Be careful when using your credit cards abroad

I recently had a hunch that my various American credits were charging me different amounts for purchases made in Europe.

Now put aside for a moment the fact that our credit card companies refuse to use the microchips that European credit cards now have, so you can't even use American credit cards in many places in Europe anymore (we're number one!). The other problem many Americans might not be aware of is that our credit card companies are charging us an extra fee to use our cards outside of the US. (Probably because it's really really hard for them to do the math.)

Now, lest they claim that this fee is being used to pay for the cost of the currency conversion, why is it that every credit card issuer charges a different fee for the same transaction? That's because they're simply gouging us.

Here's a quick comparison of my credit cards:

United States Senate Federal Credit Union
1% conversion fee to use credit card from abroad (i.e., they charge you an additional 1% of your purchase)

ING Direct
2% conversion fee to use credit card from abroad

American Express
2.7% conversion fee to use credit card abroad

Needless to say, I won't be using either ING or AMEX ever against while I'm abroad. It really ticks me off that a European bank (ING) is charging me extra to use my credit card in... Europe. Then there's AMEX, a company that prides itself on members services. In addition to the fact that it's simply inconvenient to use them as your travel card -a lot of places simply refuse to take them - but they charge you the highest annual fee of any other credit card, and they end being the biggest gouger of them all.