Visa and Mastercard should outlaw this practice. They are not doing themselves any good by allowing it.

Just remember one thing, for every stock out there ’selling off,’ there is someone BUYING it at that price. I personally sold about $50k in stock and have another $50k looking for a home when I see the markets as bottoming out. You cannot “buy low and sell high” if you never buy low . . .or sell high.

It seems to me that you can ALWAYS ask for the DCC to be removed. There is no harm in asking. Tell you what culture people, Americans ought to simply ask for 10% lower price on their trinkets and charged items, then, they do not have to worry about the DCC. Or is bargaining a lost European art as well?

You start out in China at 25-30% of the asking price and never pay more than half. Sometimes for the right item, you can get it for 30% if you are polite and enjoy the bargaining relationship. China is the PERFECT market, there are dozens of people selling exactly the same stuff in the same place. And the culture supports bargaining in EVERY shop except the government tourist shops, like jewelry and cloisonnes, etc – but – to get back on track, they charge in Yuan.

Hey, Jonathan, you can ALWAYS decline the DCC, it’s called walk away from the purchase. Whatever it is, you can say no. Obviously, paying for a hotel room or meal is a different story, but whatever happened to saying no? Whatever it is you are buying, if you do not buy it, then you send a double message, you are an ahole American who refuses to get ripped off by ‘culture,’ and are saying ‘No; to rampant consumerism.

If the merchant and their culture are offended by “I’m sorry, I cannot buy this item because you will not charge me in your local currency the negotiated price,” how is that rude? Does the merchant insist on converting the price from Euros to dollars and then back to Euros when you pay cash? Then why do they do it that way when they process a credit card? Culture in this case is really a buzz word for merchant ignorance. Merchants learn very fast when sales and money are on the line. If just a few sales every month walk out the door over the issue, the ‘culture’ will change on a dime.

As for the French keeping their wine and cheese. eet iz very guude for them to do so. Californeea and Australia have much better wines and zee italians better cheese.

This discussion is what it is, I would instead focus on working with the credit card before I go abroad to get this work started…

As far as getting people to change their cultures, well, that’s very hard, so forgetaboutit…try not to get into trouble and use the tools which cards allow you to use.

However, I am trying to give you the perspective of the European that you are dealing with, and give you some insight on how to be successful with a complaint over there. Europeans and Americans tend to think that ‘as westerners’ there are few cultural differences. It is not the case. My motto is: Cultural differences are usually larger than they appear. Hence, if you want to get something done, you might want to pay attention to local culture. Americans don’t like topless boobies on their beaches, Europeans don’t like being asked for their manager. It is simply not gonna help you.

I’ll leave the further macro-economic discussion for what it is. Don’t think this is the place for it.

One final thing: The French were at some point asked what they thought of O’Reilly’s ‘Boycot France’ campaign. Their answer: ‘Iet iez zeir loss ief zey don’t want our cheese and wine. Wie will bie happy to drienk iet ourselves.’

Lets see how Europe does this summer without American tourists. A declining economy and $1.50 to buy a Euro and over $2 to the pound will keep Americans home in droves. I guess we’ll get to see how many European merchants miss American dollars – which their bank converts into Euros anyway. The point of this article is that we WANT to be charged in Euros – not have the conversion done to dollars and then charged in euros and then the conversion done BACK to dollars by our American bank. THAT is the complaint – we do NOT want to give you dollars – we WANT to pay you in Euros.

I guess it is ‘arrogant’ to not ask to be ripped off. I guess you morally and more socially advanced Europeans just accept thievery and deceit in your travels and assume it is just part of the landscape. Because that is the message I hear. Jasper, there lots of ugly American stories out there just like there are lots of dump European jokes – as in how many Dutchmen did it take to defend the low countries from May 10 til May 14, 1940? No one knows because the armies surrendered once Rotterdam was bombed by the Luftwaffe.

I agree 100% that it is likely we will just characterized as the ugly American if we ask not to be ripped off. I also agree that most manager will support their clerks when an American asks to be treated fairly. But what Europeans think of me does not pay my bills. Just keep thinking how important you are when the Russians shut off the natural gas when the Chinese end up offering them more money for it.

I agree that interest rate cuts make no sense given the larger economy.

However, the dollar was strong years ago, and it will be strong again. There is a natural cycle to markets, and right now the dollar is weak. The last time this happened was in the 1980s = and look what happened in the late 80’s and early 90’s = the Euro was UNDER a $1 and the Pound had dropped to a $1.3 – I know, I was italy and France whn that happened.

Americans did not make fun of your currencies, nor did we lord the fact that the dollar was strong over you. In fact, we WANTED a weak dollar to make American exports less expensive. Airbus is going to go broke because of the weak dollar. Lets see what happens to the European economy when the Americans do not come this summer.