PayPal Is Now Blocking Any Attempt to Pay in Sellers Currency & Enforcing a Non-Disclosed ~5% Marked up on Currency Conversion

LYabadabadoo on 21/11/2016 - 21:03

I have seen that PayPal has made a change to purchases made in foreign currency without notice.

Previously if your account/credit card is in a different currency to the sellers currency you had an option to have PayPal convert it to your local currency (using an exchange rate around 5% higher than the real rate) or you could set it up on your profile (https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_profile-mercha…) to always bill in the currency listed.

The setting as these 2 options:

  1. Use PayPal's conversion process to complete my transaction using my card's currency.
    Both the original transaction currency and the converted amount that I will be charged are disclosed for my convenience. I understand that MasterCard and Visa have a currency conversion process. I have chosen not to use the MasterCard and Visa currency conversion process, and I will have no recourse against MasterCard and Visa with respect to any matter related to this conversion.

  2. Bill me in the currency listed on the seller's invoice.
    I will not know which foreign exchange rate has been applied to this transaction until I receive my card statement from my card issuer. I acknowledge that by choosing this option, my card issuer will determine the foreign exchange rate to apply to this transaction, and that I will not be informed of the foreign exchange rate or any additional foreign exchange fees applied until I am billed by my card issuer.

Sometime over the last week or so PayPal is no longer recognising the setting or providing an option at the time of taking the payment. Also PayPal is not informing the user of the ~5% fee they are forcing on the user.

I spent 30min on the phone with PayPal to try to get the setting back and was told its PayPal process to convert to local currency no matter what the customer wants. I was told to make a different setting change and make the payment which I did but I was still billed in my local AUD. This incurred a fee of around $2.14 (the difference between the eBay listed AUD amount and what PayPal billed me) this is on an amount of 30.40EUR or ~$43AUD so is around 5%. My brother had the same issue and had a fee of around $10 on a 110 GBP/185AUD.

More examples here:

http://blog.iopsl.com/change-paypal-conversion-options-to-av…

https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Buying-with-PayPal/How-c…

http://www.pointhacks.com.au/how-to-change-credit-card-billi…

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Comments

  • Gravy on 21/11/2016 - 21:35

    You can talk to real people at Paypal now??

    • citygal on 22/11/2016 - 20:59

      Yes I used to call them up. Need to use unique code generated on Paypal to verify ID tho.

  • Morien on 21/11/2016 - 21:40
    +4

    Is this option still there for you?

    My Account -> Profile -> My Money -> My preapproved payments -> Update -> See Available Funding Sources (or Set Available Funding Sources) -> Conversion Options (for card you'd like to change this option)-> Bill me in the currency listed on the seller's invoice -> Submit

    • citygal on 22/11/2016 - 21:02

      I tried last week and it worked.

    • Sharp on 23/11/2016 - 11:08

      This works for visa but not for amex edge. There is no "Conversion Options" next to my amex edge card.

  • isidore12 on 21/11/2016 - 21:44
    -1

    You could setup another Paypal account with a different email address and a credit card in the other currency you wish.

    That been said, I prefer paying the 5% Paypal conversation fee, that the insane fee that my bank takes for any transaction in foreign currencies.

    • Amaris on 21/11/2016 - 23:02
      +5

      28 degrees

      • WatchNerd on 22/11/2016 - 15:38
        +3

        You called?

        • [Deactivated] on 22/11/2016 - 22:49

          to say 'I love you'

      • cynix on 02/12/2016 - 15:35

        The 28° website used to be crappy so I switched to BankWest Zero. Have they made any improvements recently? e.g. push notifications for transactions, showing pending authorisations etc.

        • [Deactivated] on 02/12/2016 - 16:34

          Not really. And it still doesn't work in Safari!

        • cynix on 03/12/2016 - 20:40
          +1

          @sqeeksqeek: thanks, I'll stick with BankWest then :D

    • Morien on 22/11/2016 - 00:11
      +1

      Just remember you can't have the same CC details on two accounts…. if I remember correctly.

    • [Deactivated] on 05/06/2017 - 14:49

      You'd rather pay 5% than 3%?

  • nandystam on 21/11/2016 - 21:50

    Something like this happened to me the other day with an eBay transaction paid via PayPal. For whatever reason, something had changed and it wasn't straightforward like it usually is to be billed in a foreign currency (in this case USD). It was only a small amount and I didn't mind, but following up on the card statement shows the auction was in USD, but the card was billed in AUD for the exact amount PayPal said it would be.

    Something has definitely changed.

    • nandystam on 21/11/2016 - 21:53
      +2

      Replying to my own post, there was a comment in one of the links provided by the OP:

      “in October 2016 PayPal have introduced new payment method and at the moment the feature to be ‘Billed in sellers currency invoice currency’ is not available at the moment. We hope to have this feature operating soon again but we have no set date as of yet. We will try our best.”

