Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I would agree that B&H should perhaps consider revising this policy. As the original poster stated, there is complete freedom of movement and residence within the EU, and it is extremely common for, say, a British person to live in Spain, or a Polish person in the UK. It's really not fair at all to impose this restriction.
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Quite correct.
Having followed the thread here is my 2 cents worth.
As a retired expatriate resident in Spain I have Visa & M.C. credit cards from my home country bank accounts with the billing address set to my Spanish residence.
I make purchases not only from the USA but world wide and have never heard anything so ridiculous as
*Billing and delivery address for credit card purchases must be in the same country as the card providers address*.
I wonder what Visa and MasterCard have to say about this.
I have a Spanish bank account but don’t have a Spanish credit card because they are too expensive. (And not necessary as the € bank debit card is sufficient for €uro zone purchases).
Apart from a punitive annual fee, they are horrendously expensive for purchases outside the €uro zone.
E.g. (in this case)
1/ To purchase goods to the value of say $500 from the USA they (CC provider) convert the dollars to €uro’s at a rate they set, then charge you up to 5% in fees just for doing it.
2/ Then a refund of $500 would be converted back to €uro’s at a rate they set, possibly 5 to 6% worse than when buying – apart from any currency fluctuations.
3/ And again they levy the 5% service charge for doing so.
So put simply, (assuming my math is correct), the charges would be (Dollars for clarity),
1/ 5% on $500 = $25 service charge. For the purchase.
For the refund.
2/ worst case 6% of $500 = $30 difference between buy / sell Dollars
3/ 5% on $500 = $25 service charge on refund.
A total of $80 for basically doing nothing.
(In practice a little higher as the charge is on the final converted sum)
As is said elsewhere in this thread, had B&H made a
pending charge to the CC to confirm funds and address detail
before they decided if they wanted the business or not, then, if they did not confirm the charge to the CC it would have expired as unconfirmed with no fees etc. & no need for a refund.
It seems pretty clear whose responsibility this error was.
I think anybody in this position has every right to be upset, as it clearly was not of their making but purely B&H inventing an un published term/condition to try to cover their a***s.
I’ve only had one occasion with a similar situation & that was with a Pay Pal payment and in that case a refund meant just that - full refund of the capital and all fees.
Gene