Watch out for PAYPAL if you are buying an item in a different currency

A couple of days ago I wanted to purchase some music software. I am in the UK and the online retailer is based in the E.U. When I went to pay for the item through Paypal the final total due was almost as many Euros as the the price indicated in Sterling. The rate on the day was €1.12 on the international exchange rate to the British £ at that time. Paypal were making me first convert to Euros with their OWN exchange rate offering ONLY approx €!.08.

Paypal were actually making money out of using their own DREAMED UP exchange rate as well as charging me and the seller the fees they impose.

We have only the same rights with Paypal as we do with our banks, credit and debit cards. There is absolutely NO difference in the amount of protection. There is not some special extra rule for Paypal. Consumer rights are consumer rights and financial rules and regs are not pandering to Paypal more than any other financial (dis)institution. If anything, Paypal's process is slower because you have to wait a long time for money to clear. They told me that they do not have the money once it is allocated and waiting to clear and that it is in some kind of limbo during that time. Do you believe that MONEY is EVER in limbo? I do not believe that. Money is always doing something for somebody's interest.

Of course I chose instead to pay with my debit card. With them I am not penalized. They don't make me exchange the money. I will NEVER use Paypal ever again. Also, I have just been treated badly by yet another Ebay "robber" ape, who has made me pay for the return postage of some garbage dysfunctional item they tried to offload on to me for over a £100.

These two companies are leeches. We do not actually need them. Their ASTRONOMICAL fees dictate that we can ALWAYS find a better deal from the retailers themselves rather than letting the leeches take their cut. What a vile brood.

WARNING to fellow Brits: Watch out for this because whenever you buy from U.S or E.U and use Paypal they will make extra profit out of you by making up their own exchange rate. Be very wary. Check the exchange rates ALWAYS. Google the rates and compare to what Paypal are exchanging at.

THIS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL. The other web pay companies are the same. Ban them all. They only offer worse protection than your bank. Stick with the security of the banks where you can. NEVER exchange your money at an airport. ALWAYS do it through an established bank. Sending/Receiving money and changing currencies is where we get stung and where our vulnerability is. I wish the banks would get with the times. The banks are becoming like dinosaurs. They are not keeping up with the times. DANGER, Will Robinson, DANGER! They will die if they don't keep up and we will be left to the mercy of these low life ROBBERS who do nothing but sit on their fat asses and rob us blind digitally "on tap" to feed the greedy monster share(G)olders in their extortion racket excuse for a company.

See, I do care about you all and try to warn you when I see those evil bastards scamming us.

That´s why i don´t use anything else than PaySafe.
No bank data, account information needed.

People laugh at me if i ask them if they can order something for me at Amazon and ask me why i don´t have an own account. They laughed when i told them that i never would use PayPal or something else, or online banking, where i have to put sensible data into the web. They laugh about me when i tell them that nothing in the web is safe and that i don´t trust nobody, not even myself for the whole time.

Many of them meanwhile stopped laughing, but i had several reasons to start it!

a reply to: Revolution9


NOTE: Where I said about banks not keeping up with the times I meant that they are not being competitive in some respects service wise digitally.

Our debit and credit cards could go "soft". Instead of each time having to fill in all the long numbers, all the address details et c (we all know how horribly repetitive that gets and this is where Paypal gets a foot in the door) we could have a fingerprint or similar log in that makes the transaction EVER QUICKER than Paypal. Banks could clearly state that they are fair exchange rate wise so the best bet for international consumerism against the web pay pirates. We don't want he individual companies storing our card or bank details. They are too vulnerable to hacking as experience teaches us constantly. We need a SAFE PLACE. Remember why banks became so successful in the first place? It was because they were trusted and secure.

Remember!

Soft visa is required. If not it will become a dinosaur. For the sake of more profit that private web pay companies can extort it is not worth losing the banking institutions. How long before even the central banks devolve into fragments of cliques? Think far ahead in this age.

May be these guys have their advisors who see what we see and more? I never hear about it though. I get anxious and feel like warning about it. I don't even know if they are doing this deliberately as I am not in the know. I hate the idea of us being sold out so totally to the sharks though.

Sorry, a bit of nail biting from me.

Yes, my friends, there is something to fear more than banks now, lol. Watch out for the sharks whenever financial transactions are required.

Yeah, Paypal's foreign exchange rate has never been good. Although it does tend to be better than what you'll get from a bank or post office.

And often I find it's about the same level of gouging I'd get from my credit card company, who also set their own exchange rate.


Blame Brexit though, the drop in sterling that occurred after Brexit made this really painful, and brought us down to near parity with the Euro on exchange rates in shops and online.

originally posted by: Painterz
Yeah, Paypal's foreign exchange rate has never been good. Although it does tend to be better than what you'll get from a bank or post office.

And often I find it's about the same level of gouging I'd get from my credit card company, who also set their own exchange rate.


