Paypal policy update : to read seriously !!!

[Zo]

https://www.paypal.com/fr/webapps/mpp/ua/upcoming-policies-full?locale.x=en_FR

[mibby]

Honestly, my eyes glazed over after a few paragraphs, which is exactly what they wanted, no doubt.  I DID happen to see a  3.5%-4% "Conversion" Fee between currencies??  

PayPal has been getting to be a more and more expensive option.  What else is there?   

[BassDaddy]

a more expensive option for what?

[antler]

I've always found the PayPal exchange rate to be more expensive than that for my credit card, and usually end up choosing to pay in a foreign currency.

[Matthew Sorrels]

I usually use Paypal because my credit card also tags on a 3% foreign transaction fee.  Which they don't do when Paypal does the conversion and I use my bank account.  Looks like they are closing this loophole?  The only good news is the GBP is down a lot vs the dollar and may keep getting hammered till they finish leaving.  Sadly too many merchants insist on billing in USD if you are US and they do the conversion from a price including VAT.  Then Fastspring tacks on your local sales tax, on top of the currency conversion and "included" VAT.  I have no problem paying my local sales tax, assuming it gets sent here (yeah right),  but paying sales tax on top of a price including VAT converted to dollars bothers me.

[mibby]

1 hour ago, BassDaddy said:

a more expensive option for what?

Than leaving my credit card info on umpteen zillion online sites...  Although these days, it seems anyone and everyone is getting hacked.

[kitekrazy]

 This may be the incentive I need not to buy more stuff.   I was gonna go for one of the Melda bundles until I seen they added local sales tax which is 8.6%.

[antler]

You can still use PayPal to pay, but back it with your credit card and choose to pay in a foreign currency. That way, the seller only knows about your PayPal account, but your credit card company does the currency conversion (which for me is slightly cheaper than PayPal's).

[Reid Rosefelt]

2 hours ago, Matthew Sorrels said:

I usually use Paypal because my credit card also tags on a 3% foreign transaction fee.  Which they don't do when Paypal does the conversion and I use my bank account.  Looks like they are closing this loophole?  The only good news is the GBP is down a lot vs the dollar and may keep getting hammered till they finish leaving.  Sadly too many merchants insist on billing in USD if you are US and they do the conversion from a price including VAT.  Then Fastspring tacks on your local sales tax, on top of the currency conversion and "included" VAT.  I have no problem paying my local sales tax, assuming it gets sent here (yeah right),  but paying sales tax on top of a price including VAT converted to dollars bothers me.

Aren't the foreign transaction fees just for sellers and not for buyers?

I have Paypal deduct from my bank account, not my credit card.  I've never had the impression that I paid one cent more than the displayed price when I buy something.  That is to say, looking up how much the price is in euros, I pay that amount in dollars.  No extra fee beyond that.

On the other hand, when I sell something on ebay or Reverb.com, Paypal charges me processing  fees and currency conversion fees.

Maybe I'm missing something.

 

[Ron Stranghoener]

Yes...as a buyer they charge you a fee for converting euros (or pounds) into US dollars.

[musical]

I have a GBP credit card that does not charge currency conversion (Halifax Clarity). I use that on PayPal.

[Ron Stranghoener]

Whenever I buy something on AmazonUK I'm never sure if it's cheaper to let them charge my card in US dollars using their currency converter or to buy in pounds and have my Chase card do the conversion...both involve a fee.

[Matthew Sorrels]

5 hours ago, Tiger The Frog said:

Maybe I'm missing something.

The matrix of who charges what and when can be very complicated.  Most US credit cards do add additional foreign transaction fees (around 3% is common) in addition to their fees for currency conversion.  Paypal when charging a credit card passes through the country and can trigger these fees (on my Citibank card they show up as an additional fee at the end of the month and have no direct connection to the charges).  But if you use a bank account with Paypal those fees are normally avoided and you pay only whatever Paypal tells you the currency conversion is.  In this case it appears Paypal is going to increase the fee it charges for doing the currency conversion (to 4% for most major currencies though that table is so complicated I'm not sure of anything).

Long story short Paypal is going to be more expensive when doing currency conversions, no matter how you fund the Paypal account.  It may begin to be cheaper to just use your card directly vs Paypal with a bank account.  Hard to say for sure, my bank credit card doesn't tell me in advance what the currency exchange rate it is going to use is.  I have to wait for it to appear on my statement.

On interesting thing people may not realize is that the foreign transaction fees aren't related to the currency.  I've had non-US businesses that actually charge my card in USD still trigger a foreign transaction fee because they aren't US based.  A number of large businesses process their fees through a US office/corp to avoid this.

[Zo]

One of thîg we can agree on is that paypal support is first class , alwyaz had fast response on phone and problem solve ...fees  dont bother me when i have this type of insurance unless i m doing small transactions and people don t cover those fees even if i say so ... lol that happens when i sell stuff ...but like mibby said , it s the safest way i ve found to deal on that jungle ...sonce the e card have been ditch by my bank ...it was great ...

[Tezza]

Thanks for this post, I am in Australia and the exchange rate between Aus dollars and US dollars is bad enough as it is, without sneaky conversion taxes being applied. Time to do calculations before I buy anything. Sometimes I ask the vendor for an "Aussie discount" because I have to pay so much more, sometimes they send me a voucher! Don't ask, don't get! Have to thank my mother for that advice.

The conversion rate does affect whom I buy from, US companies are at the bottom of the list at the moment, unless they give me a voucher of course, then it's all sweet.