Credit card charges in foreign countires

As you know many merchants overseas now try to get you to process credit card charges in CAD rather than local currency.  In my experience it results in about an extra 4% in the non-competitive forex rate from the one used by, in my case, RBC.  It started for me in Spain in 2014 when the B&B I booked directly with in Barcelona processed my deposit in CAD at greatly inflated conversion without my knowledge.  Then, once in Spain, I noticed a few times that the person handing me the CC machine had already pressed the “transact in CAD” button before handing the machine to me for my PIN.   Anyway, it happened again earlier this year with a B&B I booked in Sydney.  And last month with a B&B in Penzance UK.  The lady running the place, a retired lawyer, never mentioned that she would be running through my deposit in CAD at a lousy rate, so I was surprised to see the inflated forex conversion used on my transaction report a week later


Anyway, I complained to RBC Visa and they were very forthcoming after some back & forth.  They did state that according to their terms of service, the merchant was definitely required to ask for permission to process in CAD instead of local currency and that if caught soon enough, they would go back to the merchant to correct the issue to ensure a reasonable exchange rate is used.  As my transaction was all done by phone & email, they said they couldn’t do that in this case, but that “as a customer service goodwill gesture” they would credit me the difference between the excessive rate I had been charged and the proper rate on another regular forex transaction that day with another B&B in the UK.  Hence the $7.40 credit.  J  Now let’s see – what will Bev spend that on?  

David

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