PLN?

Start reading from Post 994.

Yes, and we've kind of gone in a weird circle in Europe - often they just expect a tap, so they don't hand you the terminal or it's not customer facing - the top of it where you tap is customer facing (especially those handheld ones, which are ubiquotous in Europe now) and you never actually see what is on it - you only tap.

What's worse is that there's no PIN - although sometimes there's the DCC prompt after PIN entry - or signature with most contactless transactions, which means we lose the ability to cancel a transaction or deface a receipt.

Ran into this in Spain this past May. Almost everywhere offered the option to pay (or ATM withdrawal) in USD. One ATM the wording it was something like "do you not decline the conversion" - or something so stupid. I cancelled out of that transaction. I did get hit once with one purchase early in the trip (low cost so good) where the clerk reached around and hit the accept DCC. I became VERY aware of that afterwards. One good thing with US credit cards is that they do prompt for signature (or at least my chase cards still do) so I think that pushed them to give me the credit card machine.

It was new to us how bad the ATM fees are (5-7 EUR) in Spain this year. We were in France in 2022 and no issue with DCC or fees. Portugal in 2019 and the same - no fees or DCC. I only did three WDs in our four weeks in Spain but must have hit 10 or 15 banks to find the best ATM. Kept cancelling out when they finally told me either the DCC or the awful fee. Found one bank that had no fee and 1% conversion fee. Wish I remembered it!

It is for sure a rip off. My brother got hit with it at an ATM in Italy a few weeks ago. He said he declined but I am pretty sure he misunderstood and did it wrong (does not travel much and is brilliant but not so smart!) I think he told me there was a fee and the exchange rate. EUR600 cost him something along the line of USD740.

The Honest Guides YouTube channel has a video on this with Czech ATMs. It was showing how there would be lower fees if one accepted DCC. Also, if you used a local card, the default denominations offered were far more reasonable than if you used a non-local card. It was always possible to withdraw a lower amount, but you had to bypass all of the default options.

I would have taken exception with the person who deliberately pressed the DCC button on that one transaction. Even with a small amount, I'd pursue a full chargeback on principle.

In fairness I was thrown by the DCC option as I had not seen it before. I don't think it was anything other than to help me by just hitting a button for me.

Like I said we spent a month in France in '22 and never saw it. Spain in '23 it was everywhere. And ATM fees in Spain just blew my mind - some were 7EUR! Not sure I saw any in France (or maybe 1-2 EUR just thought it was ok?)

In 2023, I can't give anyone the benefit of the doubt with a "helpful" DCC opt-in. It's deliberate until proven otherwise.

For ATM fees, I'd suggest getting a card that reimburses ATM operator fees while not charging fees of its own.

I found that in Spain, even when I found an ATM without a fee for my EU Revolut, it demanded a €4 fee for US card. It is the same in Poland - I have not been able to find a single ATM in Poland which will allow a fee-free withdrawal from an American debit card. But a number of those allow fee-free Revolut EU card withdrawal. So it is definitely hard.

My Polish bank now has a good exchange rate, so I am planning on using a traditional Polish debit card in US and see how DCC looks like.

It's definitely present, but I've not used a non-USD card in the US in probably 8 years. My sister-in-law found some examples in chain retail environments (with AUD cards), but in all cases the terminals were customer facing with no apparent cashier interaction for the DCC selection.

We only have one non-USD debit card at home for an account Mrs. Majuki has, but she keeps next to nothing in that account. Furthermore, she also doesn't like going around making small transactions at random places just to see if DCC is enabled. :)

Additionally many smaller stores are more okay with customers handling the terminal these days, so I'd expect opt out to be easy there too. Restaurants might be the one exception as pay at the table is still pretty uncommon (but good customer service would prevent most issues).

Yes, there was someone who used to post here from the UK talking about how some chain restaurants had DCC, but he was successfully able to opt out. I generally think the customer service oriented approach that's prevalent in the US and Canada would avoid DCC under almost all circumstances.

I travel to Spain often and the only ATMs that I have found that don’t charge a usage fee are ING. You can usually find them in carrefour supermarkets.

No opt out option
 

I travel a lot around Europe (with a UK card) so very aware of DCC and avoiding it.

last night for the first time I came across a scenario where there was only a DCC option presented and no option to cancel the transaction (after I had used a contactless card).

this was a spa supermarket in Amsterdam (self service till). I called a member of staff over and she tried to accept DCC for me, I wouldn’t let her touch the pin pad and asked for a manager. Immediately she signalled over to the main till and the screen changed and gave me the option to pay in local currency.

I took a photo of the pin device, the only option was the blue button top tight. There was no way to cancel the transaction.

since in the end I wasn’t ripped off I have nothing to dispute with Mastercard but interested to know if I can report this somewhere as they are purposely breaching the DCC terms



https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f1741dce5.jpeg
Rogue DCC settings

Just saw the same exact nonsense. So, do not hit the right upper soft key to agree/okay, but when I hit okay green button at the bottom the next screen gave me the two currency choices where I then pressed the local option and not USD.

ATM also did a similar hard to decline auto DCC, but at least the option to say no (even if written as a reverse negative statement).

I've never dealt with this terminal, and still don't understand how to avoid DCC with it. Should I press the hard Green button instead of the Red one? Please clarify.

Yes that worked for me, bottom hard Green. The Red one just cancelled the transaction, which I had to then start over.

So in the case of the terminal that travellingowl saw, press the green button and the subsequent screen will show the currency selection? There appears to be a box above the soft key that the lighting is obscuring. I'm curious if there was an option on the upper left soft key too.

I keep seeing this machine over and over. If you select the right soft key on the first screen, that is accepting the DCC (hard to see in the picture). Do not do this.

