Overcharged for order?

[donnimcnut0]

I made an offer of $24 USD on an item that had free shipping, my offer was accepted and my invoice says it should be $29.96 CDN. But my credit card was charged $31.12 CDN for the transaction. I completed the transaction immediatly so I know the conversion rate didn’t have a sudden shift that could effect the transaction, not to mention if it had it should be reflected on my invoice.
Am I overlooking a hidden fee I should be aware of or was I overcharged a $1.16CAD?

[momcqueen · Accepted solution]

You were not overcharged. Your credit card provider (and really all parties that convert currency on transactions) charge their own 'conversion fee' top of the currency conversion. It's like a fee for service. Banks do it, paypal does it, Visa and MasterCard does it. They are all about the same amount, it's competitive at least in relation to each other. 

[ypdc_dennis · Accepted solution]

This is probably eBay's overhelpful dumbing down of invoices -- in the old days the invoice would have said $24.00 US not some eBay fake Canadian value that ignores the extra percentage that paypal or credit card companies charge on top of the base currency exchange rate.

So, you probably were not overcharged -- eBay just gave you misleading information -- always assume that the converted value eBay displays will be out by 2-4% depending on how your payment is processed. The only time the value will be accurate and correct is when no currency exchange is involved.

[donnimcnut0]

Thanks! I couldn’t rationalize where the $1 .xx extra came from and while a $1 doesn’t matter I really wanted to know what I was missing. I never encountered this before so thank you for explaining this out to me.

[marnotom!]

Even simpler explanation:  eBay listings in currencies other than Canadian dollars show up as having "approximate" conversions to Canadian dollars when viewed on eBay.ca. 

More technical stuff:  This "approximate" converted price is based on the midway point between the Canadian dollar's "buy" and "sell" rates on currency markets around the time the listing is viewed.

No credit card issuer, bank, or PayPal will offer that sort of exchange rate to Joe or Jane Q. Public.