PayPal foreign currency transactions
Turbo Mini Forums

Has anyone bought anything in a different currency and let PayPal do the currency exchange ???

And with the added caveat that you used a credit card to fund PayPal, not your nominated bank account ???

If so, did your credit card just show the GBP£ that PayPal quoted or was there something extra on top ???

The reason I'm asking is last time I bought from the States using a straight credit card, not only did they charge 2.75% fee (which I knew would happen) but they also used an exchange rate which was another 3% in their favour compared to the Bank of England's quoted rate on the day.

Now I'm about to buy again (Australia this time) and the company takes either credit cards or PayPal. PayPal's exchange rate is pretty much the same as BoE rate so no getting screwed there, but the Help panels on PayPal say there may be credit card charges but don't explain what. If PayPal does the conversion I can't see how my credit card would see anything other than GBP£ but I smell a rat......

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

I have bought many things from the UK via paypal. It always appeared that paypal did the conversion and charged my card US$. However, the credit I use does not have a fee for currency conversion... so there is a chance if I had used another card I would have been charged.

I never ever use the PayPal currency exchange, they use even worse exchange rates then the average credit card company. So I always have Paypal charge my credit card in the original currency.