Has anybody else come across this recently? I bought a game from Sony Entertainment Network as part of their Easter sale. The transaction was in AUD, but Westpac charged me an FX fee because apparently since March there has been a policy change such that any transactions processed overseas in will incur a fee, even if it's in AUD.
I suppose it's not entirely unreasonable, but it was a bit of a surprise and shock for me.
Is it just Westpac, or have other banks started doing this too?
Last I checked every single bank in Australia charges a FX fee, except for Citibank which is 0%. So, I highly recommend opening an account with them purely for online shopping. Be forewarned though, their online banking is archaic and they are sloooooooow, its not real time like the Commonwealth Bank.
Their online banking was upgraded last week (or maybe the week before) and is much, much better! It was absolutely shocking before, but now it's quite user-friendly in my opinion. Still not the best, but much more manageable.
This has been the case with most major banks, best to use a card which does not charge an FX fee to be safe, such as a Bankwest Platinum credit card or 28 Degrees from GE.
I think zzyss's issue is not that he doesn't have a Citibank, 28 Degrees or Bankwest Platinum card, but rather that the transaction was made in AUD so he didn't think he would have to use those cards (rather, relying on his Westpac rewards card).
The fact that you've been charged an overseas transaction fee for a transaction in AUD is weird. Let me know how the investigation goes.
Yes, that's correct. The transaction was for AUD, so the fee is for an "overseas transaction" NOT, I repeat NOT, for foreign currency exchange.
The gotcha is that in most cases there is absolutely no way of telling whether the online store you are buying from is going to be billing in Australia or not. Not just the big companies, mind you, even some of your eBay or Paypal purchases from so-called "Australian" sellers.
Your points are good. However the only way to solve the issue apart from some actions by the regulators (Consumer advice) is for us to help each other based on unfortunately past experiences
I have created a wiki here at Ozbargain to record these sites
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/wiki/australian_sites_that_char…
Great idea!
I note that some of these companies:
-Charge more if you are in Australia.
-Avoid avoid paying tax in Australia.
-Advertise an Australian Price, yet will be processing overseas and customer will be hit with "overseas transaction fee" (At least if in US$ you would expect it).
A triple negative.
Great idea and work by Rocky !
I can only hope that if the banks/consumer affairs get sick of dealing with these complaints, (read costing them money to deal with complaints) something might happen.
Found a discussion on Whirlpool that mentions that HSBC have always charged this:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1997812
I guess the interesting thing here is that especially with your Big Tech companies (Apple, Google, Sony, etc.) you really can't know whether or not they're going to be billing from an overseas merchant, therefore as a consumer you can't make an informed decision.
I've submitted an enquiry to the ACCC about this. Will see how they respond.