Paypal and Canadian Ebay sellers.

[shamrock_billiards]

Has anybody else noticed that Paypal works much better for Americans than it does for Canadians. If I sell a pool table on Ebay for, let's say $1600 CDN and my buyer decides to pay through Paypal. First you pay the Paypal fees 2.9% Which is very reasonable compared to other credit card processing companies. Now here's where it can get expensive. If your buyer pays you in CDN your Paypal account is probably set to USD primary so you have to convert the funds in to USD. When you do this you lose about 4%, and than because we are in Canada to take the money out at a atm it gets converted back to CDN and you lose another 4%. So it costs you approx $160 by the time your finished (my math and percentages are probably a little off) Now when you tell your customer you are going to charge an additional $100 if they use paypal they decline and either want to back out because they don't have cash and wanted to pay with their credit card, or have to scramble around finding another payment method, and when you call paypal about it you wait 15 mins to talk to the first guy who after you explain everything to him put's you on hold until you hang up. Has anybody else had this problem, and if so did you find a solution. Thanks
Paul.

[betterthanstore]

wrightcomputes, it's called RBC Centura, US account for Canadians, go to a RBC branch in Canada to open it. Yes, you can put paypal US$ into it, and also instant transfers from RBC Centura to your RBC US$ a/c in Canada. Read some old threads.

[wrightcomputes]

A USD account in a Canadian Bank is useless as far as PayPal is concerned. The only way to withdraw US dollars from PayPal is by making it to an account at a US Bank.

[shoplineca]

wrightcomputes
The RBC Centura account is a US Bank account and NOT a Cdn Bank account in US $.

The only other Cdn bank that offered that same service was TD/Canada Trust thru TD Waterhouse, NJ however they are not allowing any more US accounts to be opened.

At the same time, when people are transaferring funds from their US Bank account (whether it is RBC, or TD or an acct they opened up in the US with a specific US Bank) they can transfer into an US $ acct at their bank where they can get preferential exchange rates over the typical counter rates everyone gets to be used when they convert those funds into Cdn funds.

Malcolm

[mirakbiz_inc]

I use TD Waterhouse, but I deposit cheques from that account into my USD TC Canada Trust account. Then whenever I deem necessary I transfer only between my USD and my Cdn business TD accounts

Than works for me

[alero0]

I opened a RBC Centura account about 4 months ago. Paypal transfers US$ into that account because it is in fact a US bank. My branch is based in Flordia. It's great because RBC Canadian account and my RBC Centura US account are both interlinked online so I could log on to either account on my web banking and have access to both accounts and make transfers with just a click of my mouse. As long as I keep at least $750. in my Centura account there are no bank fees. I'm saving about 2 points. Why not! It doesn't cost anything.

Harvey

[esellerauction]

Here is what you do, take you PP atm card to your Bank and get a cash advance, you get the 1.5% bonus and you dont get screwed over on the exchange, been working for me.
Cheers Kevin

[phoebescollectables]

Further to the topic of US based US$ account. Last October TD Waterhouse suspended the ability for Canadians to open new accounts with them as they go through some changes. They are hoping by this summer to once again allow Canadians to open bank accounts with them.

Another added bonus to the TD Waterhouse account (and possibly the RBC account) is that if I get a dreaded green domestic USPS money order, I can mail it into the bank for deposit.

Michael