RYANAIR Dynamic Currency Conversion Rip Off?

peterbaker

Burtie wrote:

Mine was a Nationwide Flex account (i.e a current/debit card).

The online statement (when expended into "detailed" mode) shows the Ryanair transaction as being in a foreign currency.

Hmmm...well as i think you know, Burtie, my initial complaint is about my debits to my Nationwide Flexaccount ... I can see that all the converted Ryanair amounts are too high, that's what got me started.

There is no detail of any foreign amount or exchange rate for the disputed items in my Flex account records either online or on paper. An example:

Ryanair Int 0000000XXXXXX DUBLIN £42.92

However I have Flexaccount records of other foreign transactions of the type:

Cash Caja Madrid 98/120389858 CORDOBA. 100.00EUR at 1.462 £68.69

This is the level of detail I have both on paper and online.

What kind of detail have you got - and how do I expand into any (other?) detailed statement mode in Nationwide online banking?

I can however tell you that the disputed items on my Barclays account differ from normal GBP items by stating some nonsensical extraneous information of the type: "This Transaction was for GBPXX.XX at exchange rate 1.00 on (DATE)" which is a dead giveaway for a transaction that has received some special treatment. On the earlier style of Barclays paper statements (they revamped it 10 months ago) they also gave extraneous information of the same type except they dropped the "Exchange rate 1.00" bit.

Can you copy the style of one of your foreign currency Ryanair / Flexaccount items here for us to peruse, Burtie?

Edit: I don't doubt what you say is correct, but I am also broadly aware that Dynamic Currency Conversion is more lucrative in some currencies and in some countries than others. By way of explanation, I detected that DCC was first noticed as largely a problem for UK cardholders when they used their cards for what they supposed were Euro transactions with merchants in Spain, and I recall that it was also reported that Ireland was another place to watch out for it happening without permission.

Perhaps the banks in Spain and Ireland made it particularly lucrative for their merchants? Ryanair seem to use a "DUBLIN" bank reference for the disputed items and a "LTD." reference for all the normal GBP amounts. Yours was SKK - perhaps Ryanair has a use for the SKK it collects, or it likes to speculate in SKK which no doubt fluctuates more than EUR or DKK?

Burtie_2

You have to click "View Full Statement".

Here's my entry

Date Transactions Credits Debits Balance

19 July 2006 Ryanair 0000000XXXXX DUBLIN. 1,710.70SKK at 56.384 £30.34

peterbaker

Burtie wrote:

You have to click "View Full Statement".

Yeah, have been doing that. Yours is an example of where they didn't do DCC I agree. They have a penchant for Slovak Koruna obviously ... Interesting how they pick and choose, but contrary to the rules of their merchant agreement, they don't let us pick and choose, eh?

peterbaker

Part of Ryanair's rationale on not using DCC on SKK transactions in July 2006 might be found in the chart of Slovak Koruna versus Euro:

http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?amt=1&from=SKK&to=EUR&submit=Convert

peterbaker

I have now heard from Nationwide and they are crediting my account with some refunds.

Apparently Nationwide's commercial ties mean they can only now force refunds within the system for transactions up to 120 days old according to a set of VISA internal dispute rules.

Ryanair use DCC as a cover for some serious forex jiggery-pokery but don't even tell you if they have charged you other than in the ticket currency (if you bought a ticket that was not GBP). I am told this is all the subject of an ongoing major internal wrangle between Nationwide, a few other card providers versus the VISA network, foreign merchant banks like Bank of Ireland, and of course their 'merchant' Ryanair.

I am wondering if the Serious Fraud Office would be interested. The total amounts involved over the period Ryanair have been surreptitiously using DCC to obtain money from people like me by deception must be quite significant.

MSE_Martin

This is a very interesting thread - i'm going to forward it to a few hacks who may be interested in the story!

peterbaker

That's the ticket, Martin!

peterbaker

Just thought I'd return to offer an update.

1) I've been ripped off again since my last post so will fill in another off the heap of dispute forms that Nationwide kindly sent for the explicit purpose:-) . The Barclays Connect people havent even bothered to send me a form yet - they are oh so ordinary bankers, thesedays aren't they?
2) Anyway, I've contacted SFO (fobbed off - they suggested OFT, Police fraud desk and Banking Code Standards Board)
3) OFT are all out in transit somewhere so will have to wait 10 more days for a response.
4) Police say not a police matter and got all uppity when I asked if they had (a) bought Ryanair ticket online, (b) used a credit card in say Spain? and (c) if they had done so, had they seen how the amount that they finally paid on their GBP credit card bill was GBP not EUR (they took issue with that), and finally they were sarcastic about the readback of their email address which ends not as SFO told me in .pnn.uk but in .pnn.police.uk (shan't bore you with the mouthful before the dots).
5) Very nice lady from BCSB understood perfectly and had even read about DCC and told off a Spanish car hire company this summer who did it to her, but said it is outside their remit except to the extent that my credit card company can apparently not hide behind the 120 day reporting limitation that they have with VISA. She said Nationwide (and Barclays if they ever wake up) must refund all my old losses even if their 120 day agreement with VISA means they can't recover them themselves. She said a fraudulent transaction case she knows of is the precedent she is relying upon. A (rich?) credit card customer didn't notice a £1,400 fraudulent transaction for many months and when it was raised with card company they used the 120 day rule to decline it initially. But they were successfully appealed against.

Finally this kind lady suggested that maybe a national press campaign could work wonders.

Martin? Did you get any nibbles?

Tojo_Ralph

MSE_Martin wrote: »

This is a very interesting thread - i'm going to forward it to a few hacks who may be interested in the story!

Is there an update? ..... Did you get any kind of interest or a response?

lijaloo

Have been reading this thread with interest. I recently booked the homeward bound part of a journey using my Abbey Electron card. The 2 euro cost was charged as £2.90. That makes an exchange rate of £1.45 to the Euro and that was back in August!