Sending a dollar balance from a UK PayPal account to the US

[andrewilley]

I have saved a US-dollar balance in my UK PayPal account, which I keep for buying products from American retailers without incurring currency conversion fees etc. This is fine when the company accepts PayPal, and this has worked very well.

However if the company does not accept PayPal, and I want to get an American friend to make the payment for me, I can see two options:

1) Send my dollar balance to their (US) PayPal account as a friend transfer. Will this still incur any fees even though the funds are already stored in dollars?

2) Add their US bank account to my own UK PayPal account (I believe that this is possible for customer services to do?) and they could then withdraw the dollar balance directly into their US bank account. I don't think this way would incur fess, but I'm not sure.

Any comments or suggestions? I kept this sum in dollars to avoid any fees, so I am somewhat reluctant to convert it back in order to use my regular credit card.

Andre

[kernowlass]

@andrewilley

1. Yes probably cross border fees.

2. NO you can't add someone else's bank account to your own paypal account and i would be amazed at anyone even thinking about letting you.  A bank account has to be in your own name and verified with the 4 digit code.

Would you let your American 'friend'' have your bank account details and pin number??

[andrewilley · Accepted solution]

Yes, the security implications of adding someone else's bank account to my PayPal account were concerning me a bit (although I'll be sending them several thosand dollars anyway, so yes I do trust them). It would be as much of a risk to them as to me of course. I did wonder whether it would have to be an account in my name too, hence my checking here.

I've gone with the PayPal transfer option anyway. As the funds were already in dollars saved in my UK account there was only a 1% fee for it being an international transfer (although I've no idea why that should incur any extra fees when it would not have done so within the UK - PayPal presumably uses its own servers anyway, rather than international banks).

When I'm next in the US, I'll set up a US bank account in my own name and get that added to my own PayPal account, which will resolve the problem for any future needs.

Andre