Avoid ATM fees

Compass Bank offers the same. We switched from Wells Fargo to Compass for this feature!

Ditto Capital One ATM card (not credit card), but not usable as debit card, which is not an issue. I'd love to say we switched from Wells Fargo for this, but unfortunately we need to keep the brick and mortar bank which we've been at for 32 years - which has gone through several buyouts abd the latest had to merge with Wells Fargo to protect itself. And service has gotten awful since then.

First Fidelity Bank offers the same thing - if you incur an ATM fee anywhere in the world, keep the receipts and they will reimburse you.

I have a Wells Fargo account and I have never paid a foreign currency exchange or any other fee. Be careful. There are currency exchange "fees" which are a percentage of the dollar amount of foreign currency you receive and there are ATM fees, usually $1-2. Just because your bank doesn't charge you an ATM fee, doesn't mean they don't get you with an unfavorable exchange rate. Check the rate for that day against the international rate on oanda.com. Most small banks, without a foreign currency operation, will only charge you the 1% network charge. All banks have to pay most of the 1% fee, but many banks and credit unions absorb it.

This will give you an idea of what some banks charge http://flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Credit/Debit/ATM_Cards_and_Foreign_Exchange The exchange rate is set by the network (Visa, MasterCard)
not by the banks.

Careful. You are confusing a "fee" from adjusting the exchange rate by 1% (called the Network Foreign Currency Exchange fee) and the fee charged by your bank here in the U.S. (often $1 or $2, up to $5) for your using an "out of system ATM", which costs them nothing. So a bank might honestly say they have no ATM fee but be collecting a "fee" in the form of the exchange rate. The Network (Visa, MC, Plus, Cirrus, et al) charges the bank 1%, about ½% for the foreign transaction and ½% for the currency exchage. Some banks, with their own currency exchange operation, absorb the ½% transaction fee but pay the Network in Euro, GBP, etc, avoiding the exchange rate fee. Then they charge you 3% for their currency exchange (for collecting from you in USD and paying the network in foreign currency. Even at 3% plus $5, you are probably better off than using a currency exchange counter.

Lee, The banks don't 'adjust' the exchange rate. A class action suit resulted in the banks in the U.S. showing all fees. There should be a seperate line item for out of network charge and for foreign transaction charge.
The networks use an exchange rate very close to the interbank rate then charge your bank for the service.

Juno said, "Cash machines in Europe rarely, if ever, charge a fee over what you withdraw for your use of them with your out-of-country ATM card". I'm afraid I disagree. Europe and the UK have two kinds of similar looking but different ATMs. There are the ones which are attached, physically or logically, with banks - generally they charge no usage fee to anybody; there are private ATMs which belong to the location or a convenience business. Virtually all ATMs in places like shops, sports locations, frequently at petrol stations, etc., will charge a significant fee to any user just for the convenience factor. There are also a number of banks, especially in Italy from my experience, who charge if you are not from their group of banks. A word to the wise is to read what it says on the machine when you approach, and what it says after it switches the language on the screen. I have never seen one which did not warn you first. (Yes, the warning on the machine is often in the native language only, the one on the screen is after the language has changed). Look carefully if the machine is on its own where you might think that it is there for convenience.

Maybe "adjust" wasn't the best description. Yes, a former bank showed a separate line item of 3% for "currency" conversion, but the bottom line was that if the Interbank rate was $1.30/€, I got charged 3% more, $1.339/€, for the cash I got, then a $3 charge by the bank for using someone else's ATM. (That's why the are a former bank.) It's a game of semantics. Some banks pay the Network in Euro, avoiding the ½% currency conversion charge so that they can charge you 3% for currency conversion. And if all they charge you is 3% for currency conversion they can still claim "no ATM fees". Several years ago I went to a USBank branch and asked them about the cost of using their card at an ATM in Europe. They all swore that there were "no ATM fees" with their card. I went home and carefully read the fine print on their website and found they charged 2% (it was a long time ago) for currency conversion.

Juno - I am curious abut your numbers, they are TOO good. According to your math, you paid LESS than the conversion rate!
$617.28 divided by 500 euros, giving your cost, is LESS than the posted rate for euros per dollar that day (or the day before or after!)

