UK Credit card using less than current Exchange rate for US based purchases

Bevereeno78

Hi All,

Friends of mine recently visited myself in the USA and used their UK MasterCard to pay for meals etc. Same as previous visits. However, this time their credit card used an exchange rate of 0.7% rather than the current 1.3% (1 GB pound = 1.3 USD). This has never happened before. So - obviously their bill is much higher than it should be.

Has anyone had this happen to them or have any advice on how to get this situation resolved?

Any advice much appreciated.

Cheers

eDicky

It's unclear what you mean by expressing exchange rate as a percentage. Do you mean a dollar cost £0.70..?

Edi81

Exchange rates aren’t %.

1Gbp gives 1.30 USD
1 USD gives £0.77

They are just different ways of reporting the same thing. Who is the credit card with? Are there fees?

Nebulous2

It would help if you gave us more information. The name of the bank / card, an actual example of a price in dollars and what it cost them in £s and the date this occurred and people will give you an explanation of what happened and whether it sounds right.

glider3560

The rates offered by Mastercard and Visa are not quite the same as the ones you see on Google.

E.g. today Google say 1 GBP = 1.31 USD, but Visa say 1 GBP = 1.30383 USD.

Remember also that exchcnage rates are volatile and change throughout the day. Even multiple transactions on the same day can have different rates.

Are you sure the rates are not being expressed the other way round? E.g. 1 GBP = 1.30383 USD, or 1 USD = 0.7669711542 GBP?

PeacefulWaters

Direct Currency Conversion is the most likely issue, although not all retailers offer it in the USA.

Did you friend opt to pay a dollar expense in pounds? If so they made a rookie error and lost.

As others have said, details of the bank issuing the card and specific transactions would be helpful.

Vortigern

OP should perhaps look up DCC - Dynamic Currency Conversion - and understand what that means.

Then come back with the info requested in post #5

Bevereeno78

Hi All,

Thanks for the info/questions

The issuing Bank is Santander and MasterCard.

The problem is that currently 1 GB pound equals roughly 1.3USD however their credit card has charged items as it being 0.7USD which bears no resemblance to the actual exchange rate.

Vortigern

Santander is not a good card for travel.

What was the amount of the purchase in dollars?

How much was charged on your card in pounds?

Bevereeno78

To round things up - a $5 cup of coffee should be 3.8UK pounds. On their credit card this would now be charged at 6.6UK pounds. Why can MasterCard or Santander be able to use a different UK to USD rate than the actual one?

glider3560

Bevereeno78 wrote: »

To round things up - a $5 cup of coffee should be 3.8UK pounds. On their credit card this would now be charged at 6.6UK pounds. Why can MasterCard or Santander be able to use a different UK to USD rate than the actual one?

Sounds like the exchange rate is the "wrong" way round.

Why not ask the bank?