7 On Your Side is getting a lot of questions from consumers who think they might be part of a scam, but the good news is they aren't. There are 10 million checks worth $336 million are going out to consumers who charged items overseas and paid a fee for converting the charge back into dollars.
Diners Club, Visa, MasterCard and Member Banks are accused of hiding the conversion fee by adding them in as part of the charge, rather than a separate line item. All deny wrong doing and say they agreed to settle to avoid costly litigation.
Conversion fees are still being charged, but are now disclosed. Still, Consumer Action's Joe Ridout says there is no reason for you to pay the fee.
"You can avoid these by using cards that don't charge them. Capital One cards, for example, never charge foreign currency conversion fees and they're probably the easiest way to avoid them," said Ridout.
He also points out that most Capital One cards don't charge an annual fee either. The average conversion charge is about 3 percent.
