Quote:
Originally Posted by taming
It is a fee your US bank charges, not Kobo (which is located in Canada). Welcome to our world. Many of our banks charge similar fees when we Canadians purchase from the US. US banks seem especially fond of doing this, btw, when the US dollar is relatively weak against a currency like the CA or AU dollar, both of which have been flirting with par for the last little while.
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Right, plus it's not the bank alone adding the fees. The Federal Reserve Clearing House also tacks on transaction fees on top of currency exchange fees charged by banks as well as the credit card issuer and company. Anyone who has ever accepted credit card payments via a merchant account or even PayPal is well aware of all these fees to simply accept the payment and not including the higher discount rate (the fee the card processor/bank charges the merchant) is always a point or two higher for international transactions. I have had it where the cost to me a was $10 before we ever got to the discount rate being applied to the payment. And we get dinged for international checks, money orders, transfers or anything else than crosses boarders. So no form of payment is inexpensive. I have to mark-up prices to international customers a good 3%-5% depending on the form of payment.
And oh yeah, to say that Amazon, Kobo or whoever should just eat those costs, why not tell the banks and clearing houses that. These business are no different than any of us in that they don't want to pay those fees so they pass them off onto us. Unfortunately we the consumer are at the bottom of this particular food chain. Just take your lumps or live with the books you have on hand, it is how it is.