Dynamic Currency Conversion Again
 

Interesting article in the Washington Post regarding the near criminal unethical practice of dynamic currency conversion very wide spread in Ireland and apparently Italy and this cancer has now metastasized to other European countries:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2900927_3.html

Do remember never sign a charge slip which contains an amount in your home currency as well as local currency no matter what the clerk says and do remember they have no right to force you to accept this near criminal rip off.

Oops..link above slightly off. Should have been:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2900927_3.html

Not a good day..here's the proper link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...072900927.html

Visa Operating Rules require the merchant to offer the consumer a choice, and to abide by that decision.

If the merchant absolutely refuses to run your charge in local currency, write this on the receipt <i>in a place where it can't be torn off and separated from your signature</i>:

CHOICE OF LOCAL CURRENCY NOT OFFERED

Then sign it and dispute it when you get home.

I have a question: say my DH and I are in a restaurant in Florence. We pay with a credit card. The bill come back to us with a charge in US dollars. How do they (the restaurant) know that we are US citizens and not Canadians? Do the Visas and Master Cards appear differently for people from the US vs. Canada?????

We got stung by this twice in Italy in May (but they were on tiny purchases thank goodness).
The merchant actually presented the receipt in Euros to me, then ran my credit card using DCC to dollars. I foolishly didn't look closely at the charge slip (the dollar was in TINY print) and we got scammed with a conversion rate 4 cents higher than we should have been.

Watch out for this on big purchases!!

By the way, can you demand the merchant refund the charge and re-charge you in local currency? As in, is this something that a polic officer would make them do if you brought one into the fray.

I'm quite curious. We had one credit card purchase for well over 2000&euro; and I would love to know what I could have done if the merchant rang it up in dollars and then didn't want to refund and re-charge in Euros...

Hi tuscanlifeedit
&gt;..The bill comes back to us with a charge in US dollars. How do they (the restaurant) know that we are US citizens and not Canadians? &lt;

The computer knows who owns the CC.

((I))

Hi TexasAggie
&gt;... can you demand the merchant refund the charge and re-charge you in local currency?&lt;

Of course.

&lt;...is this something that a police officer would make them do if you brought one into the fray.&lt;

No. The police do not deal in civil matters.

If the merchant wants your custome, the merchant will do your bidding.

((I))

1. The software in the terminal from the numbers on the credit card recognize the currency of the issuer so if the bank issuing the credit card is in Canada, it would convert the charge to CAD rather than USD...

2. Again, the rules of visa and mastercard require you be given a choice if you wish to be ripped off by this near criminal activity. Many hve reported on this board that when they recognize what's going on they are told..

1. visa (or mastercard) requires the charge be written up in your currency.
(A lie)

2. The charge has already been written up and cannot be voided (a lie, every terminal allows a transaction to be voided as what happens if a merchant enters the wrong amount so that's a lie)

3. The amount on the slip is for guidance and not what you will be charged (a lie)

4. You will do better this way than if you allow your cc company to charge you a fee (the biggest lie of all).


As part of the procedure, the merchant on the terminal must press a button to indicate you have accepted the scam; so if they present you a charge slip without asking you they have committed fraud.

You must tell the merchant in no uncertain terms you are being scammed and your name is not sucker...that they must boid the transaction and re-write it in local currency. If they refuse, as was suggested, write in big letters on the charge slip currency conversion not accepted and dispute the charge under credit card billing error procedures. Also inform the merchant that you are reporting their criminal behaviour (in not voiding the transaction and indicating you had accepted the conversion when you haven't to the authorities)....

If we all hang together, and become vigilant consumers, we can stop this cancer from spreading.

Custom, not custome.

Baaaa

interesting, thanks.
I was wondering about the police merely in case the merchant wouldn't refund your money - guess the best bet is to mark-up the charge slip all over the place!
In my instance the purchase (high end ceramics) was for my parents (and paid for with their money). I would have felt terrible if I'd come home and found out that they were scammed b/c of my ignorance - whew on that one!

The two small purchases we had the DCC issue with were both under 15&euro;

Thanks for the link xyz. Don't you just love the &quot;most customers enjoy the convenience of DCC....&quot; pitch peddled by the DCC companies? Lezzee, if I ever run across one of these guys I think I'll pinch his wallet, hold it up to him and say &quot;I'm sure you'll enjoy my new 'currency extraction service' (CES) whereby you'll enjoy the 'convenience' of a lighter wallet....&quot; :)

Indeed, we must all hang together, or surely we will all be taken to the cleaners separately.

Well you know this is an open forum and several months ago there was some person who claimed this was a wonderful thing for him to know exactly what he was spending.

Funny, nobody else here ever says it is wonderful to be ripped off to the tune of 4 or 5% so I know exactly how much an item costs.

Funny how people complain about the merchants but not the banks charging 2% or 3% when they receive already converted by Visa, or charging $5 per ATM withdrawal from a non-member bank as does the BofA.

