Exchange Rate Rip Off

capesthorne_2

Morning all,

I have just returned from a busy, but fun weekend that involved an afternoonin Llandudno.

Our gaggle was made up of me, my fianc!e, her sister and close friend whowere over from Ireland.

All went well until we went to pay for lunch at a local restaurant. My fianc!epaid for her half in £ and her sister tried to pay on one of her Irish cards,but was given no option to pay in only UK£, only €. At first this does not seemlike an issue until you look at the exchange rate which equated to an eyewatering rate of around £/€1.64!!!

When challenged, the restaurateur said it was the bank and they have a lotof complaints. When pushed, they changed their mind and said actually it wasthe company that ran the PED device, not the bank. All very fishy, all veryfrustrating.

Now I know all of this is 'bull' so I want to get my facts straight beforewe go back at them and get trading standards etc involved. It is shocking thatthese people are utterly ripping off tourists.

Can anybody clarify who sets the exchange rates in this case? Also, normallyyou get a chance to pay in Euros or Pounds, but in this case they offered onlypounds, does anybody know who sets this? I assume it is the restaurant.

I am not going to let this one drift by and am determined to ensure theseindividuals are sorted out. :mad:

Thanks all...

zerog

capesthorne wrote: »

Morning all,

I have just returned from a busy, but fun weekend that involved an afternoonin Llandudno.

Our gaggle was made up of me, my fianc!e, her sister and close friend whowere over from Ireland.

All went well until we went to pay for lunch at a local restaurant. My fianc!epaid for her half in £ and her sister tried to pay on one of her Irish cards,but was given no option to pay in only UK£, only €. At first this does not seemlike an issue until you look at the exchange rate which equated to an eyewatering rate of around £/€1.64!!!

When challenged, the restaurateur said it was the bank and they have a lotof complaints. When pushed, they changed their mind and said actually it wasthe company that ran the PED device, not the bank. All very fishy, all veryfrustrating.

Now I know all of this is 'bull' so I want to get my facts straight beforewe go back at them and get trading standards etc involved. It is shocking thatthese people are utterly ripping off tourists.

Can anybody clarify who sets the exchange rates in this case? Also, normallyyou get a chance to pay in Euros or Pounds, but in this case they offered onlypounds, does anybody know who sets this? I assume it is the restaurant.

I am not going to let this one drift by and am determined to ensure theseindividuals are sorted out. :mad:

Thanks all...

Read up on "dynamic currency conversion". You should always pay in the currency that the SHOP uses, regardless of the currency of your CARD. Complain to bank.

Hooloovoo

zerog wrote: »

Read up on "dynamic currency conversion". You should always pay in the currency that the SHOP uses, regardless of the currency of your CARD. Complain to bank.

I agree. But in this case I'm not sure what the problem is.

capesthorne wrote: »

I have just returned from a busy, but fun weekend that involved an afternoonin Llandudno. Our gaggle was made up of me, my fianc!e, her sister and close friend whowere over from Ireland.

Also, normallyyou get a chance to pay in Euros or Pounds, but in this case they offered onlypounds

The OP says their friend came "over from Ireland". So they were in the UK, to be precise Llandudno.

The UK uses GBP and the OP says they were "offered only pounds".

So the restaurant didn't do any exchange rate conversion.

OP - could you clarify the situation?

Paul_Herring

capesthorne wrote: »

[...]but was given no option to pay in only UK £, only €.

[...]

[...]but in this case they offered only pounds,

You're not making much sense I'm afraid...

capesthorne_2

So the chain of events were as follows:

1. We finished our food and received the total bill, which was around £46.32

2. My fianc!e paid her £23.16 with her First Direct card, no problem

3. Fianc!'s sister went to pay her half of the bill with her Irish card and was told she could only pay in Euros and that came to around €36, giving her the outrageous exchange rate.

4. There was no mention of exchange rate at the time of the transaction, that was done by us afterwords.

Hope that clarifies it a little more.

StuC75

capesthorne wrote: »

So the chain of events were as follows:

1. We finished our food and received the total bill, which was around £46.32

2. My fianc!e paid her £23.16 with her First Direct card, no problem

3. Fianc!'s sister went to pay her half of the bill with her Irish card and was told she could only pay in Euros and that came to around €36, giving her the outrageous exchange rate.

4. There was no mention of exchange rate at the time of the transaction, that was done by us afterwords.

Hope that clarifies it a little more.

So was it the restaurant that quoted €36 e.g. Your relative confused them that paying in euro and so they worked out a rate there & then.. or was it the card terminal that quoted the figure? e.g. restaurant punched in £23.16, card was swipped and prompted then what rate to use..

With Visa cards some foreign Airports allow you to set the currency when paying (i.e. if you want to pay in foreign currency or sterling)...

Also had it with SportsTacker site where paypal allowed me to select either there exchange rate of visa rate (more preferable)..

capesthorne_2

StuC75 wrote: »

So was it the restaurant that quoted €36 e.g. Your relative confused them that paying in euro and so they worked out a rate there & then.. or was it the card terminal that quoted the figure? e.g. restaurant punched in £23.16, card was swiped and prompted then what rate to use..

With Visa cards some foreign Airports allow you to set the currency when paying (i.e. if you want to pay in foreign currency or sterling)...

Also had it with SportsTacker site where paypal allowed me to select either there exchange rate of visa rate (more preferable)..

Hi....

No, it was simply that they wanted to split the bill 50/50. My fianc!e paid with her UK card without issue, the sister presented her Irish card expecting to see a Sterling amount or as has been mentioned, to at least have the choice, but that was not the case. When the sister asked for an option to see sterling, the proprietor said that she didn't think it was an option, went back through the menu on the PED and no sterling option was available.

When they got back to the table and calculated the amount she went back again to remonstrate, at which point he then changed from saying it was the bank that set the rate, to saying that it was the merchant.

I hope that clarifies the situation a little.

chattychappy

Sounds to me like the merchant either didn't know or didn't want to know how to get the machine to offer GBP when the Irish card was put in.

With DCC, the bank do set the rate, but with a significant loading enabling a kick-back to the merchant.

reclusive46

Indeed the merchant makes a pretty penny from DCC as well. You could always dispute it with the card company saying you were not given the option.

Haha this is one of those things that Amex did well.

"American Express prohibits the use of Dynamic currency conversion at the point of sale and ATMs. Any merchant to be in violation of this policy may have its merchant account suspended"

meer53

When you realised it would be in Euros, you should have let your GF pay and then her sister could have given her the money.

chattychappy

meer53 wrote: »

When you realised it would be in Euros, you should have let your GF pay and then her sister could have given her the money.

This is a good answer and this principle could be applied to a number of questions that get asked on this forum IMHO.

People often get stung in one way or another. Whatever the consumer rights in a situation might be, they can be a pain to enforce. Complaints procedures take time and energy to exhaust, the ombudsman is overloaded. Sometimes it's just not worth the hassle. The best way is to try and avoid the situation in the first place, or just let it go. This is a classic case - Irish person, UK merchant, the "must be offered local currency option" is probably in a contract which the cardholder is not privy to. And finally, the amount is relatively small. I think I'd choose another battle.