Beware of the small print when using your CC to purchase ANYTHING these days.
 

So I just purchased tickets for my family to go to Europe this summer. I live in the US and I have CITI card with "miles rewards" bla bla bla.

I purchased tickets with British Airways on their US site and in dollars.

Well, I just got hit with a fee of 3% on top of the ticket price (which I will not disclose but it was high...) from CITIBANK, claiming.... and I quote:

"The Foreign Exchange Transaction fee is a 3% fee billed to an account by Citi if the customer makes a foreign purchase in a foreign currency that is converted into US Dollars or foreign purchase made in US dollars . See your Card Agreement for additional information.

Was this message helpful?"

Did I ever read the small print in my "ever changing agreement" with Citi - no, admittedly I did not do that "good enough".

But as a principle - WTF???

I do not care about the money in this, just about the principle - Citi cards and all the other credit card companies in this country can just go GFY as these absurd charges are just nuts and I HOPE will take you all to the ground one day.

End of rant. Discuss...

:mad::thumbsup:error:upsidedow

Always read the FINE print :thumbsup For future reference.

Yeah, thanks, that was a very insightful response. Do you know how many changes to the agreement these card companies send you a year? This tiny little "addon" to the bills... It is IMPOSSIBLE to do that and they know it.

I think it is highway robbery during daylight. No wonder the economy in this country has gone to shit. We are all sheep with no intention to read everything we get spammed with every day.

You purchased it on their US site with DOLLARS you say?

Perhaps there is some fine print about.

I just know whenever you purchase something from overseas you get billed a small finance fee for money conversions and other blah blah explanations.

But I agree,

fuck em... fuck em in the ass.

Seems to me British airways is Geo targeting their prices, and charging the CC company in this case (Citibank) the actual purchase equivalent of US$ in Euros. Thus Citibank is passing off the exchange rate to you, or the fee for it.

Well, since I do not work at all and have a ton of time to spend on principles (end joke...) I did in fact email BA to ask them what they knew and thought of it as it really diminishes their value here in the US for US customers. Still awaiting a reply and I will let you know what they say or know about it and if there is in fact a small print on their website about it. Should be interesting to see actually, because if there IS a small print on their website about it then they are as guilty as Citi in this case.

Again, this is not about the money - it is just 3% but those 3% on a LARGE bill will turn out to be quite a lot and the difference between choosing BA over for instance AA to fly with to EU from US.

I will get to the bottom of this and open all cans of worms and if need be spend so much time of the CITI card customer service peoples time that the money they charge me will be gone in customer support time salary. Hehehe.

wow.. that sucks

thanks for the heads up

Nickle and diming sucks ass!

Fuck that shit...still the church is worse

yea i'm waiting to see what Amex will charge me when I cash in my points for an EU flight this summer. You rack up hundreds of thousands of points - which means you have spent that much on your card right? so when the time comes to use your points, they slap you with a fee to do it, like they did when I went to London. So I have to pay to get points and then pay to use the points :(

I feel your pain.

but airlines and more doing it now too. charging fees for everything absurd.

My bank does foreign exchange % fees too. fuckers.

This is no different than cross sales. It's bullshit.

How about a credit card that "charges no extra fees for anything any time".

I got a new CC recently and I decided to read the terms. I even had to call them to clarify, because it was confusing.

The long and the short of it was this.

You have 21 days to pay for purchases from the time of the purchase, without incurring interest charges. This basically means you have to pay your credit card bill TWICE a month in order to avoid interest.

If you don't pay for a charge within 21 days, they charge you for all 21 days of interest going back to the day you bought it.

Furthermore, let's say you make a purchase of $1,000 and want to pay in increments for example. Day 1 you make the charge. Day 30 you pay $333. Day 60 you pay $333. Day 90 you pay $334. Finally, on day 120 you pay the interest you incurred.

How much do you think you paid in interest?

On day 119, you're still paying interest on all $1,000 + all interest!!!!!!!!!!!

Just because you made payments doesn't mean shit. You need to pay ALL $1,000 plus interest for them to stop charging you interest on the whole thing.

