PayPal switches currency

Today I paid a CT member for a coin and PayPal automatically switched my US dollar amount to the corresponding amount in Canadian dollars (I guess the seller is in Canada). This is something pretty new. I caught it in time and clicked on the right box to make it US dollars to US dollars. After all, it was priced in US dollars. Maybe they are being kind to Canadians who love their own currency, but I half suspect it is so PayPal can make money on the currency exchange. I figure most collectors who use PayPal to buy ancient coins have more use for US dollars than Canadian dollars.

So, this is a warning. If you use PayPal, make sure the person getting it is in your country, or be careful if you don't know where they are. Watch for that automatic currency conversion and don't do it if they really want payment in the stated currency. PayPal may set it up to convert currency, but I somehow doubt the seller wants the money converted.

 

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if it was not a gift, the Canadian fee is less then doing business here in the states by a full percent. At least as far as accepting a credit payment..

 

Thank you for the heads-up.
I wonder if they'll be converting Dollars automatically to Yen for all the "coins" coming out of China.

 

i think real soon, you will have to pay a 20% 'tax' on out of country items...so do what you can now.

 

I noticed that last week when it wanted to convert some of the Canadian money I was paying with to USD to make the payment so the recipient could get Danish Krones..
------ 8 % extra free money for Paypal


had to change the currency from the drop down list

i guess the seller has to change their primary currency to avoid that problem

 

automatically to Yen...

No, because "yen" is Japanese; "yuan" is Chinese.

 

Haven't noticed but will have to be careful, thanks for the heads up, Warren.

 

He's a story concerning PayPal and Credit Unions. Ten (that's 10) years ago my daughter made a $8.98 purchase on eBay. She paid it and forgot about it. She was recently notified by her Credit Union that she owed over $300 in overdraft fees. It seems that eBay kept trying to get their money from an account my daughter had opened before she got married, she closed it, but forgot about the normal $5 you deposit to open the account, so according to the Credit Union, it was still a still active account. She never authorized PayPal to use that account, she had given them the joint account she had with her husband at the credit Union as the account to use, but they kept submitting to it to a account removed from PayPal (they must have kept a record of it somewhere on their system, for payment) for over a 10 year period, and each submission incurred a $35 overdraft fee. eBay never notified her of this money owed and being an account that she hadn't used in over 10 years an assuming it was closed, my daughter never got a statement from the bank. Three different agents from PayPal admitted that that account they tried to charge shouldn't have been used, and PayPal would handle the overdraft fees, because the overdraft fees incurred from their continuous submission of an $8.98 charge kept building up over the 10 year period and they never notified my daughter of the problem.

When she spoke to a PayPal supervisor she was told that PayPal wasn't held responsible by what their customer Service Reps told her (sound like the IRS?) and they would not help with the overdraft fees even though they admitted to using a bank account they weren't authorized to use and they kept submitting an $8.98 change for 10 years without once notifying her of a problem. The Credit Union also claims it was an active account and they wouldn't waive the overdraft fees even though they didn't notify her of the problem. My bank would have picked up the phone sometime during the 10 year period and given me a call, but the Credit Union couldn't be bothered and they were happily collecting an overcharge fee of $35 over a $8.98 charge for a ten year period.

Neither side will budge other than PayPal finally submitting the $8.98 charge to the correct bank account. It would cost my daughter more than $300 to hire an attorney, so that really isn't an option. She is still trying to get this solved, but PayPal insists that it's a bank problem and the Credit Union insists it's a PayPal problem. The only thing that is positive is the bank has stopped adding overdraft fees to her account because PayPal finally charged the $8.98 to the right account. A friend of mine is an attorney and he is trying to figure out a solution to this problem, but it's fairly unique and he specializes in criminal law.

 

takes yuan to know yuan

 

This is exactly why I will never in a million trillion years give PayPal access to my checking account or sign up for their credit card. This means my lifetime limit on PayPal--using my own protected credit card--is strictly limited but I couldn't care less. I despise these jerks.

 

Banks will do that too.

When I switched accounts for Comerica years ago I specifically asked about any automated payments. They stated I needed to sign some document to reject any future automated debt, which I duly did.

If you plan on automating any debts, use the CreditCard portion of the card and not the Debit Card or Checking Account if you can, or just use a credit card.

 

Seems to me if Paypal truly had no authority to access the account (one would have to examine their terms of use with a fine tooth comb) then their attempts to withdraw money from an unauthorized account would constitute a crime. This problem seems to be a leftover from them they were a new company and completely outside banking and federal regulations. Back then many people (myself included) had their accounts and funds arbitrarily frozen and held for many months. It was a mess back then but honestly it is now an industry standard. 95% of all the sales I make come through Paypal.

 

you just cheated yourself out of creds......

 

Basketball game in Mexico (Juan on Juan).

 

Paypal has been doing that for a while now. Have someone send you some Canadian currency and try and deposit it in your bank account. I am sure they will gladly accept your deposit without a fuss.

 

Sounds more like a problem with using a Credit Union I guess. Most states have abandoned property laws that control "old accounts". In my state that account would legally have been closed and the $5.00 escheated to the state long ago.Externally generated Automated Clearing House pulls not initiated by the customer should not count as activity. Also shows a massive level of absolute incompetence by the Credit Union that they would leave an account open with a growing negative balance for that long. It is just an invitation for fraud. It may also violate federal REG E laws. Either that or your state has weak laws.

Other than that, the story really does not make sense. If Paypal tried to do a pull on an account that your daughter actually closed, the Credit Union or outsourced service should have automatically returned the ACH to the Fed as invalid. Your daughter should not be liable for anything that occurred after she closed the account as you have stated. Just about anyone can generate a debit to a routing number and account number, it is the Credit Union's responsibility to validate that the account is a valid, open account.

 

Instead of worrying about corner-case issues, people should see the positive aspects of PayPal - it changed the world by making online purchases or money transfers available to people in virtually any country. Great article here:
http://infinigeek.com/how-has-paypal-changed-the-world/

 

Shoot, the wife (a few weeks ago) made a purchase for some beads off of ebay and paid using paypal.......the funds were converted to Canadian, which I thought a bit strange, but nothing untoward. Seller was from China.

 

I've experienced the same thing when I made payment via PayPal at a local auction site earlier this week. It went from ZAR to USD to EUR... this while the seller is from the same location as me and listed his product in ZAR.

 

Have her pull all her money from the credit union (all accounts) and they can spend the money taking her to small claims court to get the $300. They'll see what being unreasonable gets them. How easy is it to just waive the fee? It isn't like she defaulted on a loan.