Universal Paypal conversion change for all currencies outside of the US

[VintageComics]

OK, so many of you who bought from me about 3-4 weeks ago may remember I was refunding your payments because your payments which used to arrive in $US were now arriving in $CAN.

 

I thought nothing of it and just chalking it up to another Paypal cash grab which forced us to convert the money twice if we wanted to spend it in $US.

 

I simply worked around it by sending a "Request Money" request from my Paypal account in $US.

 

When I did that they all arrived in $US.

 

I just got an email from another Canadian boardie who was also experiencing this so I decided to call Paypal and see why they made the changes.

 

It turns out that it's actually a coding glitch in their system and they opened up a repair ticket (Ticket #4789) to try to solve it.

 

If you used to receive payments in $US and that has changed in the last few weeks, you may want to call Paypal and let them know that it's happening to you.

 

Quote Repair Ticket #4789 and point out the examples where this occurred as it will help them solve the coding issue.

[greggy]

I don't care

[Paul © ® ⚽️💙™]

I've had exactly the same problem in my Board sales. I always prefer $ but payments have been coming in £.

I put it down to the very weak pound against the dollar and thought it was paypal trying to eke a few quid out of me by converting it to pounds.

[VintageComics]

I've had exactly the same problem in my Board sales. I always prefer $ but payments have been coming in £.

I put it down to the very weak pound against the dollar and thought it was paypal trying to eke a few quid out of me by converting it to pounds.

 

Is it something that started recently?

 

It started for me about 3-4 weeks ago.

 

If so, I'd call Paypal with the info above and complain.

[VintageComics]

I don't care

 

Look, a nut!

[Paul © ® ⚽️💙™]

I've had exactly the same problem in my Board sales. I always prefer $ but payments have been coming in £.

I put it down to the very weak pound against the dollar and thought it was paypal trying to eke a few quid out of me by converting it to pounds.

 

Is it something that started recently?

 

It started for me about 3-4 weeks ago.

 

If so, I'd call Paypal with the info above and complain.

 

I noticed it about 2-3 weeks ago when the £ hit the floor.My sales are fairly low key value wise.

To be honest Roy I make a point of never ringing ebay or paypal. I hate them and life's too short.

[VintageComics]

To be honest Roy I make a point of never ringing ebay or paypal. I hate them and life's too short.

 

The phone call went pretty quick and it may help solve their coding issue, but to each their own.

 

Good to know it's happening in the UK as well. I'll let them know.

[jhutton2]

It was happening to me too, US dollars automatically being converted to Canadian, which is not what I want personally.

 

I called them up to try and find a resolution, but to no avail. I also send out invoices, it seems to work better. Just about to sell some low dollar items on Ebay, hopefully that issue is not happening with Ebay sales as well.

 

Stay tuned.

[Paul © ® ⚽️💙™]

To be honest Roy I make a point of never ringing ebay or paypal. I hate them and life's too short.

 

The phone call went pretty quick and it may help solve their coding issue, but to each their own.

 

Good to know it's happening in the UK as well. I'll let them know.

 

Thanks for that

[VintageComics]

I called them up to try and find a resolution, but to no avail. I also send out invoices, it seems to work better.

 

The ticket was created on Nov 12th, so before that they may not have realized it was an actual problem.

 

Just about to sell some low dollar items on Ebay, hopefully that issue is not happening with Ebay sales as well.

 

Everything has been fine for me when selling through eBay.

[PovertyRow]

I don't care

 

Look, a nut!

 

Do we care that he doesn't care?

I don't care that he doesn't care.

Do you care that he doesn't care?

 

[vaillant]

I don't care

 

Look, a nut!

 

Do we care that he doesn't care?

I don't care that he doesn't care.

Do you care that he doesn't care?

Greggy does not care but people care for Greggy!

[vaillant]

Roy, I believe that I just experienced that from Italy as well.

 

I received a payment of a quite substantial amount for a slab, and while the buyer sent me a precise amount in USD, it actually makes two conversions and shows me a final amount in Euro which is about $20 less of what I should have received.