Blame Brexit though, the drop in sterling that occurred after Brexit made this really painful, and brought us down to near parity with the Euro on exchange rates in shops and online.

No, Paypal is not better than a bank. The exchange rate was €1.08 with Paypal at EXACTLY that time and they were charging me an exchange rate on top of charging the seller for using them when I was making a purchase. My bank did not charge me ANYTHING on my debit card to buy the item in terms of currency exchange fees that I am aware of. I did not have to pay the exchange rate and exchange the currency BEFORE I was allowed to buy the item. That is the difference here.

It is NOT Brexit to blame. It is unscrupulous European business practice capitalizing on Brexit and taking total advantage of the UK. The European energy companies tried to hike their prices for the British consumer, too. What they were proposing was extreme. The British Prime Minister had to threaten the industry with CAPPING and they then backed off some.


You are right about exchanging money. Paypal is ever so slightly better. However, they are being totally unscrupulous to make me pay them to exchange the currency BEFORE the purchase and are capitalizing BIG TIME on that. I bet they are making millions every week out of this where banks don't.

Paypal are in a sense actually getting free currency from me that XXXXXXXBank are currently buying at approx €1.22 and are charging me an exchange rate at the same time as though I am the one buying from them, all disguised as a consumer purchase. Banks do not do this as far as I am aware. Paypal could feasibly be buying Sterling this way for nothing and actually charging the seller by using a consumer goods transaction to extract a currency exchange fee from the buyer on top of charging a fee to the seller of the goods for using their site and money gathering service, perhaps? Win, win, win, win for them and lose, lose, lose, lose for the consumer.

I want to know what is going on here. Does anyone know because there is something very fishy about all this. Ebay are huge as an international company. My goodness, think of all the easy money they are making via all the world's exchange rates.

That is why I wrote the other day about encouraging real investment because these leeches are destroying us all. They play with exchange rates and do no real trading. They just charge everybody fees for their distribution network. This will be the ruin of true capitalism. They are the enemies of the world. It is not the banks. Civilization needs the banks and they are its financial back bone. These companies are not civilized and are no backbone (they are a "boner" of a different kind) . They contribute almost nothing to the nations in which they trade; leeches all! How can we have modern societies amd social standards when we are taken advantage of like this? No wonder we have no money for health and welfare, for infrastructure and education development. These companies just take and give nothing in return other than a bloody self perpetuating website that anybody could code into being. Most could code better graphics than that utilitarian blandness, too, lol.

originally posted by: DerBeobachter
where i have to put sensible data into the web.

Sensitive data.
You don't want to put sensitive data on the Web.

Sensible data is something you should have no problem putting on the Web, because it's sensible.

Sensible = wise or prudent.

So therefore it is Sensible to avoid putting Sensitive data on the Web.

a reply to: muzzleflash

Here we go ...

a reply to: Timely

I've held back on correcting several major spelling errors this whole week.

I just start fiending and I need another hit of Grammar Nazism. Couldn't help it.

originally posted by: muzzleflash
a reply to: Timely

I've held back on correcting several major spelling errors this whole week.

I just start fiending and I need another hit of Grammar Nazism. Couldn't help it.

The dude you are correcting is in Germany so it is likley that English is not his first language so maybe cut him a little slack?

Also maybe refrain from calling yourself any kind of Nazi?

a reply to: muzzleflash

Feel free ... we know it shall be executed with aplomb.

a reply to: Timely

And sangfroid.

a reply to: nonspecific

I didn't say I was a Nazi, I implied that I smoke Nazis of the grammarian persuasion.

Get it? Gramm-Aryan.

a reply to: DerBeobachter

I've been using online banking since the nineties. I've been buying online with my credit card since then too.
Maybe I'm just lucky but I've never had an issue.

a reply to: Painterz

My husband sells books, sports cards and collectables on eBay and he takes pay pal. I think he's been happy with it.
I think he only had a few overseas sales. A few rare books and first additions to a guy in Russia. And a first addition Stephen King book to Australia. If there was any big issue with the exchange he didnt notice it.

a reply to: Revolution9

I just checked and my bank has taken the money at the official exchange rate. Paypal would have taken more from me according to their exchange rate. That is because they are exchanging it THEMSELVES and making up their own charge like the airport money changers do. It is commission.

Obviously my bank is not penalizing me with commission when I purchase. They only demand according to the exchange rate they get and not exploiting the customer.

Please, somebody put me right as I am only learning about ll this right now, but this is the way I am figuring it thus far.

I have never had a problem with online banking. I do it with everything, nut I have had a lot of issues about what web pay companies are up to. They are making money out of this where banks are not. It's a strange affair.

I have used Ebay a lot as a buyer, not a seller. I never had a problem as a seller because I was always deadly honest. As a buyer I have had many issues. I know I can make my money work better slightly here and not be taken advantage of when I purchase online, just for the sake of having to fill in details every time.

From now on I am keeping it between me and the bank with no middle "person".