Ebay / PayPal exchange rate

[funandtrains]

Has anyone else noticed that the currency conversion given by ebay on overseas listings shows a much better rate than we you pay with PayPal? I can see that they might argue that it is the average rate rather than the buy or sell rate but when checking what PayPal have charged me it is much worse than the high street price, since they are an international finance company they should be giving a much better than the Post Office. Has anyone made a complaint about this?

 

[ebay mike]

You don't honestly think eBay/PayPal are going to listen to the likes of us, do you? Look what a mess they've made of their auction site over the last three years since the CEO said he wanted to turn it into THE Global Market Place for retailers and started to price the amateur seller out of the game. I thought that was what eBay was supposed to be all about - the little person. Now it's more like Amazon with bids.

 

[Zerogee]

It usually works out much better to choose to pay in Euros (or whatever) and let your card issuer or bank deal with the currency conversion - they will charge of course, but not usually anywhere near as much as Paypal do.

I do agree that Paypal/eBay are being very underhanded about this - it is (ethically at least, if not legally) bordering on fraud, as they are effectively offering you one rate at the point of sale and then charging you a very different one. They also don't go out of their way to make it clear or easy to select the option I mentioned above, you have to look for it....

Jon.

 

[funandtrains]

It usually works out much better to choose to pay in Euros (or whatever) and let your card issuer or bank deal with the currency conversion - they will charge of course, but not usually anywhere near as much as Paypal do.

I do agree that Paypal/eBay are being very underhanded about this - it is (ethically at least, if not legally) bordering on fraud, as they are effectively offering you one rate at the point of sale and then charging you a very different one. They also don't go out of their way to make it clear or easy to select the option I mentioned above, you have to look for it....

Jon.

How do you pick the option to pay in the other currency?

 

[whatlep]

It usually works out much better to choose to pay in Euros (or whatever) and let your card issuer or bank deal with the currency conversion - they will charge of course, but not usually anywhere near as much as Paypal do.

I do agree that Paypal/eBay are being very underhanded about this - it is (ethically at least, if not legally) bordering on fraud, as they are effectively offering you one rate at the point of sale and then charging you a very different one. They also don't go out of their way to make it clear or easy to select the option I mentioned above, you have to look for it....

Jon.

How do you pick the option to pay in the other currency?

Assuming you have a credit card identified to Paypal, on one of the payment screens you get the option to select paying via your credit card's exchange rate rather than Paypal's. The next screen presents a series of "the sky is falling in" scary messages, but if you persevere you'll be able to use your credit card from which payment will be taken in the currency of the transaction, not pounds. The exchange rate is invariably 1 or 2 cents better than Paypal's exchange rate.

Paypal (a division of eBay) certainly play fast and loose with exchange rates. That shown on the bidding screen is always, in my experience, vastly better than that really used.

 

[funandtrains]

It usually works out much better to choose to pay in Euros (or whatever) and let your card issuer or bank deal with the currency conversion - they will charge of course, but not usually anywhere near as much as Paypal do.

I do agree that Paypal/eBay are being very underhanded about this - it is (ethically at least, if not legally) bordering on fraud, as they are effectively offering you one rate at the point of sale and then charging you a very different one. They also don't go out of their way to make it clear or easy to select the option I mentioned above, you have to look for it....

Jon.

How do you pick the option to pay in the other currency?

Assuming you have a credit card identified to Paypal, on one of the payment screens you get the option to select paying via your credit card's exchange rate rather than Paypal's. The next screen presents a series of "the sky is falling in" scary messages, but if you persevere you'll be able to use your credit card from which payment will be taken in the currency of the transaction, not pounds. The exchange rate is invariably 1 or 2 cents better than Paypal's exchange rate.

Paypal (a division of eBay) certainly play fast and loose with exchange rates. That shown on the bidding screen is always, in my experience, vastly better than that really used.

I think there must be a PayPal account setting to change to get this to work which next time I'm tempted with an over-seas bargain I will try to find. There again Barclays are nearly as bad if not worse than PayPal!

 

[Zerogee]

It usually works out much better to choose to pay in Euros (or whatever) and let your card issuer or bank deal with the currency conversion - they will charge of course, but not usually anywhere near as much as Paypal do.

I do agree that Paypal/eBay are being very underhanded about this - it is (ethically at least, if not legally) bordering on fraud, as they are effectively offering you one rate at the point of sale and then charging you a very different one. They also don't go out of their way to make it clear or easy to select the option I mentioned above, you have to look for it....

Jon.

How do you pick the option to pay in the other currency?

