emma69

Thanks!

hfly

There are many threads about this BS tactic. i tend to find that when I get a manager and he is reticent and claims that he cannot or will not void it and do it properly, that picking up my cell phone starting to dial and informing him that I am calling Visa, reporting them, and that i will make it my mission for them to NOt be able to take Visa in the future works like magic and generally within 60 seconds they manage to void the transaction and do it properly.

tom911

Hits #5 and #6 in Dublin, Ireland, this week. First was a prepaid rate at the Holiday Inn Express. Received instant e-mail notice from my credit card provider and knew immediately they had converted to dollars and surcharged 3% as the euro was not trading at $1.38 this week (was around $1.33 or so when I booked in the U.S.). Another series of e-mails between the property and Priority Club Customer Care and 4 days later the dollar charge was reversed and I was billed correctly in Euros.

Second was on check-in at one of the Maldron Hotels I've stayed at before. I told the clerk I wanted to be charged in Euros and she presented me with a receipt to sign in dollars marked up 3% (about $8 in this case as I have a very good 60 Euro weekday rate for three nights). She voided that, gave me a copy of the voided transaction, and ran it again in Euros. She had never heard of DCC but knows about it now.

I'm fully prepared to dispute these with VISA if I need to, but each and every time I've been able to resolve them and get rebilled in Euros. Is a pain having to spend the time sending e-mails or explaining how DCC works to hotel clerks, but the dollars/Euros add up.

tom911

I think in two of my recent face-to-face transaction with hotel clerks they just don't know about DCC and the fine points. I ran into that today at a Dublin hotel with a clerk that had recently started working here. She had never heard of it before and initially told me that the credit card machine automatically converts it to dollars for me.

Earlier this year I had another hit at a Holiday Inn in Lisbon, Portugal, and that was resolved by e-mail within a few days after I escalated it to customer relations in Birmingham. The funny thing was when the hotel did finally reverse the dollar charge, they wrote me back that they didn't want to do that because they were worried I would have to pay bank fees for the transaction. I appreciate their concern, but when they initially refused to reverse the charge they didn't mention a thing about bank fees. I did not pay a single cent in bank fees for their error.

JEFFJAGUAR

You're right to a degree. The clerks in large establishments, say hotel check in desks, often are not trained. They are told when running the charge to press the green button or whatever without asking. Of course the system relies on the fact that 95% or so of the patrons either don't get it regarding dcc or fall for the lies of just how consumer friendly it is to know the exact amount of a charge (often for example even for supposedly well educated business travelers for whom they just submit expenses and get reimbursed anyway) or the lies about we're doing you a favor because the banks charge a fee for convertng currencies (of courser many if not most charge for all foreign transactions even those done in yur currency). I had such a fight with a so called manager at Burger King in Dublin when they pulled this garbage on me and she refused to void the transaction It was a difference of about 54¢ on a $9 charge. I got home and disputed the charge (via e-mail and fax so as not to have to pay postage which would have been greater than the dispute). Of course many here will say what's the big deal and the vast vast majority of people wouldn't have bothered. (My name is Tucker not Sucker). I really wanted it charged back to the establishment (what in effect hapened is the credit card company simply credited the 54¢ without charging it back which might have taught them a lesson not to mess with me)....but I'm quite sure the morons at Burger King did not know what they were doing.

Again for anybody reading this, if you are asked to sign any sort of authorization which lists an amount in anything other than local currency, just say NO. If they refuse to void it, just write on the sales slip local currency option not offered but under no circumstances should you fall for their criminal activity and pay cash.

envgeo

I recently used a HSBC ATM in London. I was provided choices to obtain cash in usd, pounds, or euro's. I think this was a dcc, not really sure but knew enough to choose pounds.

Has anyone else seen this at an ATM? Or if I choose one of the other options was I going to get usd or euro currency?

stifle

The problem arises for PIN cards when you can't write anything on the sales slip

I've heard Amex cards don't do DCC. Anyone know whether this is true?

RTW1

Yep Amex doesn't allow this... they rather like to earn the margin on the exchange rates themselves :-).

But it's not so much the CC companies that are to blame but the companies/banks that process the payments. They are the ones who have setup the DCC scam. And the merchants themselves obviously who get a better deal with their card processor at the expense of their customers... although the people behind the machines sometimes really don't know any better because they hardly get any training and the machines default to DCC.

But it's really a scam since the exchange rate offered is almost always 2-5% more expensive than it it should be. And so you as the customer are always getting a bad deal.
The CC companies require that you are offered the choice between payment options (local currency or the currency of your card) but this choice is almost never offered since the machines default to the DCC rate.

And the practice is spreading, China is also notorious for this. But even in the US it's happening, Avis has just starting doing it for non-us card transactions.

hfly

Yeah, recently at a major chain hotel in China I not only went nuts when they made it a fait accompli (Not just demanding the manager but the Police, they voided it and started again), but I wrote to corporate and wrote a very strongly worded e-mail, to which i got an almost instant reply from a senior level that they would look into this, and the next day a very apologetic e-mail from the GM who claimed that it was in fact the banks fault and that they had now "complained" and were getting new POS machines the next week.

Christopher

Yes, but wasn't the question there meaning which currency you actually wanted – i.e. US dollar notes, British pound notes, or Euro notes? In the UK I have used ATMs that asked this question only at places where people might reasonably be expected to want cash in other than British pounds (e.g. airports, Eurostar terminal, Paddington Station near the Heathrow trains)...

stifle

If there were three choices and the choice was presented before choosing the amount, I think the ATM was offering foreign currency.

slawecki

i recall the hotel in petersburg and moscow converted my bill to $us, and billed my credit card in us$.

tom911

When I was in Shanghai last year for World Swimming Championships I warned everyone in my traveling party about DCC (had read the FT thread in the China forum). I had an award stay with no charges, so no impact to me, and I know at least one party in our group settled in cash (their hotel was prepaid as part of a package). I used cash around town just so I can avoid the issue. I find myself doing the same in Europe and have limited credit card use to hotels for the most part. Yes, you don't get credit card points, but I want to limit my DCC battles to as few as possible. I'd never use a credit card at a Burger King, for instance, or any fast food venue.

JEFFJAGUAR

Why? The idea is to use cards everywhere they are taken. No worrying about nipping off to the ATM...no running out of local cash. If they take them, I use them for every purchase either large or small or in between. If they want to pull the DCC scam on me, let them try. I don't lose sleep over it. If they don't resolve it on the spot, I dispute the charge and have won each time.

tom911

I'm not as points driven as you are. I'm tired of battling with merchants and want to reduce my exposure. I'm over here typically 8-10 weeks a year which would give me a lot of exposure to DCC.