Why does eBay and Paypal have different prices for their exchange rates?

[iwantstuff11]

Have you, being a Canadian eBay user buying from a US based seller ever wondered why the estimated price eBay provides is always short of the actual cost you pay through Paypal? Why has this not been addressed and why does eBay not get on the same page as Paypal to correct this. On multiple occasions Ive purchased thousands of dollars of items from a buyer expecting to pay a certain price only to find out that price is sometimes hundreds of dollars more than the checkout invoice eBay provides? It’s ridiculous. I end up with 2 invoices, one for purchase. One checkout invoice from EBay which states a certain price and then an inflated one from Paypal? You’d think these 2 corporations who were once one in the same would provide their customers with a honest pricing basis for the items up for sale on their site. Is this the reason they split so they could pass the buck to each other? This is my experience in the matter, eBay says calm Paypal and vice versa. It’s blatently obvious there is a backdoor deal going on wether legal or not and This needs to stop and we as a community need to stand up to this backdoor financial gouging by these corporations.

[momcqueen]

What you're seeing on ebay is the market rate versus what you're seeing paid through paypal which includes their fees for conversion. ebay can't display an exchange rate that includes conversion fees because they have no earthly idea to whom you are going to give that job to: paypal, your credit card, or even your USD-bank account. If you shop in USD on a regular basis, you know this. 

I've no doubt that future replies to you will cite the exact exchange rate (which is continually changing, by the way and time may lapse between purchase and actual payment which is also a factor in what you pay in the end) versus what paypal charges, an average rate for credit cards, plus businesses that make their money doing exclusively currency exchange. If you walk up to a money counter with a fistful of cash and change your money on the spot, you're paying a conversion fee too. It's no secret. Currency is not converted without a fee being attached for doing so, unless you're asking Auntie Dora to do it from her mattress stash out of the kindness of her dear, old heart.

No one is pulling any kind of fast one here.

If you don't want to pay exchange rate plus conversion fees, shop Canadian on ebay.ca. It's easy to do. Filter via 'Canada only' and look for items listed in CAD versus USD. It will say so, even in search if you get your settings correctly established to show you so.

Write back if you need more information on how to do that. 

[ypdc_dennis]

eBay and PayPal are two separate companies and will be getting further apart in the future.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/01/why-ebay-abandoned-paypal-for-a-smaller-european-competitor.html

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PayPal's exchange cost includes their service charge for handling the money.

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eBay uses the average daily money rate before any exchange fees are tacked on. SO THEY WILL ALWAYS HAVE INACCURATE CONVERSIONS.

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I think there is a setting somewhere so that the invoices you see are in the proper currency (that the seller choose) -- so no fake numbers to deal with.

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[femmefan1946]

You know that you pay different exchange when you are buying money and when you are selling money?  Good. That's the one many inexperienced sellers fall apart on.

The mid-market rate can only be considered as an approximation, because the actual rate changes several times an hour. Most banks and other financial institutions smooth that out and only change once a day on the 'retail' level that we are working with.

(The mid-market rate is the one that deals with millions of dollars, euros, yuan, yen, remibi. Not the few hundred or thousand we are likely to be playing with.)

If you deal in another currency a lot, in addition to your Canadian bank/Canadian dollar account, you should consider having a foreign bank/foreign currency account, if this is at all possible.

We do this for US currency.

We bank with RBCBank, which is a US chartered bank, owned by the Royal Bank of Canada.  At this time of year, they have a lot of ads in our local branch --aimed at snowbirds.

Our US income goes to the RBCBank.

We can move it back to a Royal Bank/US dollar account, with no exchange.

If we then take that money out in loonies, we do pay exchange.

If we were to put our US dollars from Paypal directly into a Canadian Bank/US Dollar account, we would be charged exchange from PP to US account-- then if we wanted to take money from the USdollar account, we would be charged exchange again.

On the other hand, if you are dealing with only a few hundred dollars a month, the other bank charges may make this uneconomic.

[iwantstuff11]

I understand the reasoning, but even eBay and Paypal update their exchange rate just as quickly. I can look at 1 item during trading hours and the same item may have a higher or lower “estimated” value in that same timeframe. Which tells me it’s being monitored as well in real time. So why does eBay choose to “show” a lower cost when in fact the cost ends up being higher? Their algorithms should reflect that, they draw you in thinking you’re paying this price and all be done, the price is higher. Now multiply that by the millions of daily sales they do. As an example I’ll see you a house for 1,000,000 but when you go to checkout you find you’re paying 1,001,453. Alll BS of taxes and exchanges aside. How is that an ethical practice?

