Brazil Travel money exchange and dni?

[AdrianB]

the banks that transacted my purchases in Brazil charged a foreign transaction fee(and probably a bad conversion rate), my CC company did not but they do not controll the other banks.

This is not how credit card transactions work. Only way they can charge you more is if the conversion is not done by your bank because you chose so on the POS machine. It's when it asks you if you want to pay in "local" or "domestic" currency or similar. If it asks you this and you chose the wrong option or someone else choses it for you, you can get the worse exchange rate.

Fwiw all of my banks show original currency and conversion rate on their statements.

 

[Goata]

This is not how credit card transactions work. Only way they can charge you more is if the conversion is not done by your bank because you chose so on the POS machine. It's when it asks you if you want to pay in "local" or "domestic" currency or similar. If it asks you this and you chose the wrong option or someone else choses it for you, you can get the worse exchange rate.

Fwiw all of my banks show original currency and conversion rate on their statements.

Huh what? What's a POS machine? I bought some soccer shirts from a store with a credit card. At 5 Reals to a dollar it should have costs X but it actually cost Xy. My credit card does not charge a foreign transaction fee, the bank that the store I bought the shirts in does charge a foreign transaction fee. When using a credit card for a purchase ones bill does not show what the cost was in the native currency, Date, Store, Cost... Why is that hard to understand?

 

[lunar]

Huh what? What's a POS machine?

Point Of Sale.

I bought some soccer shirts from a store with a credit card. At 5 Reals to a dollar it should have costs X but it actually cost Xy. My credit card does not charge a foreign transaction fee, the bank that the store I bought the shirts in does charge a foreign transaction fee. When using a credit card for a purchase ones bill does not show what the cost was in the native currency, Date, Store, Cost... Why is that hard to understand?

Are you saying that you automatically accept an arbitrary conversion rate set by a third party bank? What if they charged you three times more dollars than you would pay using the official Visa exchange rate? Would you accept that as well?

 

[FrankPintor]

POS = "Point of Sale" in this context

 

[AdrianB]

Huh what? What's a POS machine? I bought some soccer shirts from a store with a credit card. At 5 Reals to a dollar it should have costs X but it actually cost Xy. My credit card does not charge a foreign transaction fee, the bank that the store I bought the shirts in does charge a foreign transaction fee. When using a credit card for a purchase ones bill does not show what the cost was in the native currency, Date, Store, Cost... Why is that hard to understand?

It is not hard to understand but you don't understand fundamental things about how card transactions work.

POS machine is the machine the store uses to take credit cards. If you use Visa, Mastercard or some other card their payment network is used. There is no "bank that the store uses".

All of my cards show transactions in native currency, it might be american card thing if this is not shown, I wouldn't know about that. Maybe your bank doesn't charge a foreign transaction fee but they are either giving you a terrible rate or the store is charging you in US dollars which gives you a terrible rate, that can easily be avoided by making sure the store charges you in Reals.

As other people also mentioned usually there is no issues using cards in Brasil at all. If you want to find out what was the problem you could ask your bank if the transaction was charged in reals or in dollars. If it was charged in reals then ask the bank what rate was used, this rate was set by your bank. It should clarify things for you.

 

[mrverde]

I have never/ever seen a credit card reference the cost in the native country and their conversion rate. Ever.
CC's reference the date/where transaction was made/cost in dollars.
The business also would not change the price of the item based on my CC,
the banks that transacted my purchases in Brazil charged a foreign transaction fee(and probably a bad conversion rate), my CC company did not but they do not controll the other banks.
To summarize, Cash is King in this situation. IMO

I've lived in Brazil for 15+ years and have only had this happen one time: when a particular store had a particular POS machine that presented the choice between their (the processor's) exchange rate (i.e if I wanted to be charged in USD) or my CC's rate (i.e charged in R$ and let my CC handle the conversion), and the checker chose the former without verifying with me. This practice is very common in some countries (i.e Poland - but they always ask!). It could be that the person processing your transaction simply made the choice for you without understanding what it meant - that wouldn't be uncommon in BR.

 

[ArgentinaVet]

POS systems in Brasil offering "dynamic currency conversion" option(choose an amount in USD or BRL on the touch screen of the POS) are actually pretty common; however it is a SCAM so always choose to process the payment in BRL as it will be cheaper.

 

[elhombresinnombre]

POS = "Point of Sale" in this context

I reckon an alternative translation to "Piece Of Sh*t" also works here.