Qwerty: Credit cards now impose a 3% surcharge on foreign currency transactions.
I prefer to use my Citibank ATM card in Europe: no fees, and leftover euro bills I brought with me have appreciated nicely. It's good to know about BofA and DB; thanks for the tip!
Actually, for Visa/Mastercard, these surcharges have always existed…They just never disclosed them until a lawsuit. American Express always disclosed the surcharge. A lawsuit against visa/mastercard made them explicitly state the surcharge they were already impliciting charging by burying them in the exchange rate.
February 10, 2003, Poor Consumer Discloser May Result In Hefty Visa, MasterCard Refund A judge ruled against Visa International and MasterCard International in a preliminary decision at the start of February. The judge’s decision could result in the two credit card companies having to refund at least $500 million because of poorly disclosed fees to cardholders using the credit cards over seas. Consumers have been unaware of the currency-conversion fees because many claim these charges have not been adequately disclosed.
The decision, made in a California state court will mean that the two largest payment networks could have to make a refund on a 1% surcharge paid since 1996 by a high number of consumers that have made charges overseas. Visa and MasterCard have been charging a wholesale foreign-currency conversion rate plus 1% to the banks that issue credit cards and the banks pass the charge to cardholders. Some card issuers will make additional charges to as large as 2%. The California judge did not feel Visa and MasterCard sufficiently disclosed to cardholders the fee.
Visa and MasterCard had a combined total earning of at least $240 million last year from foreign-exchange fees from U.S. issued cards. Although card-issuing banks do include foreign-exchange fees in pamphlets that arrive with the issuance of new cards, when a cardholder receives a bill the card issuer often fails to make note that an automatic additional fee has been added. Consumers are often shocked when a long time later they realize the extra fees they have been paying.
The judge, in addition to ordering a refund, said that both Visa and MasterCard would have to mandate that banks that issue their cards disclose the fee clearly in statements in the future. If upheld, all Visa cardholders nationwide would apply to the ruling since the credit card company is based in California, however only MasterCard cardholders in California would apply since MasterCard is based in New York. This California decision may only be the start of many more problems for the credit cards companies that could face suits in other states as well.
