I suppose it is possible that they don't bother for small amounts because it's not worthwhile enough for them, hence the large presets.