ANZ foreign currency charge on interstate purchases

[cgichard]

Not rewards related, but thought I'd try asking here.

ANZ is adding a foreign currency transaction charge on my Etsy purchases from interstate vendors, e.g. NSW to VIC, and SA to VIC. How long has this been going on and can one contest it?
NB: these are direct charges to the credit card, not via PayPal.

 

[asterix]

Not rewards related, but thought I'd try asking here.

ANZ is adding a foreign currency transaction charge on my Etsy purchases from interstate vendors, e.g. NSW to VIC, and SA to VIC. How long has this been going on and can one contest it?
NB: these are direct charges to the credit card, not via PayPal.

It's more likely that the transactions are being performed by an overseas payment facility. Even if they are in Australian dollar most banks will charge you a foreign currency fee.

 

[cgichard]

Thanks, asterix. It seems the fault lies with Etsy and not ANZ. No warning on the Etsay website that an Australian to Australian transaction in A$ will be processed overseas.

 

[lathiat]

I think this is partly because most of the credit card providers "recently" (last couple of years) made a change where by if the merchant and currency is local, but the payment processor is not, it still bills you the international currency fee. Citibank made that change about maybe 18 months ago for example. Similarly after they longer ago made it so that the local currency wasn't the only thing the matters.. meanwhile this is why dynamic currency conversion is even worse than it already was because they convert it to AUD for you, likely with some horrendous exchange rate, and then you pay the extra international fee as well.

Madness.