Bottom green colored OK button then next screen will have two soft button choices, local currency and card home choice. I think the left one on the second screen was the local currency (also done to deceive in a RH dominent world), but just pay attention.

So there is still a method of opting out, but it's requires "declining" twice with the first screen requiring a press of the green button. It's certainly not compliant with the network rules since there's no obvious way to opt out on the first screen. The UI is placed in such a way to corral the user into pressing the soft key on the first screen.

This is similar to other setups that I've seen with other terminals where one has to press the yellow button to opt out of DCC, but there's no way to know this intuitively. In that setup, pressing the green button accepts DCC.

I recently got a letter from BoA basically stating that my FTF-charging card will now only charge FTF if the charge isn't in USD. Unfortunately I don't think this changes the general advice to avoid DCC, though, since the extra markup is generally still more than the FTF. (Not to mention that I have no-FTF cards anyway.)

This is still a good change. It's likely irrelevant for the types of cards we would be using these days, but I remember getting hit with FTFs on USD denominated purchases back when my travel cards had a FTF. One notable example was BA's website. Even though you'd purchase tickets from their US website denominated in USD (no DCC), you'd still see a FTF on the transaction since the payment processor was based in the UK.

I've also heard a few informal data points where people have inadvertently had a USD transaction overseas using a card with a FTF not been charged the FTF. Note that these weren't DCC transactions but rather places that used the USD, such as some Caribbean islands.

We rented a car from Avis in Scotland. The final bill came to 307 GBP, which according to the Visa currency conversion calculator for the day of the transaction should amount to $390.7. I was charged $412. The charge went on my Chase Sapphire Preferred, which has no foreign transaction fees. Even with the potential for DCC, I don't see how 307 GBP could amount to 412 USD. I disputed the overcharge with Chase and they are crediting me for the difference.

I guess I will have to wait for the monthly statement to see what currency conversion rate they used and if this is a case of DCC shenanigans. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to see the foreign transaction rate on the Chase web site.

Avis is a well known merchant with DCC. Do you have an electronic receipt from Avis that shows any indication of DCC?

You're right that there is no way to tell if you've been hit with DCC using a Chase card - at least that I'm aware of - until the statement prints. The statement will show a currency conversion if one occurred (using Visa). If you got hit with DCC, there will just be the single line item with the USD amount.

Absolutely, and for the OP if you have an Avis preferred profile there is a setting in there that defaults to DCC, you can deactivate it, but the local franchisees don’t always respect the opt out choice.

Interesting, I went through my Avis online account with a fine toothed comb and can't find such a setting. Where should I look?

Yes, I have the electronic receipt, which just shows the line items and total in GBP. It does say "Billing will be in the currency agreed at pickup", but I was never asked if I want to be billed in USD or GBP.

I'll keep an eye out once my statement is issued at the end of the month.

If you login, go to card details, then view account, then update billing details, uncheck “ For international rentals, I want to be billed in the currency local to my card holder address”

Wow, how did I ever miss that, thanks, just made this change!

It's easy to do, and it's an intentional design similar to how PayPal transactions opt you in to DCC that you must decline (but can easily overlook).

Thanks for this, unfortunately I already had this unchecked, which I guess means I'm opted out of DCC and Avis overcharged me for some unrelated reason.

Been in Italy for a week, the only place I saw DCC so far was at the car rental counter (Centauro). DCC was presented as a choice of two currencies, neither pre-selected. Euro was the first choice, USD was the second option. Both prices were clearly marked (€118, $137).

Another place I saw DCC was at the UniCredit ATM machine (finally ran out of the Euros we brought with us). Same thing — two large buttons, one for "Proceed with conversion", another for "Proceed with no conversion". I don't recall if the rate was listed, but the € and $ amounts were listed clearly and the $$ seemed a little high. On top of that the ATM imposed a pretty hefty €5 fee, which I hope Schwab will pay back like they have in the past.

Continuing my travels in Poland, I have to say DCC is really prevalt here, but easy to opt out of. One of the most popular convenience stores here, Żabka, displays something like this on the terminal when I tap my card (or tap on Google Pay even):


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4a8b8cbcc8.jpg

I'm ok with this implementation. From reports in years past, Poland seemed to be more problematic with forced DCC with no way to opt out.

Well, started using my Polish debit card here in the states and on third transaction, I got my first DCC; Walgreens. I used it on a contactless Google pay transaction but it still got caught. No markup information but there is exchange information, which tells you the markup if you know the actual rate ;) it is pretty steep as current exchange is about 4.05 to the USD.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...83cbc5e448.jpg

I wanted to follow up on the situation with Avis in Scotland where I was overcharged for a car rental. My Chase statement came out and there is no sign of any currency conversion for the Avis transaction, which means Avis billed me in USD and hence applied DCC.

Since I had the DCC option unselected in my profile ("I choose to have Avis bill all my future rental charges to me in the currency of my Avis profile credit card." was off), the billed amount was incorrect and my dispute was entirely justified. The dispute was resolved by Chase and the difference refunded. My only gripe is that this refund likely came out of Chase's pockets instead of hitting Avis.

Why do you think this?

The dispute was immediately resolved in my favor. There is no way that Chase was able to confirm any facts with Avis.

I imagine DCC is likely common in the US. The ubiquity of USD denominated cards in everyday transactions prevents most of us who contribute to this thread from ever seeing DCC in the US.

Mrs. Majuki only had - it expired - one non-USD debit card, but since there was a non-zero FTF, there were no rewards, and she keeps an immaterial amount of cash in the linked checking account, she was never interested in using the card to check for DCC. We didn't try Walgreens though!

This was a customer service gesture on the part of Chase. When they do a full chargeback it takes a month or two to resolve.

Yes, exactly. And that's why I don't like it: Avis didn't get smacked over the head for trying to pull off an unauthorized DCC.