EBay and PayPal

[tonnerbeer]

  I am a Canadian who has been happily using EBay (and Amazon) for purchases for years; I do not sell on either.  Initially,  all my purchases were made using my credit cards: a U.S. Dollar card charging against a U.S. Dollar Account at my Canadian Bank for purchases made on EBay.com or Amazon.com in U.S. Dollars, and my Canadian card against my Canadian dollar account  for those purchases in Canadian dollars made on EBay.ca or Amazon.ca. All was good.     I maintain a U.S. Dollar account in Canada to avoid paying currency exchange fees.

     Enter PayPal  -  stage left.   

     I joined and linked the PayPal account to my credit cards for payments on EBay.

     Any purchase I make in US dollars on EBay.com is now "automatically" converted to Canadian dollars (PayPal's exchange rate) and then sent to my Bank in Canadian dollars against my U.S. dollar credit card.  My bank converts these Canadian Dollar charges to U.S. dollars (bank exchange rate) and charges this amount against my U.S. dollar balance.     

      But it doesn't seem to stop even there.

       Since the PayPal billing to my bank was in Canadian dollars, the bank then has to convert the U.S. dollars back to Canadian dollars to send to PayPal and the additional exchange rate fee is also charged to me.

       My last EBay purchases saw about a 13% increase above the price I agreed to pay. 

       There is no one to talk to at PayPal and EBay refers me to PayPal (not their problem...?...)

       I "unlinked" all my credit cards and my bank account from PayPal but even this did not prevent PayPal from billing my last U.S. dollar purchase  in Canadian dollars  against my U.S. dollar credit card and invoking

three currency exchange charges and an unexpected increase in the agreed-upon purchase price.

      These comments may be of interest to  buyers in similar situations but should be of particular interest to anyone selling cross-border via EBay.   Unless these unethical (perhaps illegal?) exchange rate surcharges are discontinued, cross-border selling - and shopping - in our "global" economy is being jeopardized.   

[luv4orphans]

I am following this to see what people will answer. I have noticed that the last few purchases made on ebay when you get to paypal to checkout, that amount is always more by a few dollars. I do not use a credit card, the money comes directly out of my bank account but needs to go through paypal to pay for anything?

Before MP I always kept funds in my paypal account from my sale in case I wanted to purchase something. So always had US dollars to play with. The amount stayed the same when I checked out on paypal as on ebay. Now always up by a few dollars on paypal. Those few dollars are adding up.

This occurred when we were switched over to Managed Payments. As buyers we can no longer purchased and use our money in paypal as its kept on ebay and then diverted to our bank accounts. So we still need to go through paypal to purchase anything. I have a feeling paypal is now charging a fee to the buyer.

You are not a seller but just a buyer and seeing hikes also.  Ebay and paypal are passing the puck around. To me paypal is now charging a fee to the buyer for using their site. Most sellers on ebay are being switched to MP. That leaves the buyers to pay the paypal fees. 

Not sure why you are using paypal for Amazon though as you can just register with them and no need to go through paypal.

[marnotom!]

The big news first: eBay is gradually severing its ties with PayPal as a payment processor.  Although buyers will still have the option of paying with PayPal if they so wish, other payment options such as credit card payments without PayPal's intervention, Apple Pay and Google Pay will also be offered.  On the seller's side, this scheme is called "Managed Payments" and you'll find many discussions on the various eBay discussion boards from sellers bewildered, upset, or sanguin about this change.  As a buyer, you can find which sellers are now using Managed Payments instead of PayPal by looking for the Google Pay or Apple Pay logos in the payment portion of the listing page.

In light of all that and the fact that PayPal and eBay have been independent entities for several years, I'll have to agree that this is more of a PayPal issue than an eBay issue.  eBay has no control over how PayPal handles the nuts and bolts of an international payment.

When Canadian buyers purchase an item from a US eBay seller and use a credit card to fund their payment, they have the option of having PayPal convert the payment or having their card issuer do the deed.  Your PayPal settings are probably set for the former, and I'm wondering if changing the settings to the latter will enable you to pay with your US dollar credit card without PayPal getting in the way.

I posted a link to this "how to" page about three years ago on the .com (American) discussion boards and it still seems to get dragged out and thumbed-up every so often, so I guess the information is still valid:

https://thepointsguy.com/2017/05/save-money-by-changing-paypal-currency-setting-for-invoices/