• Local currencies glitch

I made a purchase with my TRY local account, but for some reason I was charged a $ amount. The merchant did not pick $ as payment, I was the 2000 TRY as the amount on the card terminal and that's what I expected to be charged.


As you see the total amount was even changed.

Is bunq aware of this issue? This isn't the first time it's happened to me. Seems like some merchant banks arbitrarily charge bunq cards in whatever currency they want because they see that it's a European card. Support isn't really supportive with this issue.

Who else has this issue? Did anyone successfully resolve it ?

    @New-Rose-Mare-3623636579#269448 It's called DCC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_currency_conversion

    Unfortunately, generally it's allowed by Mastercard and there's nothing that the bank can really do about it. Many describe it as a scam, because Mastercard terms state that the buyer has to be given a choice whether they want to use DCC or not. In the real world, the merchants will not always give you that choice. In some countries it is more rampant than in other. For example, it seems to happen often in Turkey, but I have never had a problem with it in Japan.

    As you can see on your receipt, it states "I RECOGNISE THAT I WAS GIVEN A CHOICE OF PAYMENT CURRENCIES AND THAT I COULD HAVE PAID IN MERCHANT CURRENCY. I ACCEPT THE EXCHANGE RATE USED TO PERFORM THE CURRENCY CONVERSION AND THAT MY DECISION TO PAY IN ??? IS FINAL." -- if that is not true, then the merchant scammed you.

    Addition: I would really advise everyone to use the Auto-Currency feature instead of connecting the card directly to the Local Currency account. Let the card stay connected to your Euro account (that is, the account of the currency in which you are earning your salary). Because if you encounter DCC, you do not want to pay even more exchange fees.

      Thank you for the reply! I indeed did get scammed. I was not given a choice at all. Ive seen the merchant punch in the numbers into the card terminal, so I don't think it was him. Looks like the bank did that randomly.

      Surely bunq can do something about that...

        @New-Rose-Mare-3623636579#269451 Ive seen the merchant punch in the numbers into the card terminal, so I don't think it was him. Looks like the bank did that randomly.

        The merchant profits a lot from this. It's unlikely in my opinion that they do not know about it. I have experienced this myself, in Turkey, Russia, Poland, the UAE, ... always merchants trying to not give me full control over the payment terminal.

        Surely bunq can do something about that...

        This is a global phenomenon, with customers from all banks experiencing this. Unfortunately the DCC industry does a lot of lobbying around the world to make sure their practice cannot be circumvented easily. See for example the website: https://dccforum.com Their talking points are that prohibiting DCC would undermine the competitive market, and they have success with this strategy. For example Visa tried to prohibit DCC in Australia, and quickly got sued "for engaging in the anti-competitive conduct": https://www.brightlaw.com.au/accc-v-visa-exclusive-dealing-penalty/

        If you have a good feature idea for bunq (and other banks) that can combat DCC, I'd be happy to hear it. I've thought about this issue a lot in the past, and if I ever get into the banking sector professionally it's certainly on the top of the list of things that I would somehow want to do something about. But for me it seems like the battle is really fought at the card processor level and national/international legislation, not at the bank level.

          Write a Reply...