Why does my currency automatically convert when accepting payments?

[smeriksen]

Hey I'm not sure why PayPal automatically converts my funds. I sell on ebay, and when I make sales there I only accept USD. Only US currency makes it into my account through eBay. When I sell off eBay there is a problem. I often sell on other forums and always deal in USD. Half of my customers are American, and the online hobby world works on USD, therefore payments or purchases are always USD. I've noticed that PayPal has been automatically converting my payments to Canadian funds without asking me. Before I would only convert to Canadian funds when I had to withdraw to.my bank account. This is a problem because now when I want to purchase something in USD, I am losing money because all my funds are Canadian, and PayPal gives horrible rates for conversion. Did PayPal switch something on all accounts to make it so you can only accept currencies from your country of origin? Is there a way I can turn this off? It doesn't make sense to me that I can accept USD payments on eBay, and the currency stays USD. But all other payments get converted to CDN. If it matters. I am located in Canada. I use eBay.com for all my selling on eBay ( never use .ca ). The other forms of payments I accept are just other PayPal members sending money. I don't send them invoices, they don't checkout on a website or anything like that. The other member and I simply come to a deal, I give my PayPal address and they send PayPal over in USD currency. Hope someone has some answers for me because this is very frustrating. Thanks

[Whac-A-Mole]

You are in Canada,you local currency is Canadian dollars.

did you check your profile that you accept US dollars and want to keep them as US dollars,if so,then you will see a separate balance in your Paypal account in US dollars,beside the Canadian balance.

You sell on Ebay USA,buyers will have t o pay you in US dollars,no matter where they are,Paypal does the conversion for them and they pay Paypal a fee for doing so,you pay nothing.

But on the other sites,if the site allows them to pay in local currency ,then you pay the conversion fee from whatever their currency is to your local currency.

what are the other sites ?     

[smeriksen]

The other site I mainly sell on is sportscardforum.com. it is a trading / buying / selling forum that doesn't use a checkout system, just 2 people agreeing to a sale and executing it via PayPal. I've made hundreds of sales on that site and have always been able to accept USD. I've had PayPal since 2004 and have never had this problem, nor have I changed any settings on my end.

[Whac-A-Mole]

did you send a PAYPAL invoice and specify the amount in US $? 

[smeriksen]

I just refunded my latest payment and sent an invoice in USD. The buyer is from the US and says he sent the initial payment in USD

[Julie9988]

I am not in Canada, (I am living in Belize) but my bank account is and some of my payments get converted to Canadian dollars. I don't understand why only some. Any that I receive from Airbnb stays in USD but others get converted. I NEED ALL of my payments to remain in USD as I only do business in USD. And the Canadian dollar sucks right now so I am losing lots of money on conversions. How do I fix this problem?

[sharpiemarker]

Maintain a USD currency balance in your PayPal account (go to Manage Currencies in your PayPal Balance on the Wallet page) and invoice your customers in USD to receive USD.  When you withdraw to your Canadian bank, it will be converted from USD to CAD.  Check your Block Payment settings in your seller preferences to not have PayPal convert your foreign currency.

[teddyboy]

This does not help at all. I have both CAD and USD wallets, and my account always shows balance in both wallets. Just recently all incoming USD got converted to CAD. This is without consent. Note that I have not change any settings in my account for the past 10 years and this is happening now. I too suspect its a money grab thing on PayPal's part. Not very nice.

[Whac-A-Mole]

@teddyboy

are you in Canada,is your account Canadian based?

check your setting again that you accept US  currency and would like t o keep them as US DOLLARS.

ARE YOu sure they are sending you US$?

[teddyboy]

Sumiko:

To answer your questions: Yes, I am in Canada, and my account was first opened as Canadian account with a CAD wallet. Then I created a USD wallet to take care of buying in USD and receiving payments in USD, without the hassle and fees of currency conversion, not to mention making book keeping simpler.

It has been like that for the last 10 or so years and it's always if CAD comes, it goes to CAD wallet; if USD comes, it goes to USD wallet. No problems. And I have never changed any settings in my account.

Then I noticed the last two USD sums came in showed up as CAD. In both cases the payers were given an amount in USD, not in CAD. They would not have done the currency exchange by themselves. One payer I contacted gave me this reply and I quote: "...By the way, Paypal defaulted in sending funds to you denominated in Canadian currency after I added the 4% so you should have the net $50(US)...." So apparently the screen he used had some sort of automatic currency conversion menu he most likely did not notice and the default happened. I cannot see his screen, but PayPal should know well if that is how it was set up on the other side.

I can understand if I only had a CAD wallet then all USD coming in MUST be converted. I have no questions about that. But I have a USD wallet specifically for accepting USD then why was this still automatically converted to CAD? And it has not happened before? That's why I asked previously to one of the CS "Is this a new policy?"