Paypal / charges / cash back - advice

the_first_step

Hey guys – hope I’m in the correct area.

At the moment I do a lot of buying and selling via PayPal. A lot of my transactions are done in dollars due to buying from Americans. I use a debit card to pay for all my PayPal transactions, but my bank (HBOS) charges me £1.50 per transaction done in Dollars.

For example if I buy something for $300, PayPal will charge me 190.71 for the transaction and therefore debt my account £190.71. On top of that HBOS will charge me £1.50 for the transaction.

Are these £1.50 charges a regular with most banks? Or do I need to be more proactive and use a different card.

I was thinking about using a Cash back credit card to pay for my PayPal transactions. (paying it off in full at the end of the month) As I am totally new to this, will I be able to do this? Will these purchases done via paypal in dollars be counted the same as buying petrol from down the road?

Once again any help would be great.

opinions4u

Try Nationwide.

Most banks I know charge a flat fee and a percentage.

Nationwide appear to charge just 1% for a US$ transaction without the fixed fee.

the_first_step

So are you saying it’s better to use a debit card with PayPal foreign transactions? As a credit card, will probably give me a flat charge as well as a fixed charge?

lisyloo

No.
Most credit carrds charge a % and that's all.

You need to look at the charges not whether it's debit/credit.

SarahMoon

Ask paypal to convert into sterling and save the fee

PNPSUKNET

capital one dont charge me when I pay in euros

lisyloo

capital one dont charge me when I pay in euros

I think you will find they do, you just aren't aware of it.
What card do you have?
They probably add about 2.75% onto the conversion rate (compared with the FOREX rate) so you don't see it.
Tell us which card you have and we'll pull out the figure (which you could of course check for yourself).