This especially applies to say balance transfers from higher interest cards. Since it's a "cash advance" you don't even get the 21 day grace period, and if you transfer like $10,000 over, even though you're paying "less" interest, you'll be paying their rates on the WHOLE thing until it's paid off.

Scary.

No way...(here goes gif file of Uncle Buck punching the clown).

True dat shit.

Not just CC, just about ANYTHING has data mining or some asterisk bullshit.

:disgust

wow thats shit man!!!

When did the UK switch to Euro? :error:thumbsup


Oystein,

I feel your pain. It is strange that your CC company charged the 3% on BA on their US site. I have been trying to find a credit card that has no fee for international or smaller fees forever and they do not exist.

:disgust

you guys with funny accents and suspicious customs are ALWAYS complaining about something. :winkwink:
knowing your arrogant ways, I'll bet that 3% was a fortune as I'm sure you're taking your screaming, crying, unruly children in first class just to annoy the shit out of the rest of us.
Here's a clue, children crying with a funny accent is never "cute"



hahaha, I love you Oystein!

read all papers !

Yup and the goverment keeps helping these banks with bailouts, they should be helping everyone but the banks

Pretty normal, has nothing to do with the credit card. BA charged you in euros or pounds bitch at them.

I have a canadian currency card and everytime I buy something from US based I get charged the days rate plus the 2-3% premium. Just like if you went to the bank and tried changing 100$ their fee is usually 2-3%.

The World Points AMEX card from B of A does not charge the foreign currency transaction fee. Reviewing my records, I don't see any fees. I pay it off immediately after the charges show up, but that wouldn't affect the leveling of the fees in the first place.

I actually picked up this card when I used my debit card in Panama, and was charged the foreign currency fee, even though I was withdrawing dollars.. The rep at B of A suggested I switch. It's been good so far. Had it about 6 months now, and use it all the time. 0 interest for a year, no annual fee, 9% after that..

hahahaha i concur oystein


sorry to hear about what happened man

My monthly statement is littered with itemised charges for USA/USD transactions. Each instance takes up 4 rows:

CROSS BORDER ASSESSMENT FEE
CURRENCY CONVERSION ASSESSMENT FEE
INTERNATIONAL TRANSACTION FEE
... then the transaction itself ...

It's good they're being fully transparent, but it does make the statement harder to read, and accounting slightly more complicated. :2 cents:

BTW Visa and MC's exchange rates are usually pretty shitty as well (worse than a bank's cash rate), which means a further (hidden) %age is added to the transaction.

I've tried to find a USD CC where I can pay with a wire but no one in Australia seems to offer it... I'd need to go to the USA to open it and even then I'd have some problems since I'm not a citizen...

KRosh - BA has not responded yet so I do not know what they will say about this yet. That said, I will now go back and check all my old statements for the same charges when I have purchased tickets. I bet I have missed it in the past.

The thing here is that this 3% really mess you up when you spend time between the different airlines trying to find the best deal and once you THINK you have found it the 3% just takes it all away again - that is just bullshit and it should be CLEARLY stated first off on the BA (or similar foreign company) website. It is called transparency and as it is now there is none, unless of course you really really look deep into their TOS which I btw cannot even find.

12clicks - Suck a duck ;-))

Corvette - Suck a duck too LOL

--

As soon as I get a reply from BA Ill let you know what they say about this issue. Fuckers.

Citi and Chase are famous for fee tacking.

Don't forget about WAMU (oops, I mean Chase, WAMU go bye bye)! They charge $5 just to cash a check. And, I mean they charge you $5 to cash a Chase/WAMU customer's check. Bullshit

Most american banks charge foreign transaction fees these days I thought... You always have to keep that in mind when buying online, because the company you are purchasing from (ie. British Airways) may have a non-us merchant account.

Little known fact, a lot of people pay these fees when they signup for paysites that bill with visa eu.

I thought it was a Visa/MC charge rather than a bank fee.

They also don't give you anywhere near the real exchange rate.

I said that above. :) As well as the 3 different fees (in my case, anyway) there's another 1-1.5% effective fee imposed because of the conservative - in their favour - exchange rate.

Same thing happens when you withdraw from epass, you end up with less in your local currency than if you'd taken a wad of US dollars into a bank or currency exchange place.

i dont use credit if i cant pay with cash im not buying