eBay

vip-marketplace · ‎08-18-2014

Hey guys,

I list all my items in USD$ (despite being Canadian).

Yesterday, I sold a 400 USD$ item to another Canadian. He sent me a message complaining of having to pay 477 CAD$ instead of 462 CAD$ as indicated in the item listing.

I apologized and told him it was probably an issue with PayPal or a new fee I wasn't aware of.

I sent him a new invoice and lowered the shipping fees by 15 USD$ and made him a new invoice (so he would have to pay the price shown in the listing).

Obviously, it has something to do with PayPal's conversion rate.

It appears they're basically overcharging my buyers and keeping the difference.

And then they take their ~3% (12 USD$) fee leaving me with 397 USD$.

To end the **bleep**, I transferred the total amount to my bank account but only getting ~422 CAD$ (second conversion).

So for an item I sold for 424 USD$ (=462 CAD$), I ended up with only 422 CAD$

PayPal alone "charged" me 40 CAD$ in "fees" and over 9% of the total sale.

I know didn't have to assume the first conversion fee of the buyer but if PayPal was asking the buyer more than the price shown on the listing, I don't see why he should accept this and I can't afford have a buyer unhappy with a transaction from the start.

Is there anything I could have done to prevent this?

TLDR : Canadian buyer pays for USD$ item then Canadian seller wants to deposit funds in his bank account. How to avoid paying the conversion fees twice??

The repartition of my buyers is pretty much 50% Canada 50% USA…

Is there anything I can do to avoid PayPal conversion **bleep** (rate)? List my stuff in CAD$? Transfer my funds in my credit card instead of my bank account (if that can be done…)?

Please I need help with this! I realize I've lost ~500$ in conversion fees simply by depositing my funds in my bank account (when it was supposed to be free)!

tobyshitzu · ‎08-20-2014

I had a note in my listings for years advising people could wait and pay in CAN$. Virtually no one did it even back then, so gave up on that. It would be even worse now as things have changed to a more normal buy/checkout right away, plus ebay's paranoia over keeping messages on ebay (eg try and send a message with wording and email address that might indicate an off ebay transaction) . It would be so simple for them to let the currency be changed on the invoice for CAN>CAN transaction, but they wouldn't give up the extra 5% they get for doing nothing

jt-libra · ‎08-20-2014

@toby**bleep**zu wrote:
I had a note in my listings for years advising people could wait and pay in CAN$. Virtually no one did it even back then, so gave up on that. It would be even worse now as things have changed to a more normal buy/checkout right away, plus ebay's paranoia over keeping messages on ebay (eg try and send a message with wording and email address that might indicate an off ebay transaction) . It would be so simple for them to let the currency be changed on the invoice for CAN>CAN transaction, but they wouldn't give up the extra 5% they get for doing nothing

Thanks for sharing your experience. Maybe the exchange isn't as big an issue with Canadians as we think it is.

I agree with your last sentence.

fenian · ‎08-20-2014

I live in Canada and sell a lot to Canadian buyers via the US site. I leave all my listings in US dollars. Years ago I opened a US dollar chequing account with Chase in Seattle.

Funds from PP are dropped into my Seattle account, so no "conversion fee" from them. I write cheques against my Seattle account and deposit them into my $US account in my Canadian bank, at no charge. The only conversion fee I encounter is when I convert my US dollars up here into Canadian funds. At that point, I get that day's US to Canadian rate at my Canadian bank.

I've never had a Canadian buyer complain about having to bid and pay in US dollars when using the US site.