I had a very frustrating issue begin today - I live in Canada and a friend sent me $5000 USD thru PayPal. Because I use PayPal for USD purchases frequently, my primary currency was set to USD. However, when my friend sent the USD, it was automatically converted to $6455 CAD, THEN BACK TO USD WITHOUT MY AUTHORIZATION! So before I even opened my PayPal app, my $5000 USD payment was shaved down to $4698 USD because PayPal decided to run it through a completely unnecessary conversion to $6455 CAD then back to USD!! And to top it all off, after waiting on hold with a PayPal rep for hours, they instructed me to reset my primary currency back to CAD...and guess what happened: THEY DINGED ME WITH ANOTHER FOREIGN CURRENCY CONVERSION FEE! And then, if you can believe it, somehow since my last session with PayPal’s “support” team, my primary currency has been reset BACK to USD and now I have $6273 CAD remaining - which equates to $4569 USD according to PayPal. So I was sent $5000 USD, and through a bizarre series of unnecessary conversions, I instantly have $431 USD less. The ultimate in convenience, if you are PayPal making millions. This can’t be legal. Definitely unethical. I already avoid using PayPal because of their fee gouging, but this is incredible. I will escalate this through national media if required. I am so frustrated by this. My theory is that PayPal does this kind of thing every day, but on small purchases, people just find the fee annoying and it isn’t worth their time to make a fuss. But on a massive scale, PayPal is skimming off a huge amount of money from consumers who either don’t recognize they’re being taken for a ride, or feel that their efforts will be futile resulting in nothing more than hours wasted on hold phoning PayPal.
