seeking advice on paying for coins won in European online auctions

Forgot to say... welcome to CoinTalk Ancients, @Norma Fries! Looking forward to seeing your coins .

 

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Thank you - and I want to see yours as well. This is fun!

 

I had a win in a Polish auction recently and tried twice to pay thru WISE. Both attempts were returned after several days. PayPal was not offered as an option. I am sure the auction house now regards me as a nonpaying bidder, which I certainly would never intend. The whole experience was very frustrating.

 

Exactly what happened to me.

 

I assume it's the same as me as I had issues paying GN Marciniak as well. I monkeyed around and was able to get it to work, though did have to pay higher fees which they didn't work with me on.
And then just got and paid my invoice for Numismatik Naumann moments ago and what did it prompt me to pay with...


They've already received the payment

 

A BIG charge. I'll write about this below.

Yes, I, too, highly recommend Wise.com.

Actually, it is closer to 8%, whereas Wise charges about 1%. Why is it 8%? You should realize the auction house gets about 4% less than PayPal claims to send, as PayPal's fees. However, on top of that, PayPal gives you a very poor conversion rate to the tune of another 4%. How do we know that?

Simple. Calculate it yourself whenever you pay with PayPal. Find the so-called conversion rate on any website. For example, right now the euro is 1.1557 on xe.com at the "mid-market" rate. PayPal tells you how much money, in dollars, comes out of your account when you pay in dollars for euros. It turns out the rate they expresses is not "dollars per euro" like normal but "euros per dollar." That (intentionally) obscures the rate. How many of you convert that to figure out what the familiar rate is? They will say 1 dollar = .837 euros or some such number. That turns out to be $1.1947 per euro, a lot more than $1.1557 per euro. Of course, PayPal doesn't have to pay that exorbitant rate, but YOU do. The extra 4 cents per euro goes into PayPal's pocket. So, not only does PayPal get 4% or so from the firm getting the money, they get almost 4% extra from you. Total fees almost 8%. Work involved, almost nothing.

Firms like Wise can and do cut the fees down to about 1%. I used Wise to pay for a Roma coin (in pounds) the day before yesterday. It was very easy because I have paid that firm before, but it takes substantial setup if you have never used Wise at all, because you will need to connect it to a source of money (e.g. a bank savings account, which I set up separately and without much extra money in it) and that can require two-factor authentication at first (Your bank wants to know you really do intend for Wise to take money out). By the way, PayPal took substantial setup too when you first started.

Auction firms waive "bank fees" when you pay with Wise because they get it all, unlike with PayPal. So, when Leu sends an invoice with 12 CHF bank charges you can omit that 12 CHF fee. When you pay with Wise they get the whole amount with no bank fee. When I pay with Wise I compare the rate they give to the mid-market rate and it is always very similar. They state their fee very clearly.

By the way, if you private-message me with your e-mail address I can send you an invite for which I may get a reward if you end up paying a lot with it over time. However, I did not write this because of the reward, rather I wrote it because I don't think the financial services industry as exemplified by PayPal deserves 8% of any transaction when other firms do it for 1%.

 

Same here. Until today I hadn't given out my code for getting friends to sign up... but if anyone wants to try wise.com feel free to PM me for a link. When anyone signs up for the service, they can give out sign-up links and if/when 3 friends sign up and use the service to transfer a nominal amount, the person who provided the link get 75 GBP.

 

Just a suggestion: A lot of credit cards will get you a better exchange rate because big banks transact so much foreign currency they get a better rate.

Many of them also have no foreign transaction fee.

 

Different cards may have significantly different conversion rates. I use a different card when in Canada because its rate is 2% better than my usual card I use in the US.

PayPal transacts a huge amount in foreign currency. I'm sure they get as good a rate as any bank. However, do they pass that good rate onto you? No.

Like I wrote above, next time you pay in a foreign currency with PayPal, calculate the rate they give you (e.g. number of dollars taken out of your account divided by the number of euros you paid). Then let us know that rate and the "mid-market" rate that day. Prepare to be irritated with the poor exchange rate you got.

 

This is why PayPal, by default, converts the foreign amount to dollars (at it's own conversion rate), then asks you to pay that dollar amount. Don't do that!

The best way to use PayPal for foreign transactions is use your credit card as source of funds, then when paying click on "conversion options" (under the payment amount), and change the default to instead pay in the payee's local currency (EUR/GBP/etc). If you do this, then the payment will be charged to your credit card as a foreign transaction, and you'll get your card's conversion rate (not PayPal's).

Of course it helps if you have a credit card that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees (and cashback doesn't hurt either!).

 

...well now, you'll have to send EUROs to some...better get @Heliodromus !

 

..you wouldn't know that @TIF got her name from that very sentence...and i also welcome you...i just went the very same thing with my last purchase of coins which was my 1st auction house buy. use whatever method seems comfortable to you..

 

Before bidding I ask the auction house about methods of payment.
Usually I just ask if they accept PayPal. If not, then I ask myself if
the coin is worth the Bank Transfer fee. I ask about the PayPal option
of auction houses who have accepted it in the past. Things change. Most
of all, Ask about the accepted payment options at least 10 days in
advance. Five days before the auction starts is a busy time for them.
I troll NumisBids and Sixbid SEVERAL times a day. The sooner you know
about an auction and the coin the better.

 

I really can't recommend clear windows - that's going a bit too far!

 

Thank you! I did sign up with Wise and so far, so good. I won a Naumann coin and hoping all goes well.

 

Yes. She told me as soon as she saw it. YAY!

 

i believe you can pay by pay pal with your regular cc, you hit pay with pay pal, then put your cc info in, perhaps?? withoput opening a pay pal account, though i may be wrong..

 

BTW, Frank Robinson now accepts Zelle for payment (bank to bank)