I thought Airbnb did multi currency conversion based on location/payment card?

Yep, it defaulted to USD when I was on there. In the past they apparently did force DCC from what I've read but it doesn't look like they do now.

From what I remember Airbnb would display prices in USD and not even show the local currency price, which was MCC. There are fewer options for recourse with MCC because it's not something that goes through the acquirer and the conversion is obfuscated.

Yep. 1%ish difference isn't as bad as it could have been in any case.

No, it's not. Also, not all instances of MCC are bad. While DCC is pure profit for the acquirer (and whatever cut the merchant gets), some versions of MCC won't have much, if any, of a spread on the amount. However, most of the implementations of MCC that I've seen have around a 3% spread.

Indeed this trick used to work a few years ago to opt out of DCC. This is no longer the case with AVIS / BUDGET. My last 2 overseas experiences with that gang were infuriating.
For a rental in Turkey, I specifically ran a quote in TRY. However, Avis would not save the quote in TRY or send a confirmation in TRY, but apply a mandatory conversion to EUR. When I called a phone agent and asked for a confirmation in TRY (arguing that it's the currency that will be used in Turkey), the agent flatly refused. Avis would not provide a quote that could be honored by the rental outlet, and my only recourse would be to cancel it.
Indeed when I arrived to pick up my car at the airport, the local agent promptly added the same DCC margin as the airport FX outlet (>10%).

In another recent experience with Budget in Belarus, the quote could not even be generated in BYN, only in EUR. When the agent arrived with the car, they added so many "mandatory" charges, including the DCC, that the rate practically doubled. The hidden DCC was the last straw for me, and I canceled that reservation. I next tried SIXT -- that experience was pure joy in contrast. I was charged exactly the contracted rate and got a brand new car to boot. It was substantially less expensive than the scam rate that Budget tried to pull off.

Turkey has a history of quoting and charging in EUR/USD instead of TRL. This is not DCC, but a policy to shield against currency fluctuations.

Similar to Vietnam and Bintan but "DCC margin" will not be added.

The local contracted rental agency does not need to exchange currency. In fact they are prohibited to deal in any currency other than their legal tender. The shenanigans strictly comes from Avis and involves DCC, i.e. adding an undisclosed fee to the quoted rate.

I was not DCCed for a car with Avis in Canada. Despite the terms saying otherwise, I didn't have to opt out and I was charged in CAD. This was at a location in a city center.

Just got another forced DCC, this time Pizza Hut.

It seems to be only restaurants where this has happened (forced) everywhere else I'm at least asked.

Time to do another chargeback, again it's the criminals at eservice.pl that brought the forced DCC. I'm wondering if there is some sort of Polish agency these criminals can be reported to.

The pizza delivery guy kept asking me to sign but I told him I cannot sign this because I won't acknowledge the fraud. He claimed he was new and had no idea how to do a refund.

Which is entirely possible. Because the merchants there lease stuff and never do their own, it's possible that nobody really at the store would know what to do - they just lease the terminal and get told by eservice how to run it. So a delivery guy - much less of a chance he'd know anything either.

I remember getting delivery from Domino's and I was vigilant and an older gentleman with a mustache ( ;) ) got very perplexed when he saw the DCC prompt - he started mumbling "uhhhh USD or PLN what is this?" so I told him to hit PLN. ;) So he clearly had no idea what this is all about.

I'm quite familiar with DCC processing of Mastercard transactions, how to avoid it and how to dispute it if it is involuntarily applied.. until this past week, when I have seen a strange phenomenon. My card currency is AUD, and normally if DCC was applied, the transaction would appear only with and AUD amount.

This past week I did a transaction in Hong Kong, to the value of HKD 322. This should have been converted by Mastercard as approx AUD 60.99. The offering on the slip was HKD 322 or AUD 68.45. Obviously we selected the HKD rate, however the amount has charged to the card showing the original amount of HKD 322 and the DCC conversion on AUD 68.45, as if the processing bank sent both amounts to my bank thus manipulating the exchange rate. As you can see all the adjacent transactions were processed correctly.

Has anyone seen this before, is this a new "escalatedly bad" implementation of DCC, where the DCC provider is now providing both amounts foreign and local to your bank? And any way to avert this, short of paying by cash? (The merchant didn't take Diners Club, and I don't have a forex-free Amex).

Looking for anyones inputs on this please... the receipt does not indicate who the acquiring bank was.

Obviously something strange is going on here... the merchant was a restaurant called Brickhouse in Hong Kong, below is my charge slip extract and an extract from my bank statement. Notice the x-rate on all the transactions that were processed normally in HKD on the same day..

That is very strange.


Strange indeed. So when you selected HKD did you do that in writing or on the terminal?

If you selected on the terminal AND the receipt and still got charged in AUD that is totally fraudulent.

The fine print on that receipt telling you that you are opting out of MC doing the exchange didn't seemed tied to whichever box you checked. So bad.