PayPal exchange rates are poor

[sanhoeflyer]

having just bought an item for $4560 USD the conversion rate applied by PayPay was 1.59 to the pound when the published rate is $1.6495  this makes it quite expensive useing pay pay. A lesson learnt. In future I will use my debit card, they are paying 1.6345 .

I feel somewhat robbed, I trusted PayPal to be fair and reasonable.. Lesson Learnt

I will never use PayPay for any substantial payment again.

[dermodefutbol]

Yes,i agree.£1 = €0.74 on paypal,yet its £1= €0.78 in the real world!!!!!! its nuts,and a complete rip off. Also,i sell on e-bay and they take a good 4% commission just for the joy of using paypal to get paid,every way you use it ,it is very,very ,very bad value,as bad as WEstern Union Money transfer,and thats bad.

[CoolBook73]

Hi,

I just bought a GBP 640,- article on eBay.

€809,- that should be, according to eBay. That's fair, according to current exchange rates.

I ended up paying €840,- because of Paypal's exchange rates. Absolutely ridiculous.

In this discussion, Paypal state that they check rates twice a day and publish them too. This is completely beside the point: The exchange rates themselves are wrong! I doesn't matter how often you check or publish them... You are simple ripping off your customers.

Paypal also suggest to contact your bank, if you are looking for different (fairer) ways to deal with exchange rates. Seriously? Is that even close to your mission statement: "build the Web's most convenient, secure, cost-effective payment solution"?

I am going to look for different ways to pay, if it involves foreign currency.

A very dissatisfied customer.

[Silverblack]

As above post ,finding this more and more will look at alternative methods as Paypal are a last resort for currency exchange.

[Franceska]

Sent $46, which was about 41 euros according to the official rate, but PayPal only gives 40 euro. If you're using exchange rates, you should really use the official ones so your customers don't lose money thanks to you. 

[Timbar]

I'm not sure if this topic is still live but I came across it when looking up Paypal exchange rates so I'm sure other people do.

I wanted to say to be really careful when you try to plan any large financial transactions based on what you see on xe.com or similar services. What you see there is the wholesale trading rate, which is used for various things but not for consumer transfer rates or cash exchange rates. No matter who you use or how you do it, you are very unlikely to ever get an exchange at the wholesale exchange rate, even if you are moving large sums via a dedicated Forex broker. Working out that transaction based on xe.com will almost always leave you feeling like you've been short-changed.

There is a cost in the transfer of money between currencies which typically isn't very large but is passed on to consumers. It also matters how institutions are moving their money. Large brokers or banks are able to bundle up multiple exchanges and transfer large quantities at an advantage, but whichever service Paypal is using is likely to be doing it on an almost per-transaction basis. Why? Because you want to see your money in your account as soon as possible. So you pay a higher cost on the smaller sum.

Just be careful - xe.com gives wholesale exchange rate, do not rely on it for making personal financial decisions for Forex transactions. A good rule is if you are moving a good amount of money with a broker, reduce the xe.com rate by something like 1%, but if you are using a small per-transaction service like Paypal, then the difference will always be larger than that.

[AdminAtAxis]

I live in the UK and receive USD payments into my PayPal account so I have USD funds in my PayPal account.

When I withdraw those funds to my UK bank PayPal always converts to UK Pounds and sends UK pounds to my UK bank.

How do I stop paypal converting the USD to GBP. I want PayPal to send USD to my UK Bank.

[Talismancer]

Just to illustrate this...AUD -> GBP right now...Let's say I buy something for 50 pounds

XE.com 1 GBP = 1.80889 AUD -> AUD$90.44

visa        1 GBP = 1.88592 AUD -> AUD$94.30

travelex 1 GBP = 1.89107 AUD -> AUD$94.55

paypal   1 GBP = 1.94176 AUD -> AUD$97.09

I thought Travelex were bad but Paypal are SHARKS

[Kaide]

What AdminAtAxis said.

I'm a freelancer and get paid in USD too, each month I lose a substantial amount as I have to use paypal to get paid.

AsAdminAtAxis a couple of posts above said, when I withdraw to my UK bank account it ALWAYS autoconverts using the crap PayPal exchange rate when I just want it to send the USD to my bank account...

This is completely outrageous to not even give us the option, this is our money and we should have the choice to decide how it is handles, this paypal "exchange rates" are nothing more than hidden fees used to make extra money from us in a very decptive manner.

This is unacceptable and the lack of communication here on this thread with PayPal scurting around the issue and not directly answering clients questions is beyound belief so I'll lay it out simply for you PayPal and I expect a response.

How do we send money to our bank account in the currency we've recieved it in, for example I receive money in USD so I want to send it in USD to my UK bank account and NOT have it auto converted to pounds at your obscene exchange rates.

Please don't reply with some obscure answer, the questions is very simple!

Thank you,

A disgruntled customer.

[koleca]

Hi,

Where is the option to change the exchange rate. Your exchange rates are far away from the real ones. The conversation can be made in my bank. You are taking from my money when I purchise and you say it's free. It's a cheat :(((((((((((

Unfortunately I have to use your platform for paying in the future. First chance I have I will change your servicе robbers :(((

[Kungfudave]

It gets worse i unwittingly got robbed last night. I live in the uk but i recieved a payment in us dollars. I decided to keep it in us dollars as i will be making a purchase soon. A deezer bill had popped out and had reduced the balance slightly which is fine but i ended up being a few bucks short. So i used my credit card to fund the remaining part. Paypal not only offered a poor rate, they actually charged the conversion fee for the gbp part of my transaction on the entire value of the order. So i got charged 6 pounds for 10 dollar of currency conversion. Absolute crooks. Will be trying to find an alternative.