Travelex Supercard Overcharged Massively

ciscosurplus

Hi All,

based on travel card site here I ordered a Travelex Supercard for a business and leisure trip to Las Vegas.

I used it almost exclusively while in the USA, all go I thought, it claims I saved £115.09 while abroad. When going through my bank statement I spotted a weird charge for a hotel at £343 for the Wynn, I dug out the bill and sure enough it was $340 for 2 nights. On going in to the supercars app I noticed an exchange rate of 0.9915 was applied!!! :mad: on checking all my other transactions they are all over the place, ranging from 0.9901, to 1.5111. I know the £ was a bit unstable in august but I checked it never made it to 0.9901. I rang up to query and was told they simply apply the exchange rate in real time and thats what they offered me nothing they can do.

The actual exchange rate was 1.31 average during my trip, Ive worked out across all my transactions I paid a net of 1.15 an absolute card from hell.

Has anyone else had any issues?

chattychappy

Were the transactions processed in USD and then convered to GBP, or do they just show as GBP amounts?

If the latter, it looks like you've been stung by "Dynamic Currency Conversion" (DCC). This is where the merchant "offers" to bill your card in your home country currency. This means they do the conversion (at their awful rate) and bill in GBP, rather than putting through the USD amount and letting your CC company convert. You are supposed to get a choice about these things....

Could be something else, but that seems like a possibility?

System

Sounds like Dynamic Currency Conversion.
Do you have a receipt (or some other document) from those under $1.30 to £1?

MCGONIS

I thought the whole point of this card was to prevent DCC?

tripled

MCGONIS wrote: »

I thought the whole point of this card was to prevent DCC?

It prevents the bank from doing the conversion, as the transaction is presented to your bank in GBP, but it doesn't prevent the merchant getting there first. One restaurant I ate at in Poland insisted their terminal did it automatically and there was nothing they could do. Fortunately the difference was no more than the tip I would have left.

realaledrinker

I have a Euro FairFX card and was prompted several times in Spain to choose between Stg or Euro. Presumably if I'd have gone for Stg I would have suffered twice, once through DCC and then again by FairFX converting the Stg back to Euro.

adindas

MCGONIS wrote: »

I thought the whole point of this card was to prevent DCC?

VISA / MASTER cannot dictate whether the people want to pay in local currency or in £, why should they ?? What about if people prefer to pay in £ ??
If this is due to DCC, learn the lesson and read everything displayed on the screen next time before you press accept.

tripled wrote: »

It prevents the bank from doing the conversion, as the transaction is presented to your bank in GBP, but it doesn't prevent the merchant getting there first. One restaurant I ate at in Poland insisted their terminal did it automatically and there was nothing they could do. Fortunately the difference was no more than the tip I would have left.

Report it to Master/Visa. AFAIK they should let people to have freedom whether to be charged in Local Currency or in £, and this option should be there before you "accept" the charge if they want to use VISA/MASTER payment system.

DrivingMissDaisy

I've got the Supercard and few times I've tried to pay with it, I've been asked whether I want to be charged in Euros or GBP, and I've always said Euros. I think it is down to DCC. Some POS terminals do offer that option

passau91

I was just looking through my underlying (linked) credit card statement to see with horror that a few of the charges from my recent trip to Canada and the US have been duplicated. I had to scrabble around to find a helpdesk number. On calling Supercard, they said that sometimes the card terminal may ghost a transaction, but not to worry, it would get refunded. "Not to worry"... are you kidding me??? Now they want me to prove to them that the underlying linked credit card has been charged twice (because if it gets duplicated on the Supercard, it gets wiped from their records...WTA****). These aren't trivial amounts - so far I'm looking at being overcharged by around £300 in duplicated transactions...


I'm incensed - does anyone know how to get an Ombudsman involved, as I don't have much faith in an overseas call centre sorting this out in a timely fashion? Has anyone else had these issues using the Supercard? If so, we need to make more noise to prevent others from being stung.

eskbanker

passau91 wrote: »

Now they want me to prove to them that the underlying linked credit card has been charged twice

What's the problem with providing them with the relevant info from your credit card statement to illustrate this?

passau91 wrote: »

I'm incensed - does anyone know how to get an Ombudsman involved, as I don't have much faith in an overseas call centre sorting this out in a timely fashion?

You should still go through due process and give them the chance to sort this out - apart from anything else it rarely expedites anything to get an ombudsman involved. Provide Supercard with the proof they're looking for and/or dispute the duplicated transactions with your credit card provider, and if this doesn't bear fruit in a reasonable timescale then escalate via their published complaints process....

passau91

eskbanker wrote: »

What's the problem with providing them with the relevant info from your credit card statement to illustrate this?

You should still go through due process and give them the chance to sort this out - apart from anything else it rarely expedites anything to get an ombudsman involved. Provide Supercard with the proof they're looking for and/or dispute the duplicated transactions with your credit card provider, and if this doesn't bear fruit in a reasonable timescale then escalate via their published complaints process....

I can calm down now - Travelex Supercard have refunded the amounts - all a bit painful as they refunded the original correctly charged amounts, instead of the higher duplicated charge which included transaction fees. It took quite a few emails to and fro to finally get that sorted and they offered a £15.00 goodwill payment for the trouble it has caused. However, it still rankles slightly as I thought the Beta testing was supposed to have ironed out such problems. It means I'm unwilling to use the card again, just in case.


As I've reached that magic milestone in my life, I applied for the Saga Platinum card as a back-up to my Halifax Clarity card for use abroad. If that is accepted, I will probably close the Supercard. This is a shame, as other than these problems, at least it worked while I was overseas... Just my personal feeling, and of course, everyone's mileage differs.