Assuming you have a credit card identified to Paypal, on one of the payment screens you get the option to select paying via your credit card's exchange rate rather than Paypal's. The next screen presents a series of "the sky is falling in" scary messages, but if you persevere you'll be able to use your credit card from which payment will be taken in the currency of the transaction, not pounds. The exchange rate is invariably 1 or 2 cents better than Paypal's exchange rate.

Paypal (a division of eBay) certainly play fast and loose with exchange rates. That shown on the bidding screen is always, in my experience, vastly better than that really used.

I think there must be a PayPal account setting to change to get this to work which next time I'm tempted with an over-seas bargain I will try to find. There again Barclays are nearly as bad if not worse than PayPal!

What Peter said is correct - you don't have to change your account settings, you are given the option to pay in the seller's local currency each time you make a purchase; it's just that the offer is neither obvious nor clearly signposted, because PP obviously don't really want you to do that - hence the warning messages that Peter mentioned, where they tell you that if you persevere with your request then you will be charged at whatever rate your bank sets - of course, what they don't say is that this will almost always be better than PP's rate....!

My experience is that paying in Euros and taking the hit of the extra bank/card charge for the conversion normally means that the total ends up at roughly similar to the figure that eBay quoted on the auction in the first place.

Jon.

Jon.

 

[spike]

Has anyone else noticed that the currency conversion given by ebay on overseas listings shows a much better rate than we you pay with PayPal? I can see that they might argue that it is the average rate rather than the buy or sell rate but when checking what PayPal have charged me it is much worse than the high street price, since they are an international finance company they should be giving a much better than the Post Office. Has anyone made a complaint about this?

The rates quoted are more than likely mid market rates.
Most transactions will be charged at least 2.5%, all you can do is shop around.
Right at this time the PO online are charging around 3% to change pounds to Euros.
PO 1.1370.......mid market 1.17.
Afterall they have overheads and need to make a profit.

 

[spike]

and of course currencies can fluctuate dramatically during the course of a day.
The Euro can easily swing 2>3 cents in a day, bad news even more so.

 

[funandtrains]

The last two times I made an over-seas ebay Paypal buy I checked on the web and the rate that they gave me was quite a bit worse than all the high street banks, travel agents and post office.

 

[spike]

The last two times I made an over-seas ebay Paypal buy I checked on the web and the rate that they gave me was quite a bit worse than all the high street banks, travel agents and post office.

Looking a T&C.
Paypal use an outside source to set their rates.
I have a retail Forex account, which closed at 10.00pm Friday night and that had the £$ at 1.5298
PO rate is 1.4850 online and XE has it at 1.5345.
Now I believe banks carry on trading Forex into the weekend, retail stops Friday night.

 

[whatlep]

The point is not banks versus other exchange rates, it's that Paypal show one conversion rate when inducing you to bid (which changes at least daily), but then offer a markedly worse rate when you pay via them - even if the purchase and payment are moments apart. Sharp practice at the very least.

 

[spike]

The point is not banks versus other exchange rates, it's that Paypal show one conversion rate when inducing you to bid (which changes at least daily), but then offer a markedly worse rate when you pay via them - even if the purchase and payment are moments apart. Sharp practice at the very least.

It's obviously not a live feed, how old the quotes are, don't know.
The bidding quote could be daily and the paying quote would be at that moment in time.
There could be a big difference between daily and a live feed.
If someone gives me the bidding quote and the paying quote, I could compare them.
Requotes are a way of life in any market, they should of course explain this somewhere.

Paypal my be bad but if we look at the Post Office their online quote for £$ is 1.4850, now.
Thats the exchange rate from the middle of March, so don't think thats a good deal.
If you use your bank then you will most likely get a good deal as the rate will be very close
to Spot at the time the payment is logged.
There is a big but though.......if price moves very fast then all bets are off.

 

[AshleyH]

On Euro transactions Paypal charge around 3.5% against the commercial rates.

So if you use XE.COM for example and get the GBP to Euro Rate, as I type it is 1.17247.
If your multiply this rate by 0.965 you get the rate that Paypal will give you 1.1314.

This compares with most High Street Banks and Cards charging between 2.5% and 2.75%.
Incidentally, until around 18 months ago Paypal used to charge around 2.5%. Then green took over.......

 

[KeithT]

The point is not banks versus other exchange rates, it's that Paypal show one conversion rate when inducing you to bid (which changes at least daily), but then offer a markedly worse rate when you pay via them - even if the purchase and payment are moments apart. Sharp practice at the very least.

It seems to me that a compalint to the Financial Ombudsman is appropriate. I am currently bidding on an item from germany so I may find myself doing just that unles, as it will be a smallish amount, I might simply send the Euros. I have done this in the past to avoid swingeing IBAN charges.