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?

[paperdetective]

The answers here are only partially correct (and I have bene using the Euros balamnces I had a lot):

1) First of all one need sto switch the wallet to Euros as primary currency.
2) Second, one can indeed not withdrraw Euro's, even if set as 'primary' currency and it is aill adviced to have that setting as one will then get a double exchange happen, so a costly one.
3) On web sites in Europe one can indeed purchase items without problems (without any exchange!) using one's Euro's balance, including groceries, plane tickets etc. Funnily, some websites will hve no option to choose the USA as billing address as they are only set up for locals in oen country, but you can simply ignore that and use the local country name as address. It still works.

[Whac-A-Mole]

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@paperdetective wrote:

The answers here are only partially correct (and I have bene using the Euros balamnces I had a lot):

1) First of all one need sto switch the wallet to Euros as primary currency.
2) Second, one can indeed not withdrraw Euro's, even if set as 'primary' currency and it is aill adviced to have that setting as one will then get a double exchange happen, so a costly one.
3) On web sites in Europe one can indeed purchase items without problems (without any exchange!) using one's Euro's balance, including groceries, plane tickets etc. Funnily, some websites will hve no option to choose the USA as billing address as they are only set up for locals in oen country, but you can simply ignore that and use the local country name as address. It still works.

first,if your Paypal account is US account,would it allow you to switch primary currency to Euro,just because you are travelling overseas?

if you are buying on a website ,you can choose to use your Euro balance but if you are sitting in a cafe and hand over your card,I doubt it wil draw on your eruo balance. 

Personally,with all the problems we have with this stupid debit card (by the way,Paypal staff is wrong,it tapes your paypal balance first before it goes after your bank account) in US,and the pathetic customer service we are getting,I would not take this card along and expect it to function well.

DO LEAVE HOME WITHOUT Paypal business debit card or any Paypal card,period.

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[flyingDtchMn]

Indeed, I tried this by purchasing flowers for mothrer's day on a European website using my Paypal Mastercard. It took the amount in EUR, converted it to USD, and charged my account in USD. Not what I was looking for at all.

[Whac-A-Mole]

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@flyingDtchMn wrote:

Indeed, I tried this by purchasing flowers for mothrer's day on a European website using my Paypal Mastercard. It took the amount in EUR, converted it to USD, and charged my account in USD. Not what I was looking for at all.

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It behaves like any credit card when you are overseas.

The only time you get to choose and use your Euro balance is go to a site where it accept paypal and you log into your paypal account and choose to spend your Euro.