Ok, I was about to come and post a question similar to this. How do you know if the Atm charges a fee?? It sounds like you should use ones next to banks not at rail stations. If they charge a fee, then it says on there somewhere..Is that correct?? Also, it seems some of you are comparing apples and oranges. What I can find out is: My compass bank will refund charges ATM fees if there are any, but will charge a 3 percent foreign transaction fee. So to withdraw 250 dollars will cost $7. 50. USAA will also refund ATM fees ( yes, they said worldwide) up to 15 dollars a month. They charge a 1 percent conversion, so it would cost me $2.50 cents. A Capitol One bank account charges 2 dollars for every Atm transaction along with any fee the ATm itself charges, but they have no foreign transaction fee. So It would cost me 2 dollars to withdraw that $250 plus any fees the ATm charges. I'm thinking of opening our Europe checking account with USAA. It looks like Capitol One might be a little cheaper, but we have a 20 year relationship with USAA and they handle our insurance and have always been a pleasure to work with. Am I missing something?? Christine

Christine, I have probably made two dozen ATM withdrawals in Germany/Austria in the last 10 years. A third have been at bank ATMs in airports when I arrived. The rest, as far as I know, have all been at ATMs in banks. I've been charged a percentage for currency conversion, and I have paid my bank a fee for using someone elses ATM, but I have never been charged a fee by the ATM's owner. In this country, when I have used an ATM not owned by my bank, I have been charged a fee by the owner of that ATM (as well as a fee by my bank), but never in Europe. I once saw a message on one of "my bank's" ATMs that said that they charge customers from other banks in the U.S. a fee. That implied that they don't charge European customers a fee. I suspect it might be some sort of a Network rule.

I can't speak for other card fees, but I can accurately speak for CapitalOne and Wells Fargo. We used our Capital One card, on PLUS network, linked to money market account, only good at ATMs, exclusively in Czech Republic and Amsterdam this summer. There was NEVER a fee for the ATM transaction, by the local ATM nor by our bank, as was promised by CapOne. In terms of the conversion, the deduction at each withdrawal was within cents of 1/2 of 1% more than what would have been indicated by that day's published exchange rate. I do not believe that can be beaten. This also means that the info in the link above (flyerguide) is not correct. The previous summer our long-standing card from Wachovia lost about 3.7% in the combined fee + exchange rate, the bulk of this in the in the fee. We had also made the rookie mistake of getting Euro through the bank before we left, and this cost a one time $15 fee (IIRC) plus a worse exchange rate. And at that point, Wells Fargo was already in charge of Wachovia.
We made the mistake of using our Mastercard for purchases that first trip. Every charge generated an additional 3% fee for the international transaction (a fee that also appears when we purchased advance tickets on the 'net for items on our trip - music and transit - but that is pretty much unavoidable) added on the statement. The conversion rates themselves appear to have all been done at the published rates when processed, but this still means a 3% fee rather than 1/2 % for using cash. To be continued...

Continued Just want to add-I am not shilling (pun intended!) for Capital One, I know there are other banks and credit unions out there with offers that are just as good. There is a lot of discussion on this on the Graffiti Wall, "ATMs: Minimizing Fees". And I am not trying to get into a how cheap can we get discussion, as the amounts here represent a small fraction of a trip. But I AM opposed to unnecessarily giving away any of my hard-earned money for unnecessary "vampire" fees to the banks. They don't need it. Also note the post from "Juno" om Dec 5. The conversion can't be right. According to those numbers, he paid LESS for his euros than the day's best conversion rate. If this is truehow do the rest of us get that deal??

Just trying to bring a little clarity. The exchange rates are set by the networks, see http://usa.visa.com/personal/using_visa/exchange_rates_faq.html On 5/17 the rate hit 1.2393 on 5/18 it hit 1.2177 this was a very big move so I suspect that the day's rate was set somewhere between the two. I don't know precisely when the rate is set. Juno's number seem right to me. There is no 'official' interbank rate it is a moving target and depending on what database you use you can get a different answer. I have used over 200 bancomats in Italy and never been charged a fee by the bank owning them. Remember it is who owns a bancomat (bank or private) not where it is located that determines if there is a fee. Don't use private bancomats unless you are willing to pay a fee and they will tell you that there is a fee. The link I gave http://flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Credit/Debit/ATM_Cards_and_Foreign_Exchange
was just to give you an idea of what banks charge. You have to check with each bank because fees can change with the type of card or account you have with them.