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A Fee Even the Card Issuers Cannot Explain





At least, my credit union offers a card that is free from foreign exchange conversion fees.

From Wall Street Journal:

Why such a hefty fee? To find out, I dialed Wells Fargo's customer hotline. The first phone representative admitted she had no idea. The second said it was because the bank needed to make more money. Neither answer quite worked for me, so I called the bank in my official capacity as a journalist. A spokeswoman said the combined 3 percent levy, which the bank has had in place since 2000, was necessary to cover both the "convenience" of using a card overseas and the cost and risk of the currency conversion.

Interesting concepts, but she was unable to elaborate with actual examples of Wells Fargo's expenses.

One of the most convincing explanations for these credit card charges came from Linda Sherry, a spokeswoman for Consumer Action, a nonprofit advocacy organization based in San Francisco that tracks credit card fees. "There's no legitimate reason for credit cards to charge currency-transaction fees," Ms. Sherry told me. "Simply put, it's a profit center for the banks and card companies. It's found money."

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