Michael, there have been many threads complaining about the % credit card fees. Surprised you missed them.

Two or three wrongs don't make a right! Besides on the issue of ATM withdrawals as well as the fees imposed by cc companies for foreign transactions, you are notified in advance and if you do these things after being notified that's your stupidity.

With dcc, nobody informs you they are charging you an inflated rate, they don't even tell you they are converting the charge to another currency, they do not tell you that they are required by the terminal to indicate you have accepted this rip off without asking you.

Now if a merchant says, &quot;Listen, if you desire the convenience, I can write the charge up in your currency but just be informed we will be using a rate that is much higher than the credit card company will charge you,&quot; and I concur then I have no right to complain.

But of course that's not what's happening and when many people do complain, they are told lie after lie as indicated above.

But just for the record, there are lots of banks that allow you to withdraw from ATM's around the world for what it should be, namely $0 so if you pay one red cent for that, you are being ripped off and there are also still a few credit cards which do not charge you the extra fee to convert foreign currencies so if despite these warning you use those credit cards, you have no gripe coming.

You're right xyz, some people did point out that they enjoyed the convenience of knowing exactly what things cost in their home currency, and to those people I apologize if I sounded dismissive of their opinion. However, I still find the DCC pitch disingenuous since this 'convenience', more often than not, is charged at the convenience of the vendor, to the explicit exclusion of any acknowledgement of what the consumer might or might not find convenient. In other words, to be meaningful convenience has to involve a choice.

Although I loathe the banks' extortion of fees as well, they at least usually declare in their terms of agreement that such charge will be levied, and the amount of the charge. One at least then has, if only in theory, the choice to switch cards before making a foreign currency purchase. In contrast, one isn't forewarned by vendors about DCC at all, much less of the exact percentage being charged.

If the seller refuses to void the transaction and recharge it in Euro, why can't you just refuse to sign it? I'm thinking just put a bunch of X's in the signature line and cross out the amount or something like that. Wouldn't he then have to redo it?

&gt;I'm thinking just put a bunch of X's in the signature line and cross out the amount or something like that.&lt;

Yes, SP, but do it quietly so that they can't accuse you of creating a disturbance.

((I))

Ira, I'll remember that! :-d

Simply write on the slip dcc declined, cross out the home currency amount and circle the euro amount then when the bill comes through apply billing error disputes.

I think all this advice to write &quot;refused&quot; or &quot;declined&quot; on the charge slip is dangerously confused and hysterical (and I don't mean it is funny).

If you don't pay for services rendered, the merchant will call the police, and yes, they will respond.

A saner course of action would be to have the charge reversed and pay in cash, and of course, ask for a discount for saving the merchant the charge card fees.

What does &quot;near criminal&quot; mean? When I went to law school an act was either criminal or not criminal. Has something changed?

The merchant is breaking the rules...the merchant has to indicate on the terminal whether or not the customer wishes to accept being ripped off with this procedure, hence it is nearly criminal. If you want to say that means it isn't a crime, fine.

You are not refusing to pay, you are refusing to take part in a scam that is prohibited by visa/mc rules. The merchant has not right to assume you wish to have the currency converted at his end; as a matter of fact in some countries it may border on illegal as some countries require that only their currency is legal tender.

You are not refusing to pay, you are willing to pay in accordance with the contract the merchant has signed with the credit card companies namely to give the customer the choice as to whether he or she wishes to pay for the merchandise or service according to its posted price or wishes to allow the merchant to rip him or her off by converting currencies at an inflated rate.

I don't see what that's so hard for you to understand.

The charge is not being refused, the customer is quite willing to pay the charge in local currency, the illegal conversion is what's being refused.

And if the merchant can void the transaction if you wish to pay cash, then the transaction can be voided and properly written up in local currency.

I guess the reason this practice seems even more offensive than the bank charges is that it is a case by case thing. The merchant sizes you up, finds out where you are from, and proceeds to rip you off. Not the nicest welcome to their country, even if they are otherwise wonderful people...What might be helpful is a copy of VISA's policy in different languages...not that the folks who uniformly charge us 2-3% for conversion would be so willing...

And the banks charge us for conversion when it already has been converted for them by Visa.

Don't forget, Visa STILL charges you 1% for any charges made outside the US, even if the chrage is in US$.

I think xyz has a point about crossing off the US$ portion and the blurb on the bottom. I refused to sign a charge slip with DCC. On the slip was the statement, &quot;I accept the currency conversion used&quot;. I told the merchant that I did NOT accept their conversion and wanted to be charged in the local currency instead. I was told they couldn't do it any other way! So I was given NO CHOICE despite what the slip said.

Of course you understand now the merchant lied but that's one of the lies these near criminals use to try to scam and rip you off.

Visa does not charge you 1%.

Visa charges your bank 1%.

Your bank may or may not pass the 1% through to you.

Many do. Mine doesn't.