Most on this board understand that using a card at checkout you can get a choice to pay in Pesos or US Dollars. The Dollar one will cost you more EVERY time. Well they have taken this to a new level. Normally you get two choices and you click on the one at the left which is Pesos. Today I encountered one that automatically gave a terrible US Dollar amount and NO peso amount visible. Looking close you had to click to even get to a choice, and it was on the opposite side of where it used to be. The charge in US was over $53, I managed to pay in Pesos. Upon checking online what the card charged me in Dollars was $47.20. So they are charging more than 10% to bill you in Dollars. COMPLETE ROBBERY......
- Thread starter SKY
- Start date
New Robbery Uncovered at Check Out with Card
Read my post. No site, this was at a store in the DR..........
US Card i guess !? I have only Dominican cards and never encountered this issue.
This was at Licormart in Bavaro. It was the machine you put your card in but the program was different than before. I saw the charge in Pesos and the screen changed to a conversion to Dollars. I had to click to get the option of pesos or Dollars. If I just hit enter on the machine I would have been robbed. Pay attention to the screen and don't let the cashier just swipe your card and hit enter...........
One more thing, if you don't pay attention you would probably NEVER know it even happened because your charge would only show the US Dollar price because it was US card. So you may have been hit with this and did not ever know.........
I rarely use a US debit or credit card here, but I've seen that at Playero checkout and Sirena Market, also.
Sirena, Jumbo, Nacional, and Iberia all have some version of this. Pay attention if you are using a US based card.....................And NEVER take anything other than Pesos..........
Update: Another attempted hold up. This time bill was 1,100 rd in a Laundry . Go here all the time with both DR and US cards. Same machine type. Tried to charge me $21.50 US. I did not fall for it and was charged $18.25 on my card checking later. We are talking about charging 20% more. Now in a grocery store here you can easily spend 200-300 US figure paying 20% more on that one.You
The scam goes like this. They used to put two prices up, on the left in Pesos and the right US. So if you click either 1 or the button on the left above it you get pesos. Right you get robbed. Now they go straight to a US amount and if you click Enter or the button on the left like you are trained to do your screwed. The girl was reaching for the left button and I stopped her. No one even knows about this....Be careful, they are all over the place now...........You have to press the button on the far right.
The scam goes like this. They used to put two prices up, on the left in Pesos and the right US. So if you click either 1 or the button on the left above it you get pesos. Right you get robbed. Now they go straight to a US amount and if you click Enter or the button on the left like you are trained to do your screwed. The girl was reaching for the left button and I stopped her. No one even knows about this....Be careful, they are all over the place now...........You have to press the button on the far right.
This is a terminal that is on the customer side of the checkout where you yourself enter your card? I'm sorry, I have no clue as I don't use cards in the DR... If this is the case, then why would the staff member have even their hands on the machine? I'm only used to POS where the card reader is next to the customer, so it's so far away from the cashier that they cannot reach it...
I would have been offended as why would the cashier decide on the currency you want to pay??? That's just stupid?
Sometimes they're trying to be helpful. But most of the times if you don't press pesos they will ask and not push.
In my experience sometimes they will ask "pesos or dollars" other times they will just assume because it is a US card that I want dollars. I always tell them pesos.
Yes, but now they don't ask anything. Just shows the charge in Dollars and if you hit enter you get robbed for 20%. You have to hit the button on the far right. I would like to have a piece of this racket. Free money.......
Thanks for sharing.
I use a PayPal Master Card down here four times a month on average, usually at La Siren or El Canto. I've never seen this as you described however I will certainly be a bit more cautious going forward. I will also share this information with my foreign friends who live here.