      OK then…

      • citygal on 22/11/2016 - 21:04

        What?! I tried last week and it seems to work!

  • hamza23 on 21/11/2016 - 22:11

    You can still change it. At checkout click on the blue link that has the conversion, it will display something like this:

    Converted as of 2016-11-21T11:06:26Z UTC
    View the conversion rate options for this purchase

    Click on that 'view the conversion rate options' and change it from 'PayPal currency conversion rate' to 'your card providers rate'

    Picture example here

    It should be saved on that card for next time (MasterCard/VISA), I had to change them again by that new method but it seems to have saved since. My AmEx are auto showing $US.

    • Yabadabadoo on 21/11/2016 - 22:37
      +1

      Thanks, this lead me to the problem :) The option you are seeing doesn't appear in the Edge or Chrome browser (the exchange rate shows but no link). If I use IE I can see the link and change it back to not use PayPal converter.

      Issue still is that the setting on my paypal profile is being ignored and if going via PayPal website selecting to use seller currency gives an error that the credit card is not valid.

      At lease there's a workaround :)

      • bobjane on 25/11/2016 - 13:03
        +1

        Just tried this.

        The option wasn't available in Chrome, Opera or Internet Explorer.

        eBay and Paypal are truly crooks.

      • Yabadabadoo on 15/12/2016 - 22:03

        No longer works, looks like they have removed it from here as well

    • KBZ on 29/11/2016 - 15:59

      Worked for me! Didn't notice it since they changed their layout a bit and had me confused why I couldn't change the currency.

  • [Deactivated] on 22/11/2016 - 00:17
    +7

    I truly think Paypal needs to start beng regulated under APRA, as they make rules up as they go. I spoke to a Paypal help person about funding source when they wanted conversion fees for an Australian buyer and seller and they said they always deplete foreign currency holding ahead of direct debit. I then pointed them to the previous transaction where they obviously direct debited and didn't touch foreign currency holding. Her response was then 'oh, most of the time'. She either lied or was incompetent, and their systems are all over the shop.

    • mini2 on 22/11/2016 - 10:26

      They do have a AFSL I'm surprised no one have make enough noise over some of PayPal antics (sudden freezing of funds, restricting accounts and now this) and APRA stepping in.

  • [Deactivated] on 23/11/2016 - 17:11

    An issue I really don't like with Paypal is their upselling efforts to keep funds in Paypal. They make a tonne of interest by all the funds held with them and have a direct interest in making the process of removing funds difficult…every outage is always getting your money back. They should not be using popups to discourage withdrawing funds when that directly benefits them rather than the story they spin about user benefits. Every popup and outage makes paypal money. Every font they reduce and extra keystroke, IOS javascript errors in my case makes them money. Their own javascript errors prevented withdrawal and they benefit on the overnight money market.

  • totorosan on 29/11/2016 - 00:57

    paypal definitely changed something in the past 7 days as it was working fine for me when i made a purchase on 21 Nov.

    I tried to checkout $400+ USD of items to make the most of the ebay 10% promo on 28th to only find out paypal stuffed up the checkout process and only gave me the option to pay in AUD. Well, it's their lost cus I'm not paying for that forex paypal tax

  • c64 on 29/11/2016 - 15:52

    i experienced this, even though my settings are set for the biller's currency.

    geez, i don't even feel confident paying with paypal anymore. i'm not sure what currency they are going to bill me with. i didn't want to pay an extra paypal tax so i just gave up and used a credit card.

  • justtoreply on 01/12/2016 - 00:36

    My last two attempts to buy on ebay in a currency other than Australian dollars have not gone well.

    After the first failure, I found out where paypal have hidden the setting to bill in the sellers currency. I fixed (enabled) it.

    Yet I've just bought something online now, and in the checkout it even said "xxx USD", but the scumbags have billed me in AUD again!

    That's fraud!

    • idjces on 01/12/2016 - 18:12

      Same here, I went through the long hidden process as well to set my citi plus debit card to bill in USD, check my account today for an ebay purchase on the 25th, and its in AUD!

      I also made a black friday purchased elsewhere on the web, paid with paypal for the USD bill (with a fee charging cc), and the bill is correct and in USD (at the checkout, i opted not to convert currency within paypal)

      What the hell paypal/ebay

      • [Deactivated] on 05/06/2017 - 14:51

        You can chargeback if they do this. Just call your bank, and state that the merchant used DCC without telling you. That's a violation of the merchant agreement, and your bank will refund the transaction.

  • justtoreply on 02/12/2016 - 09:15

    We need a front page banner on ozbargain so we can collate all of our complaints to the ACCC.

