SQ vs Paypal

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I live in a country with our own currency (HUF).
I have been using PayPal since forever for online purchases, hotel and flight bookings etc.

Today i realized that paypal doesn’t charge my account in USD and lets my bank do the conversion but paypal does the conversion on an awful rate.

The 150$ donation via paypal cost me 5% (!!) more HUF than entering my credit card details directly on omaze.com

Considering all the money i wasted over the years my relationship with paypal went from love to hate

I hope when SQ becomes available in my country it will be happy just to take transaction fees and will leave conversions to the actual banks

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Hi,
In my case, managing my accounts in Euros (Portugal), I switch my foreigner transactions (USD or another one) with Revolut (European fintech). They have no comissions and they use the market exchange without no spread.
Rosendo Jose

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OHi,
In my case, managing my accounts in Euros (Portugal), I switch my foreigner transactions (USD or another one) with Revolut (European fintech with online account or physical card)without fees and they use the market exchange without without any spread.
Rosendo Jose

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Sorry for my mistake.

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Hi MK76,

May I ask how you found it was paypal doing the conversion?

I thought the conversion is charged on the credit card you have assigned for payment.
This is important because I use different cards for different transactions. One card for local in my case GBP and another for USD. In the UK there are cards that are better for non GBP transactions as they don’t charge conversion fees (normally at 1.5% of nominal value) with FX rates competitively converted at the time of purchase.

Cheers
Eddie

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Hi Eddie,
When I was at PayPal it showed me the amount in HUF before I could hit submit. I tried to change the currency but I couldn’t.
Then I did another donation entering the credit card details directly at the charity’s webpage to verify and this way I got charged the lower amount/rate

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Hmm will have to check mine. I think you have the option to charge at the currency you prefer.
Will go several months on the credit card statements to see if all transactions are in local currency than the product currency.

Thanks!

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In my experience the merchant choses the currency and some give you a choice between the local and the card currency. If you choose the card currency the merchant charges the exchange fee, otherwise the card does. No free lunch, just some lunches cost more.

Denny Schlesinger

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Eight posts on this very personal and OT thread is enough, don’t you think? Let’s close the thread here.
Thanks for your cooperation,
Saul

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Well you learn something new everyday!

I just checked my credit card company for a foreign purchase I made and they confirmed the charge was already in the local currency.

I spoke to Paypal customer support and was advised that for subscriptions/pre-approved payments Paypal do the FX conversion themselves. While for non-subscriptions they provide the option, very sneaky for Paypal though. I politely ask if this was on their terms and conditions and they claim it is.

Anyway not a biggie, now that I know, I will not use Paypal for non local purchases.
Looking forward to switching my business to SQ if they have a better option.

Thank you for bringing this up!

Cheers,
Eddie

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I travel a lot to foreign countries as well as order from Amalzon US with Singapore dollar credit card, I always take the option to be charged in local currency at POS. What ever exchange rate amazon offers or the POS uses to convert to SGD is worst then what rate the bank charges when the transaction hits myy statement