International Financing Charge?

[false_Aest]

Hey,

All this talk about credit card fraud made me check my statements for the last few months. I noticed an International Financing charge being applied every few weeks. Called the CC company. Apparently when I make foreign purchases I get hit with a 3% charge.

Strange.

Anyone else see this on their cc bills?

[zmudshark]

Normal for most CCs

[znfdl]

Credit Card company's make their most money from fees.

Must be a foreign exchange fee that they are using to goose their earnings.

[zap]

One of my cc started charging a fee 6-7 years ago and now all my cards charge a fee.

The good thing is that cc exchange rates are pretty good. Even with the charge, I find the cc rate is 1-1.5 points better than most banks in the US and Europe.

[Polyglot]

One of my cc started charging a fee 6-7 years ago and now all my cards charge a fee.

The good thing is that cc exchange rates are pretty good. Even with the charge, I find the cc rate is 1-1.5 points better than most banks in the US and Europe.

American banks charge a fortune on foreign exchange (about 5% plus/minus from mid-rate), you can generally get a far better rate from continental European banks (I can generally get about 1.5-2% from mid-rate from Italian banks), so if the credit card is charging a supplement of 3% over their rate (which is generally about 1% over mid-rate), you are actually paying a total of about 4%.

If you want to verify rate, check out this website: http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic it is the best that I know of.