How to change Paypal currency conversion @ checkout ?

[therabbit]

Hello, everybody.

I'm just a regular Joe, buying & selling on Ebay. I do more buying than selling - and i'm a member since 2011.

There is this strange behaviour of the Paypal / Ebay checkout system. In the past, i used to see an on-screen option in which Ebay / Paypal would allow me to select my preferred currency conversion option. For example, if i buy something in US $ (USD) and my card account is in Romanian LEI (RON) i can either use Paypal's conversion and get invoiced in RON or get invoiced in USD and the conversion will be made with Masterdard's / Visa's conversion. Paypal's conversion is around 5% higher that Mastercard's and i always chose to pay using the card issuer's conversion - because it's to my advantage.

The point is i used to have a choice. Now i do not. Let me explain...

This is how the old checkout boxes used to look like :

And this happened when i clicked "Other conversion options" :

This allowed to choose the conversion option - and PayPal actually remembers it, each time i use that card.

Now, the new dialog looks like this :

... and there's no more option to choose what currency exchange to use, anymore :

As you can see, all my cards are listed - old ones and new ones. The ones where i could do the currency exchange switch in the past, still.. work the old way - i'm billed in the foreign currency and i get the card issuer's exchange rate - even if i get this new dialogues.

However, if i pay with a newly added card and the above dialogue pops up, i pay at paypal's exchange rate and i don't get a choice, anymore.

I think this is unfair... the options to choose the conversion rate used to be available in the old Paypal account interface too - but, since they switched to this new, fancy, giant button & heavy multimedia loaded interface, that option quitely dissapeared.... and no-one seems to know anything about it.

How about you - have you encountered something similar ?

[OM3]

I am from Romania. And after a google search I just arrived here...ok, you've guessed: had the same problem. I paid in good faith on ebay 471 euro (=the ebay Invoice and/or the price of the seller) and finally was billed for 490.92 euros ! Without any of my consent. In fact, I could say I was cheated, and I cannot take it as a inocent mistake...because when I went on with this payment, it said 471 Euros... No more, nor less. I am dealing with computers, mail, net, blogs, shopping online stuff since 1993-94, but I never saw on any site a button saying "click here to pay X euros"  and in fact to be billed for Y amount !!!!! It' not important that Y>X (allthough 20 euros is not negligible for anybody), but the "silent" way of doing it !

1. After short research, I noticed that the ebay invoice (in Euro, I repeat, german seller) was converted in my country's currency. And then..... again in Euro, I believe at PP high conversion rate. Uptill now, I paid directly in Euro and there were no differences. I practically had 2 conversions: from euro to romanian leu and then..... again back in euro !!!

2. I sent a question to PP customer service, asking why this operation is not in my PayPal history. Somebody answered very quick that I made the payment outside Paypal and that they have nothing to do with it, but still they checked and the transfer was ok. What ? If they don't have anything to do with that, how did they "checked" ? Don't need to mention that in my bank online account, is PayPal that stands clearly the opperation, neither ebay, nor anybody else.

3. I came back with reply, very very calm and polite, giving all the details, with articel's ID's, and so on and so forth. So I received a... not so nice answer, saying that these kind of problems cannot be discussed by mail, and they gave me a link or something to call them someday....

PS. Going back to some recent payments, I've noticed same ugly procedure. Finally I hope anyone from PayPal reads here....  and will do something to bring back the reliability and confidence in this PayPal system. 

[nikmania]

You're messing with pretty good camouflaged frauds. Thanks for sharing with us. They are worse than bankers...

[haia]

What I do is - when I pay with PayPal - you have an option of clicking on the credit card details, or on the sum (don't remember exactly). when you do that - you can choose of what currecy youpay with. If you choose your card issuer's currency there is a warning message that you wouldn't know the exact sum - I ignore it because my credit card conversion is ALWAYS better than PayPal...

I tried to make this option my default - but PayPal ignores it! Talking with their support didn't help either.

[dlark]

There is currently a class-action lawsuit on this starting in Ontario, Canada. 

I would highly recommend finding a law-firm willing to file a claim on similar facts (a customer has a right to deny PayPal forcing conversion through their system (+hidden 2.5% fees - hidden b/c they do not clarify what exchange rate are being used). 

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[Ardiana]

I can verify that in Finland when changing the option to card issuer's conversion from Paypal website, Settings -> Payments -> Pre-approved etc. like advised earlier, doesn't work. Paypal charges the exact same amount from conversion, which is roughly 4% from the exchange rate.

It was only when I tried your method that I found some difference. When I used the old "confirm and pay" buttons on the old page, on my bank statement I read Paypal had charged 5,91 eur from a $6,50 purchase, which is close to 1,10 EUR/USD. It's still not identical to what the rate was at the time, bit over 1,12 but better than what I've got usually.

Yesterday I bought using the normal interface, selecting "credit card". Today I went to my bank to check. I was shocked to see in reservation a 4,38 eur on a purchase for $4,70. That's the 1,073 again Paypal uses for dollar conversion! It's still only a reservation though, but I'm not very hopeful it'll change.

Now I bought for $2,03 and went back to the old page again and selected to use credit card (because my balance has more than that it would normally use the balance). The setting for Visa rate exchange was still there. I clicked "confirm and pay" and went to my bank. Sure enough, this time there was a 1,85 eur added to the reserve, something what you might expect using a 1,10 exchange rate.

I have a lot of auction payments coming so next I'll be trying whether it's enough to select "Visa" on the normal interface or do I have to always go to the old screen.

[imaddicted2u]

Why should paypal be allowed to get away with making customers resort to trying to find ways to "trick" their system into letting them choose our currency conversion option?

The paypal user agreement states it is our right to choose and that the option to select will be available on the checkout, it isn't...imagine the amount of money being skimmed from millions of customer payments...

"When your payment is funded by a debit or credit card and requires a currency conversion, you consent to and authorize PayPal to convert the currency in place of your debit or credit card issuer. You have the right to have your card issuer perform the currency conversion and can choose this option during checkout on your transaction review page before you complete the transaction."

[Anouk7]

 I see paypal plays tricks on customers it is not honest and we customers have to do something about it

I wonder if is there any other payment method like paypal in developing, its alternative concurrent, if not that's why they play dirty

[Ardiana]

Okay, I've bought quite a few times now.

It's sufficient that you have the "VISA" option selected under Paypal at the main screen, no need to go back to the old page every time. It'll save you some 2% on the currency conversion.

So, to sum it up, you need both a Paypal account AND a credit card to be able to get the lesser rip off. And you need to have the option to have external currency conversion ticked.

[2frogs]

To change the default option:

Log into paypal -> cogwheel -> payments -> manage automatic payments -> set available funding sources -> Conversion Options-> Bill me in the currency ... -> submit -> SAVE

(you must SAVE).

In pictures:

https://www.gamedealscanada.com/2016/06/09/changing-paypals-default-currency-conversion-option/

YMMV

[katmai]

None of this works as even with the option checked to allow your card provider to set the exchange fees PayPal converts the transaction in my case to Canadian $ and then back to USD on my Canadian USD card. For example a few days ago I purchased an item for $390 US on EBAY and my USD card was billed $415.11USD. A % 6.4 fee. This rapacious CAD conversion fee is made regardless of whether you use your CC or paypal account so EBAY is in on this as well. I spoke to a representative about this and it's company policy to gouge Canadian customers. Needless to say I now will no longer use PayPal to pay for stuff and Ebay is being replaced by Amazon whom I have used for years with a USD CAD credit card and don't currently engage in this type of rapacious tomfoolery