Paypal sucks!!

I don't want to get into a big debate on what's right and what's wrong. I used to use Ebay and Paypal all the time, seems like they are now taking advantage of every possible angle to make more money. I know they are a business, I never assumed they were non-profit, but hey, at some point enough is enough.
 
Yes. Money conversion and international money transfer is wickedly complicated.


There are some credit cards that don't charge conversion fees, but many or most do. Go to a bank or a currency exchange place in an airport and they typically charge fees as well. It's pretty typical for the industry. When I started traveling abroad, I made sure I had at least one credit card that did not charge conversion fees. But the conversion rates also vary widely so it can be difficult to tell which is the best deal.

I've never been great at math, but I think the reduction from 73 to 70 is closer to 4.1%.
 
I'm not sure exactly how relevant this is to this particular conversation, but when I purchased my Axe-Fx last year from G66 I was very reluctant to give PayPal so much money for them to convert my GBP into Euros, and my bank was going to charge even more and only reveal the full amount after the transfer! Anyway, after some research, I decided to use a company called TransferWise and was very pleased with the service (and I managed to save around £100).

Obviously this is only relevant if your situation allows or requires you to send money by bank transfer, and it may not be that helpful to the original poster, but hopefully the information will be of help to some of the people reading it.

In my opinion, their service seems like a much fairer way to do business, and there are so many better things that you can put the money you saved towards.
 
I used paypal and ebay for years, and yes, also hated the ever bigger bite they took. I dumped both when they stealth foisted in 2014 a policy that does not allow you to opt out of robocalls from them or their vendor partners. Google wallet since.
 
Have you had success selling on Reverb though? Ebay has a much bigger audience of buyers. Looking at Reverb as a buyer it seems like everything is priced too high compared to Feebay.

In the last 4 months, I've sold 5 guitars, 1 amp, 2 sets of pickups, and a pedal on Reverb, and usually got more than expected. Ebay does have a bigger audience, but 3X the fees and you have to use paypal, which has higher fees than Reverb's Direct Checkout. The prices on Reverb do seem higher, but the sellers have a lot of wiggle room to make an offer. I've gotten some pretty sweet deals by using "make an offer". The buyers/sellers seem to be easier and more pleasant to deal with, too, or maybe I've just been fortunate.
 
From my understanding the additional 3% on top of the usual Paypal fee is due to, "buying" the US currency. Exchange rate is the straight value before the banks get their dibs in. (A standard fee for buying and selling currency). If you go to the bank they charge you the same for, "buying" US or any other currency. I don't believe it's Paypal per se'. They'll get dinged that fee just as everyone else.The ONLY place that I'm aware of to get, "straight-up" exchange rates is a border town casino... around these parts anyway.
 
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Is using Square an option? How do their fees compare?
If the seller wanted to take a credit card payment from the buyer, that'd work. They'd end up paying the card-not-present rate for the transaction because they weren't physically dipping or swiping the card, so it'd be 3.75% for them. Buyer gets all the protections afford to them on the transaction by the CC company they use, which is much better than anything PayPal offers when it comes to dispute resolution. And the Seller gets chargeback protection from Square because we're awesome like that. But we don't have a person-to-person money transfer option that works cross-boarder right now. Square Cash is US-only, I'm afraid.

Speaks to just how hard it is to move money across countries, really. If it wasn't, we'd be all over that so fast. :)
 
Yes that's why i don't sell anymore on ebay, and ebay gets down and down without understanding their price is the cause ^^
3% is a steal for a bank transfer, it's just a message sent from a computer to another one. I understand 3% on <$100 is correct but come on, i've bought a €1600 guitar and paid €55 just for the paypal transfer !
And when you have a problem with a seller, they put their best efforts to avoid to refund you, so the insurance argument is not totally valid...
A lot of sellers would not confirm this, especially when the payment concerns services. A one click gesture will have the buyer refunded and the seller will have enormous difficulties to get his money back in the bucket, if at all..
 
I had an issue when I bought a used ultra from the US on ebay years ago. Here's the short story:
- On the item listing, Ebay converts the US price to AUD for me (hey, thanks ebay)
- What are the payment options? Just Paypal... OK
- Click "buy it now"
- Click "confirm" (no backing out now!)
- Click proceed to payment (Paypal)
- Ohhhh what do you know? it looks like PAYPAL use a different exchange rate from EBAY, and the Ultra is now $60 more expensive.

I have no idea if that BS is still going on. The cynical side of me can imagine how this inconsistency could benefit both ebay and paypal.
 
Hmm, in my bank foreign payments are 6 euros, european payments 0.
And this, folks, is why the EURO union is worth all the troubles it causes.

I've been paying various artists in the past for commission work all across europe just with direct bank transfers. Didn't cost me a single cent.

I've recently signed up for a Paypal account, but that was only to fund a great patreon account and I don't mind Paypal cashing in a miniscule share of the funding if that means I can support great projects.


Complaining about the bad transfer rates of CAD to USD might be adequate. Complaining about the 3% cut from Paypal? Not so much.
 
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