45

OK JJack, obviously you are choosing to ignore the point. YOU are losing 2.5% or more if you travel outside of Canada and use your Scotia Bank cards. If you don't consider that worth knowing (as it is clear from what you have written that you didn't already know this), that's up to you. It's your money to throw away.

As for your repeated comments about my son, grow up. My son has no difficulty managing his money. You are simply interested in trying to find a 'put down'. Immature behaviour indeed.

It's clear to me JJack who is full of himself here. You are.

46

My son has no difficulty managing his money

oh sorry, I guess I misunderstood when you said "I have a son who is a VP with HSBC Canada and he comes to me to find out how to handle money when travelling". My mistake.

You are simply interested in trying to find a 'put down'

nah, just having a bit of lighthearted fun with a fellow poster who obviously takes himself way too seriously.

p.s. I don't lose any money when I travel ouside Canada using my cards.

47

So now do you want to sidetrack the thread from your ignorance of credit card charges in relation to a traveller and instead discuss my son? We can do that if you really want to. Yes you misunderstood and yes you made a mistake but it's hardly the only time you've done either is it.

As for your p.s. you don't lose money, you are wrong, plain and simple. Unless you can provide a link to a bank website covering the card you have and showing that they do not charge exchange loading, you are simply expressing an ill-informed opinion, not making a statement of FACT.

Look at the following link. You will see a list on the left of all the Scotia bank credit cards (14 of them) that the info on the page covers. On the right you will see the fees charged on those cards. The 6th one down is 'foreign currency conversion' and guess what, it is 2.5%. That is a DOCUMENTED FACT.
http://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/0,,697,00.html

I suggest that rather than responding to questions about topics you are not well informed about, you stick to what you perhaps do know about. Maybe food, the title of that branch is appropriate I think.

48

poor manfy.

49

Impressive displays of cluelessness on all sides. Poor Manfy indeed.

50

Why poor manfy? I gave manfy the info she needed in #10 and she acknowledged it in #11. So I see no 'poor manfy'. She hasn't needed to read beyond that.

It's in trying to educated poor JJ as to how a Canadian should handle money when travelling that all the nonsense has occurred. I had not known that JJ was a troll markharf. I do agree I was clueless in that regard. Now I know however and will act accordingly.

51

I do agree I was clueless in that regard

And in some other regards, but who's counting eh?

52

A fool and his money are soon parted. Particularly those who CAN'T count eh?

53

if you really want to get jj going, tell us how much you like the cycle lanes in vancouver.

54

This exchange reminds me that half the people in the world are below average in intelligence. Some of them obviously post on this branch.

55

Baloney. Try paying for pretty much anything with a debit or credit card in India, except at large and expensive hotels and shops and they'll laugh you out the door. Big chunks oif the planet don't operate on plastic for daily transactions.
My standard Canadian debit cards from RBC, TD and BMO also frequently do not work in such developing countries as the USA, France and UK on merchant machines. US bars restaurants hotels and shops usually only accept debit cards that are chipped by VISA or MC. That massive consumer scam is only emerging now in Canada. It wil cost all of us hundreds of millions in new fees, fees that JJack will undoubtedly deny as well.
Of course, those same standard debit cards work to obtain cash in any machine that shows the Cirrus emblem. But not at POS systems.

56

All true thoughpolice although I would argue that you can still use the debit card to get the cash rather than carrying a lot of cash from home. It just takes a bit of forethought.

Regarding use of your Canadian cards in 'developing countries as the USA', that raises an interesting point. Not only do they sometimes not work, but they cost more to use. Visa/MC do not allow banks to charge an ATM useage fee when someone uses a 'foreign' card to make a withdrawal.

So for example, if someone from France visits the US or Canada, the US or Canadian bank cannot charge them $5.00 to use their ATM. That is contrary to you using your RBC card in a CIBC ATM and being charged that $5.00 as a 'domestic' user. However, somehow the US and Canadian banks are exempted from that restriction by Visa/MC for users between the two countries. So use your Canadian card in say a Wells Fargo ATM in the US and they can charge you that $5.00 usage fee that they can't charge to someone using a French bank card.

Chip and Pin technology has been slow coming to N. America and has created problems for travellers to other countries where it is standard such as in Europe. But my favourite piece of apperent senselessness is the 'tap and pay' technology we now have in Canada.

Given all the credit card scams, identity theft, password/pin protection and the attempts to make cards more secure including chips, how they figure 'tap and pay' is a good idea is beyond me. Lose or have your card stolen and all the person has to do is 'tap and pay' with it. It makes all the password/pin/chip security useless. LOL

57

I use my Canadian bank card/debit card in US ATMs - as long as it's at a bank, I've never been charged a fee for using it. I also use it in bank machines in France and England regularly, and have never been charged a fee in either of those countries either.

Last year I moved from Canada to France for 6 months and took almost no cash with me. A bank card and 2 visa cards, which I didn't carry together, and I never had a single issue. Oh, and I wasn't in France the entire time - I also had trips to Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, transit in the US, Istanbul, Switzerland, and England during those 6 months. The only place I ever had any problem at all was using my credit cards in the Metro - for some reason I couldn't load my monthly transit pass on the automatic machines with a foreign credit card and I had to pay at the manned station. The very same machines accepted my credit card for individual tickets or 1 week passes, just not the more expensive passes.

Although I recognize that exchange loading exists, and try to minimize it where possible, the fact is that exchanging currency pretty much always has a fee attached to it. In the old days I used travellers cheques, which you had to pay 1% (or whatever it was) to buy and then cashing them was always a bit of hassle; cash exchanges also had commissions of up to 5% depending where you went. Exchange loading is a sort of equivalent charge, in my mind, and it's far more convenient than the old systems were.

58

It appears Scrubb, that you understand (unlike some) that when you say you've never been charged a fee, you realize you are referring to a ATM transaction fee, not exchange loading. That you don't refer to the exchange loading as a fee means you have bought the Bank's story that it is 'fee free'.

But you are using thinking based on banking in Canada when you say exchanging currency pretty much always has a fee attached. That is true if you bank in Canada but that is NOT true in some other countries such as the UK for example or with the card I originally referenced here from Australia.

The question is why do Canadian banks get away with this when banks in other countries offer far better deals including totally free exchange loading.

Re using your card in the US, ATM fee free. That's true for some banks and not true for others. Try it on a Wells Fargo ATM and you'll see what I mean. They will charge you for using their ATM. The issue is why is it that Canada/USA banks do not have to comply with the Visa/MC restriction on charging foreign cards.

Basically what I'm saying Scrubb is that Canadian banks suck when it comes to providing world leading systems and services. Their technology is behind the times and their charging for every little thing is at the top of the class.

59

Yes, I already covered that, debits work at bank ATMs to get cash. But your standard bank issue Canadian debit card won't work at US or European POS systems- like stores or restaurants etc unless it is Visa/MC issue. Of course, they charge the merchants big fees on both debit and credit cards, and those fees are passed to you, all of them, directly or indirectly.

This is new to Canafda, and it will cost all of us a whole, whole lot of money we have never had to pay before. Ourt Interac system was very cheap, the coming Visa/MC debit systems will not be. Teh banks don;t give a rats ass, they get a cut from Visa/MC, a cut they don't get from pour Interac which is very inexpensive for consumers.