Using USA PayPal Debit Card In Europe With Euros PayPal Credit Balance

[scsllc]

I have a USA PayPal debit card with both a dollar balance and a much higher euros balance on the PayPal account it is linked to.  I will be travelling to Italy, Switzerland, and France very soon and I wanted to understand what would happen if I used my PayPal card in those countries.  

Would PayPal automatically recognize that I had a euros credit and take from that balance before taking from a dollar balance and then from from USA bank account, and if (hopefully) it does will I be charged a foreign transaction fee even though there would be no actual conversion of currency in such an instance?

[Whac-A-Mole]

I dont think the card would work outside USA,may be Canada?

[flyingDtchMn]

I have the same situation, and have also found that Mastercard and Maestro is accepted at more places in some countries than, for insance, Visa. The user agreement is ambiguous on this point. I found one community post that suggested, from a user's experience, that it worked the way we would want, i.e., no currency conversion when spending in EUR. But nothing definite. I decided that there is little penalty in just trying it out, so I signed up for the debit card. Once I have it, I will try it out and share.

[scsllc]

I called PayPal in the end and asked them.  I was told that when using the PayPal debit card it didn't matter if I had a credit on the account, the funding source would always be the bank account it was linked to.  So no benefit whatsoever in loading the PayPal account up with Euros!

Thanks to the everyone for their responses.

[Whac-A-Mole]

1. 1. Foreign Transactions. If you obtain funds or make a purchase in a currency other than the currency in which your Debit Card was issued, the amount deducted from your PayPal balance will be converted by MasterCard International Incorporated into an amount in the currency of your PayPal account. The exchange rate between the transaction currency and the billing currency used for processing international transactions is a rate selected by MasterCard International Incorporated from the range of rates available in wholesale currency markets for the applicable central processing date, which may vary from the rate MasterCard International Incorporated itself receives, or the government-mandated rate in effect for the applicable central processing date. If you obtain funds or make a purchase in a currency other than the currency in which your Debit Card was issued, the Issuer may assess a foreign currency conversion fee of 1% of the transaction amount and will retain this amount as compensation for its services.  Transactions made outside the fifty (50) U.S. states and the District of Columbia are also subject to this conversion fee even if they are completed in U.S. currency
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2. The key is 'the currency in which your debit card is issued' so you may hold other currencies but your debit card is issued in US currency,thats the one it will be using.
3. if it is taking fund out of your checking account,then it is ignoring your entire paypal balance whether you have just one balance in US dollars or balances in multiple currencies.
4.   

[sharpiemarker]

Yes, you can use your PayPal Business Debit MasterCard overseas.

https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/debitcard-full

d. Foreign Transactions.

If you obtain funds or make a purchase in a currency other than the currency in which your Debit Card was issued, the amount deducted from your PayPal balance will be converted by MasterCard International Incorporated into an amount in the currency of your PayPal account. The exchange rate between the transaction currency and the billing currency used for processing international transactions is a rate selected by MasterCard International Incorporated from the range of rates available in wholesale currency markets for the applicable central processing date, which may vary from the rate MasterCard International Incorporated itself receives, or the government-mandated rate in effect for the applicable central processing date. If you obtain funds or make a purchase in a currency other than the currency in which your Debit Card was issued, the Issuer may assess a foreign currency conversion fee of 1% of the transaction amount and will retain this amount as compensation for its services. Transactions made outside the fifty (50) U.S. states and the District of Columbia are also subject to this conversion fee even if they are completed in U.S. currency.

[scsllc]

Thanks for your reply, but it didn't really go to my actual question.  I know I can use the card outside of the US, but what I wanted to know was whether or not it would pull from a Euro credit sitting on the account before it pulled from the dollar bank account linked to the card.  In other words, let's assume I have the following foreign currency balance sitting in my PayPal account (ie. not converted and "withdrawn" to my US bank account):  1,000 Euro.  If I travel to Italy and use my PayPal debit card to purchase a cup of coffee for 3 Euro will it use my Euro credit to fund the purchase or will it use my US bank account and make the currency conversion and charge me a foreign transaction fee.  PayPal CS said the latter.

[flyingDtchMn]

"...into an amount in the currency of your PayPal account."  is the ambiguity issue here. The PayPal account doesn't have one currency - in my case, as well as appparently  in the original poster's case, it has balances in multiple currencies. This is a great feature, and it would even be better if the debit card would deduct from the currency in which the spending was done...

[Whac-A-Mole]

There is a lady who posted in this forum,she was in Austria and she inserted her Paypal business debit cards in ATM all over Vienna and it did not work

[DPCreations]

The currency of a U. S. account would be U. S. dollars as it is U. S.-based.  You could have another currency separated but that's the not currency of the account.