[iwantstuff11]

Your main point, charges a service charge. The charges on eBay are all applied to the seller not the buyer. So why does the buyer end up paying these so called fees when the seller is already paying upwards of 13% on their sale? They trialling need that extra 2.9% from the buyer as well? That’s almost 16% directly into eBay/Paypal from every sale which may involve some sort of currency exchange. When they were 1 company, it wasn’t this Bad.

[momcqueen]

Conversion fees. eBay has no way of knowing who you’re going to give that business to do they can’t and shouldn’t add it to the displayed exchange rate.

[iwantstuff11]

They know the item price of what you’re looking at at the currency you’re likely to pay it in. So why can’t they accurately display that?

[momcqueen]

Because they don’t know who you’re giving your business of CURRENCY CONVERSION to. They can’t guess. It could be PayPal or your credit card or your Auntie Dira who has a mattress stuffed with greenbacks.

[momcqueen]

It’s like you expect eBay to show the added tax. It’s not the same tax for everyone. It depends. You can’t expect eBay to know who you’re giving your currency conversion business to. It’s an extra fee.

[iwantstuff11]

Up until a few weeks ago, Paypal was the only form of payment available. Only recently have they made credit card payment available, without Paypal protection.

[femmefan1946]

The charges on eBay are all applied to the seller not the buyer. So

Well, no.

When it comes to payment, eBay is not involved.

Most transactions go through Paypal, and did even when PP was a part of eBay.

Going even further back, at one time most payments were by mail in the form of cash or money orders.

And that turned into a can of worms.

PP allowed the buyer to prove she had made a payment.

But go back to the part where, in real life, like my nephew who plays the foreign exchange in The City (London), the price of money is constantly changing. Every transaction uses a different exchange rate. And the one after that uses yet another.

Or go buy 100 euros (because in Canada they are a little less used) at your bank. Then go across the street to another bank and buy more there. You will get a different rate. Now go to your credit union, and get another rate. And then to the foreign exchange shop and get a fourth rate.

And then get a rate for 100,000  euros --which will be different again, and probably lower.

The price of money is volatile.

In any case, while eBay doesn't charge the member who is buying, once you move to Paypal, you become their customer buying their services. They choose not to charge you to pay your seller, but if you ask them to move money from one currency to another they will charge you.

[pjcdn2005]

Buyers have been able to pay with a cc without going through PP for quite a while.  I think at one time that unless you set up a cc as the default payment, eBay checkout assumed you were paying through PP.  Maybe it wasn’t quite like that but it wasn’t as straightforward as it is now.

[iwantstuff11]

So why does eBay even try to accommodate the pricing exchange at all? I just see it as misleading.

[iwantstuff11]

It’s not a tax, it’s a fee. And yes they should be able to pre-determine the associated fees by your account and the buyers account. The only reason in which they wouldn’t apply the fees is, like stated, you have an account or funds already in the foreign currency. In which case the price would be lower than the advertised or estimated price. Which I’d rather see than a lower price and end up checking out on the high end.

[momcqueen]

If you shop online in USD regularly, you know the displayed exchange rate is not the same as the amount drawn from your actual account. eBay CANNOT guess at what conversion fee you may pay. It’s simply not the way any online retailer operates.

[iwantstuff11]

I don’t shop in USD regularly but doncome across sellers who lost in USD. Your sentence makes no sense as that is exactly what they do is “guess at what conversion fee you may pay” being as Paypal has a set fee they can easily give an exact conversion rate. That or just don’t give any estimated conversion. The point in trying to make is do it right or just don’t do it at all and with their resources and the size of the corporation and the cooperation between the 2 this would and can easily be achieved and make them more punctual on th actual purchase price of the items listed on their extremely large market website. Amazon does it, why can’t they?

[momcqueen]

Amazon does not. On Amazon, you buy in USD or you buy in CAD. Not one converted to the other. That site does not cross-promote Items in other currencies.

[momcqueen]

You are asking for something which does not exist.

[momcqueen]

Also, if conversion fees have got you riled, try shopping from Canadian sellers who list in CAD only. There is a filter for that, along the left-hand side of the page at the bottom. Canada Only, and then look at only the items listed in CAD and not those that are covered to USD. Check Advanced display options at the top-right for that. 

In the meantime, I am asking ebay staff to try their hand at explaining how exchange rates and conversion fees work since many of us regular users have tried and apparently failed. Perhaps you'd like it directly from the source. 

@happy_pigeon: Please assist this user. We are not being understood, and perhaps you have a better way to explain it. Thank you ever so very much.