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.