Credit card fees are inevitable and they charge a fee either way you make
the exchange. Last December I was accidentally charged $1,300(usd) for a
conference that I was attending in Vancouver BC. (I am Canadian, and so was
the MasterCard company just not the event organizer). Well the MasterCard
company charged the 1,300, the applicable exchange rate and of course their
fee. I should not have been charged at all so I contacted MasterCard to
have the charge removed, and since the event organizer agreed this wasn't an
issue.

Skip ahead to the end of the month, on my MasterCard invoice I noticed that
they removed the $1,300, but since the exchange rate fluctuated and they
always charge a fee on currency conversions I still ended up owing $65.00 in
exchange/fees.. It was quite a fight, and since I didn't give a dam I
issued the ultimatum that I did not authorize the charge so I wasn't paying
a cent to have it removed and they could take me to court or collections to
recover it... and I was going to drop their card if I had to spend another
minute discussing it over the phone with the multitude of people that didn't
know or care what they were talking about. I won, but the lady on the phone
snottily said next time have the company do a void on the transaction so
this wouldn't happen again. If I knew they were going to do it, I would have
stopped it at the instant it happened not the next month when I noticed it
on my invoice.

Banks/Lawyers/Insurance Companies and the Oil Companies all have one thing
in common... and it has something to do with bending people over.

DR


"Rtavi" wrote in message
...
We just got back from a 2 month trip to East Coast and Canada.--
Beautiful
and loved it despite $1.59/Liter for diesel!
I have always been told to use a credit card when out of the US since you
get the benefit of paying in Canada Dollars which are running at about
$.95
US then the credit card company converts your charge to $US. As far as
this
goes, it is true and I saved about $25 when the transactions were posted.
What I was not aware of was that CITI card charges a "Foreign Transaction
Fee" on every purchase. This totaled up to a charge of over $100 US.
It's
my fault for not reading all the fine print but this didn't happen 7 years
ago when I was using an ATT card in Canada. I just wanted to let you guys
to be aware of this. I should have done what I did with some of my cash
on
hand which was to go to a Royal Bank of Canada and have them change $100
US
to Canadian for a $3 fee so that I would have pocket money.(btw Canadian
money is pretty) that would have been cheaper .
Anyway we had a great trip and I wanted to save you guys some cash. Don't
be a dummy like me!