Paypal money transfer charges.

hulmevillas

My daughter in Australia recently transferred 999 aus.dollars from her Paypal account to my (her Dad) Paypal account here in the U.K. At the time the exchange rate as quoted in London was almost exactly 2 aus. dollars to one G.B.P. This equated to roughly £500. The amount that arrived in my account was £433! Paypal had levied a fee of 39 aus. dollars but then used a conversion rate of .451939 aus. dollars to the pound. How on earth can they justify such extortionate charges? Especially when they advertise their service as fast, simple & cheap. They did reply to my complaint but seemed to be simply blaming exchange rates levied by credit card companies. As no credit card company had been involved in the transaction this was not the cause. Whoever was involved this seems to me to be a rip off. Any comments.
John Hulme.

uktim29

Can't you just press the refund button back to her account? Paypal then refund any fees, not sure how it works with currency conversions though?

Also when you convert from one currency to another it shows very clearly the amount they give you. I know as I change USD to GBP all the time.

uktim29

At current their rate is 1 AUD = 0.444322 GBP

On the net the current rate is 1 AUD = 0.456527 GBP

Thats a 2.74% difference. Not much really. I'd hardly call it extortionate.

uktim29

Looking here http://www.x-rates.com/d/GBP/AUD/graph120.html, the AUD exchange rate was at it's highest on the 4th of June at just less than 2 AUD to 1 GBP. Most of August it's been around 0.46. Thats around 8% difference from what you've quoted, so then £500 would become £460. After Paypals fee of about £20 that would then be £440. You got £433 which is 1.6% different which sounds about right.

I think it's your actual source of information for currency rates which is the actual problem!

uktim29

Another case of consumer error!!!!!!

soolin

Also private transfers when marked as such do not incur a receiving fee even into a premier account so the extra charges for receipt did not need to have been incurred.

peachyprice

Were you looking at tourist or commercial exchange rates? There's sometimes a big difference, invariably in favor of the bank.

No matter how your daughter did it she would have lost out, my Mum learned this lesson when transferring between her bank account in Oz to mine, this is not something peculiar to PayPal, but the banking industry as a whole.