I know this affects everybody but thought I'd chuck it in here since Pandas are usually bought overseas (for those of us in Australia, Singapore & Hong Kong at least...). Starting on the 12th June 2012 there will be adjustments to the fees Paypal charges. Some of which have not been adjusted for years. Apart from the usual price hikes in sending & receiving money the most notable change is the currency conversion fee. Previously if you funded a payment via any method (CC, Paypal balance or bank balance) you were charged a 2.5% spread based on the prevailing FX market rate. What this meant was that if you had to pay 1 USD for an eBay purchase and the XE rate was 1 AUD/1USD then your "Paypal rate" was 1 AUD/0.975 USD. But this was still better than paying the local banks for their FX conversion fees and rates. However, with the new fee structure there will be changes to the amount they charge. From what I understand, if you convert the balance within Paypal itself (ie. Load up money from bank account, wait for it to clear) then the spread is still 2.5%. If you are paying for items (transaction) which are priced in USD or CAD then you get hit with a 3.5% spread. Anything else (eg. AUD/SGD/HKD/EUR etc), it is 4% spread. It may no longer be economical to allow Paypal to do your conversions for you. Some local banks may be more competitive as they may charge 2.5% + fixed fee which could come out cheaper than Paypal's rate. However, they are still shyt. The best way to save the most money is to use one of the following to do your conversions instead of Paypal: - Citibank Plus Visa Debit Card - 28 Degrees Mastercard - Bankwest Platinum Mastercard All the above 3 have 0 transaction fees and pass on the wholesale Mastercard or Visa FX rate. What this means is that instead of missing out on 2.5% spread (or soon to be 3.5-4%) every time you do a Paypal transaction, you pay 0-0.5%. Also unlike the Big 4 banks they do not charge stupid conversion fees. The only downside is you have to select the card every time you want to pay. Also if you do this, don't forget to change Currency Conversion Options to "Let my card do the conversion". You will get a 'scary warning' about fees etc but that's just scaremongering by Paypal.
A lot of credit unions do currency conversions at the wholesale VISA/MasterCard rate on their standard debit cards.
Thanks for the info Fishball. Source: https://cms.paypal.com/au/cgi-bin/?...t_ID=ua/upcoming_policies_full&locale.x=en_AU
A great way to get around their bullshit, is to do echecks, sucks as it takes a week to clear, but very low cost. Those bastards at PayPal must have a boat with my name on it by now!
I use a trick. But because here the fx spread charge from amex is less than paypal. And now with the hike in paypal fx will are better. I change my default currency from uss to au or eu and after it i pay the ebay item. Paypal charge me in the original currency and my credit card make a chamge from au and eu to uss. For a lot less than 2,5 %. I dont know if in australia amex (from amex not bank) is equal to here.
