Purchasing Using PayPal in USD on eBay.com.au

YadaYadaYada on 03/08/2016 - 13:23
Last edited 03/08/2016 - 13:25

I used ebay Australia's checkout to purchase something in USD yesterday and entered my credit card details which is processed by paypal, but the final amount shown right on top of the big 'Confirm and Pay' button was in USD. Nowhere did it mention that any other amounts were to be charged or converted, so I assumed I was going to be charged that exact amount in USD. I then log into my credit card that I used that has no international transaction fees and see that the pending amount is roughly $10AUD more than what I was expecting based on the Mastercard crossrates.

I contact paypal who look up my transaction and then tell me that I have no case - they have not overcharged me and they have honoured my currency choice since in their fees they've noted that they charge 3.5% on top of what I paid in all USD transactions. So customer service tell me that I should be charged (X + 3.5%)USD in response to my complaint that I have been charged their poor conversion in AUD instead of what I expect to pay in USD. I am also trying to check with the credit card provider but this is taking time…

Ok fine I thought I'd read up on their fees for next time. But am I missing something here? I see in their PDS that the 3.5% refers to if you were using Paypal's conversion.
https://www.paypal.com/au/webapps/mpp/paypal-fees
Section 18.11 in https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/ua/cfsgpds-full?country.x…

Is there anything special I'm missing about buying on ebay.com.au in USD when payments are processed through paypal? I did check some previous USD transactions and there were no additional paypal surcharges when being charged in USD but those billers were in the US.

Financial

Comments

  • Ughhh on 03/08/2016 - 13:30

    Bank fees and rates?

    • YadaYadaYada on 03/08/2016 - 13:32

      I'm using the coles prepaid mastercard which has no international transaction fees.

  • Clear on 03/08/2016 - 14:20
    +8

    A lot of people don't realise that you have to setup Paypal to use your CC's conversion rate and not their own.

    Instructions on how to change your PayPal billing currency:
    Login to PayPal, click settings, click payments, click pre-approved payments, click select available funding sources, next to the credit card you want to pay with click 'conversion options', then click 'Bill me in the currency listed on the seller's invoice.'

    This will then charge your credit card in USD, at which stage your credit card will use the MasterCard exchange rates, instead of using PayPal's lesser exchange rates if you let them convert it for you.

    • YadaYadaYada on 03/08/2016 - 14:24

      I originally was going to use my paypal account but no-one on paypal could verify whether my card would be billed using the seller's currency or not. They kept telling me to change browser, clear the cache etc none of which made a difference.

      So I opted to use the ebay checkout and enter in a credit card manually and saw no extra mention of any extra fees etc, but ended up in this scenario.

      I will do this for my actual paypal account for next time. It's too late for the last transaction which I didn't use my account for but paypal still processed.

    • supatight on 03/08/2016 - 16:05
      +1

      thanks heaps paypal rates suck all good now

  • bdl on 03/08/2016 - 14:26
    +1

    use this to change the default currency for your credit card: http://www.pointhacks.com.au/how-to-change-credit-card-billi…

    • aboabo on 03/08/2016 - 14:52
      +1

      Tiresome. Direct link here:

      https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_profile-mercha…

      • bdl on 03/08/2016 - 20:58

        Just trying to help

        • YadaYadaYada on 03/08/2016 - 21:16

          I will do that next time. However the issue here is that I didn't use my actual paypal account to pay for the purchase because I didn't know about said option and was unsure of what they'd do.

          I opted for ebay checkout and selected credit card as opposed to paypal account, and manually entered all my credit card details without the need to create or use a paypal account. Even though it said underneath that paypal would be processing the credit card payment. No mention anywhere of any surcharge or conversion. Since then I have now confirmed with the credit card that paypal indeed did perform their expensive USD—> AUD conversion at their above market rates and charged me in AUD without my consent.

          Next step is to chase it up with paypal. I'm going to try writing a formal letter instead of calling them this time.

  • savanna454 on 21/10/2016 - 11:14

    Interesting post and the same thing happened to me
    I made 2 purchases this week in GBP one on the Ebay.com.au website (UK seller) for about 37GBP and another on Ebay.co.uk for about 10GBP
    At the checkout I selected the credit card button as I don't have a PayPal account, agreed to the terms and hit the pay button.
    Both purchases were totalled on the checkout in GBP not $AUD.
    Absolutely no warning that PayPal were going to do the conversion.
    No GBP conversion by 28 degrees (0% fees) on the transaction history and the amount charged in $AUD was about 4% higher than the mid rates on xe.com which is close to what I usually get with the 28 degrees card.
    I looked back at some purchases on ebay.com from 2015 which were in $US and both transactions (US$385 & US$10) were converted by 28 degrees (at 0%) so this is something new and unexpected.
    Another oddity is I never received receipts for the 2 latest transactions as I did with previous purchases.
    Fortunately I'm only out of pocket by about $AUD 3.50 but it's really about non-disclosure at point of purchase or was it hidden in the "terms" somewhere?
    My plan is to raise a written complaint with them and escalate it if necessary.
    I think this is a separate issue to paying using a PayPal account with linked funding by credit card.
    In this case I gather one can select whether or not your cc/bank does the conversion or PayPal…and of course this choice is very well hidden within the account settings!

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