Well I finally found out where the extra charges are coming from. My bank is passing the fee on down to me. Also as I read it, the bank is supposed to notify me of the extra charges but of course they haven't.
This short summary explains it.
Effective April 2008, the conditions under which Visa USA (Visa) charges financial institutions its International Service Assessment (ISA) are changing. Previously, Visa only charged the ISA on international transactions that involved currency conversion. So, for example, if a cardholder used a Visa-branded debit card in Mexico and the transaction was converted from pesos to U.S. dollars, Visa would charge the card-issuing financial institution an ISA of 1%. On the other hand, if the merchant settled in U.S. dollars, the card-issuing financial institution would not be charged an ISA. With this change, however, Visa will now charge financial institutions an ISA on all international transactions regardless of whether there is a currency conversion. This is similar to the change MasterCard made a few years ago. However, instead of using two separate fees, Visa is charging financial institutions a different amount depending on whether the international transaction involves a currency conversion. If there is no currency conversion (what Visa labels a single-currency transaction) the ISA is 0.8% of the transaction; if there is a currency conversion (a multi-currency transaction) the ISA will continue to be 1% of the transaction. Visa defines an international transaction as a transaction where the issuers country (i.e., the card-issuing financial institutions country) is different than the merchants country. Thus, a transaction over the Internet could qualify as an international transaction.
I have been getting charged a seperate .40 cents per transacton called an " INTL SERVICE FEE"
