Currency conversions

[KMDesign]

I have previously had my paypal accounts set to pay in local currecny when buying and paying on Ebay. 

But today when purchasing something on Ebay, I couldn't pay in the local currecny which is GBP this time.

I have never had any problems before paying in local currencies, but now it seems like I can't do that.

I have no interest in payin the large currecny exchange fees that paypal charges, I could have saved 4% on this small purchase, which in the long run is quite a lot of money if we add it all up...

Does anyone know where to find the setting that allows me to pay in local currencies again??

[kernowlass]

@KMDesign

How were you funding the paypal payment?

[KMDesign]

I'm paying using my creditcard as I always have been doing when using my paypal account. I have always had my bank do the currency conversions for me, as it's way cheaper than Paypals conversion fees...

[PayPal_Siobhán]

Hi KMDesign,

Welcome to the community.

Sorry to hear you are having issues with the currency conversion on your payments. If you send money in a currency that is not your primary currency we provide you with a choice of whether we perform the currency conversion (at our exchange rate), or your credit card company performs the currency conversion (at their exchange rate).

In this case, what did you see when making the payment? 

Siobhan

[KMDesign]

I bought a few items of ebay, and I did not get the choice of saying I would like to pay in the local currency during checkout. I have never had this problem before, and I would like to know why.

not even when I tried to pay only via creditcard did I get that option.

Is it a problem with Ebay checkout, or with paypal??

This time it was my company account, and not my personal account, but I tried doing the same with my private account, and I still got the same result. Somehow the pay in local currency option is gone from checkout.

I would like to know if it's the paypal part of checkout or if it's the Ebay part of checkout that is blocking that option.

My personal account has always had that option, and at some time I even set it to always pay in local currency so I would use my bank as the currency exchange as it is way cheaper than Paypals exchange rate.

[PayPal_Siobhán]

Hi KMDesign, 

Apologies for the delay, we'd like to take a closer look into this however for data protection reasons you will need to call PayPal directly or email us. You will find the details under the contact us section at the bottom of any PayPal page.

Siobhan

[Tiny_Clanger]

This is now happening to me, a year on from this thread.

I've already spoken to THREE people at PayPal and nobody seems to understand a thing about it — they all try to take me through the currency converter, one wittered on about Australian dollars when I was trying to make a USD payment on a GBP fee-free card, and then tried to blame it on the card providers — as if two separate providers, one MC and one Visa, would simultaneously make the same change!

Would it be at all possible for PayPal to:

1. just sort it out, and
2. go back to the "classic" interface, or at least reinstate the option to stick to it, so we don't have to suffer the drool-proof, limited (but very shiny) version that replaced it?

I currently have an item I'm buying on eBay that I can't pay for without being ripped off with PayPal's pathetic exchange rates. Given the GBP is already in the toilet, I don't need PayPal adding insult to injury!

Again, please sort it out and make it work like it always used to!

UPDATE: I've just found a direct link to the currency conversion options page on Money Saving Expert (it's https://www.paypal.com/signin/?returnUri=http%3A%2F%2Furi.paypal.com%2FWeb%2FWeb%20%20%2Fcgi-bin%2Fw... if you need it) and all my cards had been set to have PayPal do the conversion! This is not what I had set, and I did not authorise this change. I see that two transactions have gone through with this incorrect setting, and I have been charged extra on these. I'll be phoning PayPal, and will be expecting a refund of the conversion charges. If I don't get them, I will be contacting my credit card provider to report fraud.

PayPal should NEVER change a user's setting to something that will cost them more money, without EXPLICIT authorisation from the user. If I hadn't noticed, how much longer would they have continued to defraud me?