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.

There was no DCC using the Travelex ATMs at LHR T3 to withdraw GBP back in May. Rates were the Visa rates.

Something's wrong. They definitely are supposed to offer DCC: http://www.travelex-corporate.com/EN/What_we_do/ATMs/

Schwab debit card as well or another card?

I would dispute it. In those situations, I just offer to pay cash instead.

It was a Fidelity Cash Management Account Visa debit card, so it's a similar but different data point. Now, I didn't actually try to draw Euros from the ATM, only GBP, so I don't know if the ATM would have tried some multi currency conversion obfuscation with EUR or have used the Visa rate as well.

My last trip was on the day of the BA IT meltdown, so I was running from T5 to catch another flight from T3. I didn't have time to test some corner cases like known DCC establishments with Android Pay. I was getting some GBP for my parents.

I also used a Travelex ATM landside in T5 without DCC in May 2016 and didn't experience DCC. In fact, the only DCC I encountered was at Grosvenor House and the LHR Marriott, and both places offered an easy, no pressure opt out.

My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I believe DCC was offered during my November 2011 trip at a Travelex ATM in T3.

Initially I was thinking that it was something with how the Schwab debit card's programmed that's preventing DCC from happening but now I'm wondering if my theory about them not bothering for small amounts is correct. I don't want to pull out £100+ to confirm though, especially since I may have a difficult time spending all of it before leaving.

Unless, of course, you did pull out a lot during the previous trip and it still didn't ask. In that case, I have no idea why.

I withdrew £300 in May, and I didn't see a DCC prompt. (I would have recorded the transaction if there were one for this thread.) Also, I doubt there is a threshold at which DCC kicks in. It will either be present or absent.

Huh. From the Marriott app when I tried to do mobile check-in earlier:

https://imgur.com/yr9WlfMl.png

It's a bit weird that the alternate currency is EUR and not USD (and I'm also not sure this is DCC per se due to this). I presume there's no benefit in choosing one or the other if the card isn't denominated in either currency, right?

Schwab debit card does NOT prevent DCC. I’ve seen it offered at some ATMs.

It does indicate DCC preference, and Marriott properties in the UK all have DCC. (I've been hit before.) It's been awhile since I've seen the prompt, however. As a best practice, I preauth the room with an AmEx and then settle the bill with the card of choice. For Marriott properties, this is the SPG AmEx, so no card change is currently required. Before the merger, I would switch to the Chase Marriott card upon check out.

That makes the choice of alternate currency even more confusing. I would have thought that Marriott would know that I'm using a USD card by my online profile if nothing else. Maybe they just assume that most people staying there are from the EU?

I don't remember it listing the currency code, but it's been awhile. I think it simply gave the options between local currency and card currency without specifying the denomination.

Tesco's ATMs apparently do DCC too (5% markup). :rolleyes: At least the opt-out option is fairly obvious.

Marriott, meanwhile, hasn't placed a hold on my card yet even after picking up my key. Maybe that gets taken care of at checkout.

Even more weirdly, the second Marriott property I'm staying at this trip actually mentioned "card currency" as the other option during mobile check-in. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Oh well, choosing GBP anyway.

I was in Prague a few weeks ago, at a small Vietnamese cafe (part of a chain, apparently). I paid with credit card (of course) and was surprised to see DCC was applied - the printed receipt said "I was offered the option to pay in local currency but I chose to pay in US dollars". I certainly did NOT have any opportunity to select either option, they just ran it as DCC without asking. The staff there (just a couple kids) claimed total ignorance, I explained what DCC was, pointed to the receipt which incorrectly stated that I was offered a choice, and told them I didn't appreciate them stealing from me. They professed surprise and claimed the register system was new, I know nothing, the boss isn't around, etc.

This was at a cheap semi-fast food place, our total bill was around 20 Euro (even with the sneaky DCC slipped in) and the DCC gouge was probably less than 2 Euro...so I didn't make a big stink over it, although it did piss me off and I did give them a short lecture. They promised to take it up with the manager the next day. Yeah, sure. I let it go.

Bad reviews on Yelp... the only thing restaurants care about...

And that's exactly what they expect. In absolute terms the value isn't that high, but as a percentage of each transaction, they're making a healthy profit. In those cases, I refuse to sign the receipt and deface it by crossing out the DCC language and writing "DCC refused". I also take a photo with my phone. I would encourage you to file a dispute with your card issuer when you get home. Card issuers are well aware of the DCC scam by this point.

To view it another way, if the bill came and you had paid cash, would you let it go if the cashier shortchanged you? I view DCC as the same con in card form. Unfortunately, in the Czech Republic merchants would be likely to nab a ton of people given it has a different currency than all of the countries that surround it. FWIW, I didn't see any DCC 4 years ago, but I only had a handful of transactions while I was there.

The best practice is assuming the percysmith torso over counter posture to view them handling the card and be ready to pounce on the DCC prompts.

Good point. I'll go rip 'em a new Yelp-hole for that, it'll make me feel better.

Thanks. In sick and tired of using my American credit cards and seeing a printout on the receipt which says "I have been given choice of currencies...." Even if I complained about it, nobody would know ... to do. 3% ripoff fee. I feel like the restaraunts do this on purpose.

I'll try Android pay and see what happens since every terminal seems to have a contactless system. Otherwise Schwab debit card at atm.

Please report back. It's been reported that contactless isn't a sure prevention of DCC, but you can do some experiments like performing the same transaction at a known DCC place with a mobile payment.

Cross-post to TripAdvisor for good measure.

Of course. They get a cut of 3%.;)

Okay, so I've been using Android Pay and it works immediately at the terminals that accept NFC cards (almost all Polish debit/credit cards... USA is behind). Used it at Auchan, a few restaurants and a nice one last night. Never been prompted for the currency.

BoA rates are practically the same as the exchange rate (well, using Google), so essentially there's no fee at all.

Yeah, I used Apple Pay almost everywhere in the UK as well (there were like 3-4 transactions at places that didn't support contactless). Not looking forward to going back to store clerks looking at me like I grew horns when I attempt to use contactless. :(

Funny enough, one of the only places that didn't support contactless actually tried to DCC me (Harrods). I had full control of the terminal, though, so it was easy to decline.

The only places in Poland where I've been automatically DCC'd is restaraunts/bars. I never protested although I should have and will in the future but hopefully I'll just move to Android Pay - only downside is you need an internet connection so if I don't have wi-fi I'm SOL.

Every retail store has always asked me to pay in dollars or zloty. And I've never got hit with an extra fees with my Schwab debit and the exchange rates seem pretty damn spot on.