Be careful of currency exchange rates! (Or how I lost $67.00 in 3 days)

bulletproofsoul

bulletproofsoul

Always on the hunt
O.G.
Jan 18, 2007
4,692
43
#1
I just wanted to remind everyone who purchases internationally that paypal will fleece you for the exchange rates even for a direct refund. I tried to purchase an item from an overseas seller, that ended up being unavailable, so the seller refunded me. Because of the big differences in time zones and the natural fluctuations in emails back and forth, the refund took 3 days to complete. Upon reviewing my credit card statement and subsequently reviewing my paypal account, I noticed that the difference in the amount I was refunded was $67.24! I guess that may seem like small potatoes, when trying to pay over $1,000.00 for a bag, but it's a lot of money to just lose in 3 days when I didn't even end up purchasing anything! I've never had this problem before and it makes me really think twice before purchasing items internationally, which I love doing. :sad: I put in a call to paypal about it, but after getting nowhere with an agent who didn't really speak fluent English and kept giving me stock responses and not really knowing what happened and not being able to fully explain, I asked for a supervisor. I was on hold for about 20 minutes before the same agent came back and said all of the supervisors were busy and someone would have to call me back. :rolleyes: I don't expect this to actually happen. I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of this happening and to please be careful when making big overseas purchases. :sad:
 
#2
I had a similar problem when I purchased a bundle of skincare and makeup from the US. I paid via CC but got an email that one of the items (juicy tube) wasn't available. The seller put the refund through ($8.50 USD I think) and after conversion and the charge for the refund, it actually cost me $2 on top of the $8.50 that was eaten up in fees and charges. That really bites! I honestly think that PayPal must run currency conversion the same as many other places - buy and sell prices are much different to one another.
 
#3
I know that Paypal does not consider a refund any different than a purchase on a merchant account. So if you are able to accept credit cards, they take their fees off any refund you get, even though it isn't a customer making a purchase. Which is totally ridiculous! The interest rates fluctuate daily, so I understand how there can be a bit of a difference there-credit cards do the same thing if they process exchange. But still $67 seems like a lot.
 
#7
Ugh how annoying. My mom had that happen once when she was buying something from the UK (not via ebay)..she did one of those money transfer things for the amount, it turned out that the seller gave her the wrong name for the check so she had to send it back and my mom got a new one. In that time, the dollar was $14 weaker than it was when my mom made her purchase so she was out that amount. Really annoying.
 
#8
It happened to me too. And I wasn't paying by cc, it was from my Paypal balance. I emailed Paypal and their reply was basically "sorry but too bad. that's the currency exchange rates and there's nothing we can do about it". I don't think it's a nothing-we-CAN-do-about-it, but a we-WON'T-do-anything-about-it. I'm just out of a couple of dollars, so I just treat that as a lesson learnt.
 
#10
This has nothing to do with eBay. I just wanted to share. My husband's friend decided to pay him through paypal since his friend owes him money, convenience and all. Paypal took $50 out of the $550 that was deposited in my husband's PP account. Is there an argument for that? :wtf: Stupid PP crap charges! :cursing:
 
#12
I had the same problem - I purchased a bag from an eBay seller who decided after I paid that they wouldn't ship internationally (this wasn't in the listing terms). They refunded my money but it took several days for it to be processed back to me via Paypal so I lost close to $60 in the transaction exchange rates. Then to top it off the seller decided to hit me for relisting the item on eBay.
 
#13
beauty k addict said:
This has nothing to do with eBay. I just wanted to share. My husband's friend decided to pay him through paypal since his friend owes him money, convenience and all. Paypal took $50 out of the $550 that was deposited in my husband's PP account. Is there an argument for that? :wtf: Stupid PP crap charges! :cursing:
Click to expand...

Well, it actually has a bit to do with ebay, since pp is from ebay (?!).
They charge everyone who receives money on his pp acount! I also started a thread just now (I didn't see this one). It find it super rude they make so much money over us!
 
#15
maro888 said:
I can understand that the currency exchange rates fluctuates every day but $67 is quite a big fluctuation for 3 days!!
Click to expand...


It's not surprising at all because the rate PayPal charges the buyer to send the money and the rate they use to process a refund are different (buy/sell rate). With the spread of the exchange rates, you could get that much less even there's no fluctuation. I had this happened to me once but the seller offered to reimburse most of the amount, thankfully.
 
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