I wanted to send 5,000 Pesos to a friend in the Philippines for their birthday. I looked at the exchange rate for US Dollars to Philippine Pesos three different sites, including on Xe.com -- probably the most accurate and trusted foreign currency exchange rate authority in the world -- and saw that the exchange rate was 5,000 Pesos for $100.57. A few hours later I went to a Walgreens and I added $106 in cash to my PayPal wallet, and paid an extra $3.95 fee to add cash (since I wanted the funds to be available to my friend immediately, rather than taking however many days for the funds to be transferred from my bank to PayPal), which should have been more than enough to cover the $100.57 gift and the expected $4.99 PayPal fee.
Twenty minutes later, I got home and went to send the funds, only to discover that according to PayPal, $100 only buys 4,782 Pesos. So the $101 I deposited was not enough to send 5,000; only 4,782. That was hardly the nice, round number of a birthday gift I was hoping to send.
How can PayPal justify claiming that a foreign exchange rate -- which is NOT something they control -- is wildly different from what everyone else says it is? The only explanation I can infer is that PayPal is gouging their customers by inflating the exchange rates in their favor. This is not the first time I have noticed this, but it is the first time I have documented it.
IMO, this is deceptive (and possibly fraudulent) behavior. Neither a bank nor a cash app like PayPal has the right to claim that a foreign currency exchange rate is something that it is not.