    Paypal has no intent on fixing this. Its the sort of thing you can fix in a day or two. Also, if you have it working on your previous payment system, then you delay deploying your new payment system until the new system is ready. This is clearly a fraudulent cash grab.

  • totorosan on 02/12/2016 - 11:43
    +1

    There's now a work-around for this! I complained to paypal over the phone and they transferred me to an escalation team where they can manually set the default currency of your card (eg. 28 Degrees) to be a nominated currency of your choice (eg. USD). This is a permanent fix and would mean your designated card will always be defaulting to that currency. As such, be careful about using the same card for any other currencies as you'll encounter the same problem unless you ring up Paypal again and have it changed.

    They recognise this is fault with their system but there's no ETA on when this defect would be fixed. Hope this helps fellow Aussies!

    • c64 on 02/12/2016 - 13:25
      +1

      i'm sure they are in no hurry to fix it either

  • mikezillakind on 13/01/2017 - 13:12

    so whats happening with this now ?

  • bluesky on 08/02/2017 - 16:13

    Thought I will share this. The option to bypass Paypal conversion can turn off by itself. Not sure why.

    In the past, I have selected to bypass Paypal conversion within the Paypal settings (always my intention to use the 28D card exchange rates).

    Yet, recently, when I used it for foreign purchase, it managed to turn this "bypass Paypal conversion" off. I haven't bought something for a while, so not sure if Paypal has done some updates.

    Fortunately, when I went to purchase, the way it displayed the amount seemed wrong (telling me the AUD amount), and I hesitated, and went in to check again. Sure enough, it has gone back to Paypal conversion. And so I switched this back again.

    So, best not to trust that your setting is permanently changed (see how the final amount is displayed). Seems like it can drop off, for whatever reason.

  • gunnie on 20/04/2017 - 15:55

    Had this happen to me in the past few weeks. Only realised that the setting has reverted back to "Use PayPal's conversion process to complete my transaction using my card's currency." without my consent.
    Check my other paypal account and it was the same thing even though it was always set to "Bill me in the currency listed on the seller's invoice."

    Check you account now people so you dont get caught out.

    • Yabadabadoo on 21/04/2017 - 20:04
      +1

      yeah they are doing it again but this time the option appears so you can select the option to pay in the seller currency but it converts it for you anyway and takes on a ~5-6% fee (they say 3.5% but that's not taking into account the bad rate they are using as well as the fee).

      Also they show a rate for conversion on ebay but in all instances I have seen it they charge you at a much higher rate than advertised at the time of purchase.

      I can believe they get away with this, its fraud, twice (changing a higher rate than advertised and charging for a service that was not requested)

  • Chickenleg on 23/04/2017 - 01:54

    Dammit this happened to me today on an overseas site that only accepted Paypal, but I have no option anywhere anymore to choose the currency! Wtf is going on, are we doomed for crappy exchange rates now?

    • Yabadabadoo on 25/04/2017 - 10:16

      You can still set it here https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_profile-mercha… but PayPal will likely ignore it and still charge the exchange fee so only option is for a FOS complaint and hope they can make them fix it.

      • Chickenleg on 25/04/2017 - 11:44

        Thanks for that. Sons of b*tches!

        • rhangman on 25/04/2017 - 14:06

          Yep, just bought something in USD on Ebay AU, Paypal set to native currency for that card and clicked on the conversion amount in eBay checkout and changed it to no conversion in the Paypal popup. No mention of AUD or conversion anywhere on the checkout page after that, yet Paypal receipt comes through with converted amount. Why bother letting you change the conversion setting if it does nothing?

        • [Deactivated] on 05/06/2017 - 14:53

          @rhangman: Call your bank and chargeback the transaction. Utilising DCC without you expressly agreeing to it violates the Visa and MasterCard merchant agreements.

        • rhangman on 05/06/2017 - 15:58

          @Kyanar:
          Talking $4 on a purchase with US$7 discount that was still cheaper than elsewhere.

  • Make it so on 10/05/2017 - 17:25
    +1

    They changed it, even though by default I had it set NOT to convert for me. They changed my default back to using Paypal's conversion!
    Quite annoyed, as I have been caught out a few times. It is very misleading. Already they bury the currency conversion options so deep down, but now they even ignore your preference.

    For info, you have to go to "preapproved payments", and look for "set available funding sources". Then pick "Use PayPal's conversion process to complete my transaction using my card's currency."

    • ddhar on 26/05/2017 - 08:02
      +1

      Thanks. I wouldn't have been able to find that deeply buried option otherwise. It's ridiculous Paypal was being obscure about this and I'm forced to rely on others for this information.

  • miztadave on 24/10/2017 - 15:42

    Another method is detailed here: https://www.pointhacks.com.au/how-to-change-credit-card-bill…

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