 

Since I am not fluent in english at the phone, do you think there is a way to address this problem without calling PayPal (maybe via email)?

[vaillant]

I have sent them an email via the "Message center" mentioning your ticket.

I hope this reverts back to normal as it doesn’t make any sense (and apparently subtracts more money without a reason).

[Mr Sneeze]

I have had issues with this as well. I assumed it was a cash grab with the double conversion. I called a few weeks back and they had me change an option in how I receive payments through the selling tools link. Still having problems though. I will call them again tonight when I get a chance.

[grebal]

On the US side when making payment to neighbor to north in CAD, my recent paypal payments included TWO amounts: first what I was sending in USD, and then second how much my seller would receive in CAD.

 

It just happened twice to me with purchases from two board sellers.

 

Never had seen this before, so I had to specifically ask my sellers if the amount I was sending was okay? How could they be sure how much USD I originally sent unless they make another calculation of the rate used by paypal in currency translation?

 

If I was a Canadian in Canada I'd try to keep a paypal balance in USD (with my sale receipts from US buyers) so when I bought from US seller I would already have the USD without need for another conversion. Of course, this is like taking an investment position in USD currency (but with the USD getting stronger lately and the commodity price bust hurting the CAD, imo not such a bad idea).

[VintageComics]

Strangely enough, I spoke to Paypal yesterday and they told me that ticket #4789 was fixed. I mentioned that the problem was international and not just between US and Canada and the phone attendant assured me it was resolved.

 

Maybe they didn't?

 

I've been invoicing people ever since I found out about this.

 

I'll leave it up to you guys to update the thread.

[vaillant]

Thanks,

I received an automated reply to my email which basically was a "cut and paste" of a FAQ – what the heck, if I am writing it’s because I am experiencing a specific problem not addressed in the FAQ.

So I sent once again my message (mentioning Roy's ticket number), and now I want to see if they reply.

 

What I experienced today is precisely as Grebal explained, and twice: since at first the buyer sent me a PayPal personal payment I mistook the "recalculated" amount for a calculation made on his part to deduct the fees.

But it wasn’t, because when I told him I’d have preferred PayPal "pay for goods and services" and he kindly resent the payment with the full amount, I still received a recalculated amount, and this time it was clear that they were doing a double currency conversion, where there was no need to do any (my main account currency is and has always been in USD, as I use PayPal mostly for buying and occasionally selling in USA).

 

To possibly understand how this new behavior (which does not seem to be a "software glitch" at all) works, here’s how a screenshot of a payment I recently sent to Kaspar looks on my part: as you see, payment is shown as done from EUR to CAD, while my account is in USD and I had no Euro on my account at all.

Now, what I seem to get is that if you are abroad compared to the final recipient you are charged for some kind of conversion (which should not happen) on top of your regular transaction fees, even if the currency is the same.

 

 

Another thing I can’t explain is that, while my primary currency is correctly shown in USD, my current balance (converted from USD to EUR and then back to USD) is in EUR, while on the main page is shown in USD.

 

 

This is absolutely annoying because, as Grebal says, you are not aware of the amount actually sent (I had to ask the buyer which might have thought I was suspicious about him). That is…

 

Now I think I will seriously re-check Stripe: PayPal needs to get back down to earth.

[vaillant]

Not sure this has always been handled with these fees (from the PayPal rules)…

 

[vaillant]

I have studied the thing a bit and I came to these conclusions:

 

– Apparently you no longer have the ability of keeping your primary currency set in a different currency than your country's own one;

 

– Only in case of payments sourced from credit card (and not from the PayPal balance) you can switch back to set your card's company own currency rates (and not PayPal's) but they have hidden it pretty well (it's under Settings/Payments/Manage pre-approved payments: yes, well hidden);

 

– In case of payments sourced from the PayPal balance there is no way to prevent the new currency conversions (for which they charge conversion fees);

 

– PayPal changed their user agreements on November 19, 2016 but I received no email notification for this: how does this sound?

AND it appears you can’t see user agreements for other countries different than yours (even if the popup menu allows you to select them, and theoretically you should).