For 11/11, the Visa rate for 1950.00 MAD was 178.52 USD. In reality, this was 5.28% higher than Visa's rate for that transaction. The only benefit is to the merchant in getting a percentage of the rip off.

Does the bottom of your receipt say signature not required (or the equivalent in French)? If so, you could add that the merchant had control of your card and the credit card terminal for the duration of the transaction and refused to void this transaction to reprocess in local currency.

Thanks. I will check, but I don't think it said that. It did have a "yes" and "no" check box area where it said I agreed to the currency conversion and all terms... checked yes, although I never touched a green/yes button on the card machine. So, I'm guessing the waiters just do it for people and collect the extra cash. I'll file my dispute tonight! Thanks

Keep us updated!

THANK YOU all. Due to character limits I entered "Merchant refused option to process local currency. Involuntary charged in USD. I want to pursue a Reason Code 12.3 chargeback to be billed in local currency. Visa rate on 11/11 1950.00 MAD=178.52 USD". Next screen asked me to specify issue so I selected "charged more then expected" and entered the amount you kindly provided. Chase robot automatically credited me $9.42 USD, now let's see what happens.

Question, for the overcharge does the merchant get the extra funds in local currency or did he just scam hard currency dollars to boot? 3%-5% on every check must add up -- it was all foreign tourists ordering drinks. :-)

So I guess the takeaway here is to insist on physical control of the device before presenting your card?

Yup. In every other instance on our trip I was presented with the machine and tapped, then clicked currency I wanted (if asked; most times it just defaulted to local when I tapped, but I was able to see what was happening). Other places made me select an approve button or whatever myself. Lesson is to not hand over my card. (As an aside, at my local there were some Lithuanians trying to pay who were aghast at the idea of handing over their card to the bartender to walk away to the register, I had to explain how it works in the USA and agreed it is weird).

The transaction itself wouldn't change and still present to the merchant in MAD. Where the merchant sees a benefit is that the payment processor would give the merchant some of the cut of the DCC fee (in the merchant's currency).

Not common at all outside of Europe, where banks are exceptionally sensitive to fraud losses.

The US consumer is very well insulated against card fraud so banks have been less motivated to spend on extra security measures.

This seems backwards. If the banks cannot often pass through the cost of fraud to consumers, why would they not be motivated to implement procedures to reduce it?

In most regions where Visa and Mastercard operate, they've already mandated terminal and card support for contactless or are in the process of doing so. The US is definitely the outlier in terms of usage and overall merchant acceptance. Hell, we've technically had contactless since 2014 if you were willing to tap a phone but it got almost no use until the pandemic despite gradually increasing merchant acceptance.

If anything, waiving PIN for smaller transactions (by letting people tap instead of insert) might reduce fraud by making the physical card harder to use for larger purchases if it were indeed stolen.

If the US is an "outlier" then so is Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the vast majority of Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, South and Central America. Again, this was rolled out early in Europe because the banks there are supremely sensitive to fraud and often make it difficult to contest a charge.

US banks typically immediately credit consumers while they conduct investigations for claims of debit or credit fraud. European Banks, in my experience, do not give the consumer the same benefit of the doubt, often tying up funds until months later after they've done their utmost to disprove the claim.

With US consumers so well protected, not pressuring the banks, the cost of rapidly converting 1.4+ billion cards and tens of millions of terminals simply wasn't worth it vs the cost of fraud until recent years, as the technology became much cheaper.

No one I know is the US has lost money to credit or debit card fraud in decades. Yes, they've gotten bogus charges, but it's always quickly resolved.

Chip and PIN/signature and contactless are vastly different things. Not to mention that back in 2014-2015 the US pretty much had no choice but to adopt chip like much of the rest of the world had done (10+ years beforehand in some cases, mind you), if for no other reason than to avoid compatibility issues when we go overseas. At least this time we're not waiting until stores in Europe and elsewhere are no longer able to insert cards before trying to get used to the idea of tapping cards and devices.

(BTW, in 60+ countries, contactless usage was already >= 50% of face-to-face transactions back in 2020-21. NYC only recently broke the 20% mark as of the time that infographic was made; every other in-person transaction was still insert or swipe. Those numbers are likely higher by now but the US is probably still going to have relatively lower acceptance/usage for a while.)

Bringing it back to the main topic of this thread: it sucks that contactless no longer avoids DCC. At least there's still AmEx (wherever it's accepted, that is).

I was charged DCC by a hotel in India I chose no and signed and ticked the local currency. But when I got the charge it was charged in USD at a lousy rate. The card was a commercial card of my employer and through US Bank. I contested the charge and they declined to cancel and be recharged in local currency. They said no signature is needed so if you gave the card the transaction happened. Another time, I was swindled by a gas station near Cancun Airport. I filled my gas and then gave my credit card and then he said not working, give another one, I chose to pay in cash. What he had done behind my back is to make a transaction. When I contested it, Capital one gave me a credit. Then the gas station sent a fraudulent purchase and capital one accepted and I was charged. Later I came to know the gas stations close to rental car return do this type of fraud regularly. It is thus best to pay in local currency. Lesson learnt.

US Bank claimed the transaction happened or the hotel? Sometimes it's difficult to get the card issuer to take up the dispute with the merchant. Often for DCC the issuer will simply credit your account if the amount is small. If a US card issuer is being intransigent I wouldn't hesitate to file a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau complaint to force the card issuer to take up the chargeback.

The second situation is simply a merchant not providing goods or services for which you were charged. This is typically easier to resolve in your favor.

Time to switch banks. I have never had Chase or Citi deny such disputes.