A new card conversion scam?
 

It's called 'Dynamic Currency Conversion' and is offered by increasing numbers of tourism-oriented establishments: hotels, car rentals, souvenir shops, restaurants etc. If the merchant is using this system, when your card is swiped, the machine displays the amount both in the local currency and in the card's billing currency. They will present this as a service to you, because you'll know the exact amount that will appear on your statement and it takes away the uncertainty over exchange rates, extra service charge and so on, and urge you to accept the amount in your home currency. Be very careful. The exchange rates used are around 3% worse than interbank rates in the ones I've come across. OK, many card issuers add similar percentage for foreign transactions, but there are some that do not and you lose out. Also the merchants get a share of the profit from currency conversion. You do NOT have to accept the converted figure. When the card is swiped, state very clearly you wish to be billed in local currency, and sign ONLY the slip that shows the original amount on the final line.<BR>It's getting increasingly common in Ireland and UK, and spreading elsewhere. Card processing companies are selling this as extra revenue-generating service to retailers. I find it disingenious and misleading for consumers.

Wow, Alec, that does sound like a major scam! Thanks for sharing the information, as well as pointing out the fact that there's a way around it. I'll be on the lookout when I go to Scotland soon.<BR><BR>It would make me pretty angry to "undo" all my hard work in making sure that my cc companies have not changed their policy and started adding extra conversion fees since my last trip, only to find that the merchants were doing so! Think we need to send a message to the merchants and refuse this "service" en masse.

Thanks Alec for pointing this out. Besides street scams, we should also now be vigilent against "white-collar" scams...

This looks like a common electronic version of "we will do the conversion for you" old trick. <BR>The car rental company has been doing this for a long time and now other merchants are getting into this. I knew it was eventually coming.

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