OT: following Amazon's lead regarding FOREX fees on international orders by cc

[Chris Wagner-8]

Hello Guys

a fair share of K3s and other kits are sold overseas. The buyers' credit
cards are denominated in some other currency like GBP, AUD or EUR.
Henceforth, their bank often charges up to 2% for the currency conversion.
On a $ 2,500 order that's $ 50!

If Elecraft could get their cc processing company or bank to quote sale
prices in the leading currencies by customers' transaction volume, folks
would save thousands. Amazon is doing it... When their computer noticed me
entering a UK cc, they offered to pay in GBP.

Vy 73 de Chris (I spent over $ 250 on such FOREX charges over the years)
760 820 4980
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[Gary Gregory]

Yes Please.

Gary

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 9:06 AM, Chris Wagner <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hello Guys
>
> a fair share of K3s and other kits are sold overseas. The buyers' credit
> cards are denominated in some other currency like GBP, AUD or EUR.
> Henceforth, their bank often charges up to 2% for the currency conversion.
> On a $ 2,500 order that's $ 50!
>
> If Elecraft could get their cc processing company or bank to quote sale
> prices in the leading currencies by customers' transaction volume, folks
> would save thousands. Amazon is doing it... When their computer noticed me
> entering a UK cc, they offered to pay in GBP.
>
> Vy 73 de Chris (I spent over $ 250 on such FOREX charges over the years)
> 760 820 4980
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>

--
Gary
VK4FD - Motorhome Mobile
http://www.qsl.net/vk4fd/
K3 #679
For everything else there's Mastercard!!!
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[Joe Subich, W4TV-4]

 > If Elecraft could get their cc processing company or bank to quote
 > sale prices in the leading currencies by customers' transaction
 > volume, folks would save thousands.

In general all that does is move the forex exchange fee from the
customer to the vendor or the credit card processing application
builds the merchant's forex conversion cost into the quoted price.

Most consumers can save on forex by shopping for a credit card with
the lowest conversion margin ... US based cards will range from as
little as 0.5% to more than 3%.  When my son first went to school
in VE we picked up a card for him with no margin on conversion
(unfortunately it is no longer available).

73,

    ... Joe, W4TV


On 8/30/2010 7:06 PM, Chris Wagner wrote:

> Hello Guys
>
> a fair share of K3s and other kits are sold overseas. The buyers' credit
> cards are denominated in some other currency like GBP, AUD or EUR.
> Henceforth, their bank often charges up to 2% for the currency conversion.
> On a $ 2,500 order that's $ 50!
>
> If Elecraft could get their cc processing company or bank to quote sale
> prices in the leading currencies by customers' transaction volume, folks
> would save thousands. Amazon is doing it... When their computer noticed me
> entering a UK cc, they offered to pay in GBP.
>
> Vy 73 de Chris (I spent over $ 250 on such FOREX charges over the years)
> 760 820 4980

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[Bob Nielsen-2]

I wonder about that.  My wife bought something in a shop in Oxford a few years back.  They rang  up the credit card sale in US dollars, but the exchange rate used was a bit low PLUS the card company still added a fee for it being a foreign transaction.  I compared it to some purchase in GBP and he foreign exchange charge would have been a better deal at the time (although the banks seem to have increased these fees lately).

It also might result in some additional charges to Elecraft, resulting in higher list prices.

On Aug 30, 2010, at 4:06 PM, Chris Wagner wrote:

> Hello Guys
>
> a fair share of K3s and other kits are sold overseas. The buyers' credit
> cards are denominated in some other currency like GBP, AUD or EUR.
> Henceforth, their bank often charges up to 2% for the currency conversion.
> On a $ 2,500 order that's $ 50!
>
> If Elecraft could get their cc processing company or bank to quote sale
> prices in the leading currencies by customers' transaction volume, folks
> would save thousands. Amazon is doing it... When their computer noticed me
> entering a UK cc, they offered to pay in GBP.

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[Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ]

  Lets end this thread for now.

We're a lot smaller than Amazon, but we'll take a look at this.

Joe is probably correct though, in general all that changes is that the
vendor (us) is charged for the transfer fee and we end up increasing the
product price to cover it.

73, Eric WA6HHQ
Elecraft list Modulator
---

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