Re: Credit Card Billing/Exchange Rate Warning


<jimjones@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1184420653.033979.53030@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have just returned from Ireland and UK and noted that when a
credit
card is used in a hotel
or restaurant many organizations will attempt to bill the card in US
Dollars using their own inflated
exchange rate.

Yes. Known as Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC).

Some merchants use a DCC system on their POS terminal which detects
the nationality of your card and can offer you *the choice* of paying
in your home currency rather than in the local currency. The catch
with this is that the exchange rate they'll use will be crap, so never
accept this option if it's offered to you - always pay in the local
currency.

Now, because the DCC providers make a lot of money on the forex
markup, they usually give the retailers a kickback, which encourages
many of them *not* to offer you the choice, they just convert the
currency without asking you. If you're not careful you can have this
done to you without even noticing (it happened to me once - the slip
showed EUR amount in big print and the GBP amount in small print
below).

This breaches the VISA rules (and I guess MasterCard have similar
rules):

http://www.visaeurope.com/merchant/operationsandsecurity/rulesandregulations/currencyconversion.jsp

The retailer *must* get your permission before converting the
currency. If you ever get a slip with the amount converted, refuse to
sign it/enter your PIN, and demand they redo it in the local currency,
and depending how stroppy they get about it, threaten to report them
to VISA. They'll get their card handling facilities withdrawn if they
do it too often.

--
Andy


.

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