PayPal thieving again?

agarnett

Recently PayPal went through the motions of some tickbox compliance with EU banking regulation in my case. I complained to them about something and while they were looking at the complaint they realised that in the whole umpteen years of my PayPal account they had done no proper ID checks. (Me and hundreds of thousands of others no doubt but that's another story). So they limited my account and insisted I email scanned ID documents - which are so easily doctored that I fail to see how they are complying with anything. How they can call that an compliant ID check if they have never even met me nor handled my original ID documents is anyone's guess.

Anyway, today I made some purchase in USD on eBay and coming to pay have discovered that PayPal have removed the option to force them to deduct payment in USD from my credit card and instead have done their own rip off conversion which costs me of the order of 3% more I reckon.

The payment small print says "PayPal Conversion Rate as of 23 Aug 2015: 1 British Pound = 1.52113 US Dollars"

VisaEurope says "1 BRITISH POUND = 1.56448 UNITED STATES DOLLAR"

They are clearly acting crookedly by having removed the choice or even if they have just hidden it, so why do they even have an EU banking licence?

Do we still get the choice to be charged in our card currency or have they completely removed that choice recently?

jonesMUFCforever

Why not vote with your feet and move your business elsewhere?

The-Truth

It's not crooked and thieving is an unbelievable exaggeration bordering libelous. If you don't like them find another way to pay.

Chino

agarnett wrote: »

so why do they even have an EU banking licence?

PayPal doesn't have an EU banking licence. From "https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full?locale.x=en_GB#1":

1.1 PayPal is only a Payment Service Provider. PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A. (R.C.S. Luxembourg B 118 349) is duly licensed as a Luxembourg credit institution in the sense of Article 2 of the law of 5 April 1993 on the financial sector as amended (the “Law”) and is under the prudential supervision of the Luxembourg supervisory authority, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier.

agarnett

Chino wrote: »

PayPal doesn't have an EU banking licence. From "https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full?locale.x=en_GB#1":

1.1 PayPal is only a Payment Service Provider. PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A. (R.C.S. Luxembourg B 118 349) is duly licensed as a Luxembourg credit institution in the sense of Article 2 of the law of 5 April 1993 on the financial sector as amended (the “Law”) and is under the prudential supervision of the Luxembourg supervisory authority, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier.

So why are they now being brought into line and regulated much as a bank in the EU? Why did they flee from Richmond-upon-Thames, England, to Ireland was it? and then to Luxembourg? To escape regulation for as long as possible of course. I've seen more terms and conditions changes with my PayPal account than I have had hot dinners. That page you link to mentions the word "bank" sixty-nine times. If it walks like a bank, quacks like a bank, it's a bank! Not much of one of course, but which really are any more? But nevertheless PayPal as a relatively unregulated institution was far more dangerous than many banks because of its outlaw tendencies in the name of grabbing market share. Goodness knows what has been transacted via their services. I bet it is just as bad as HSBC!

I expect they will mellow and start complying more favorably once they think they are big enough.

Only a Payment Service Provider, my a$$.

The Truth is that "Thieving" is the correct word for what they've recently started to do now in such an underhand way with foreign currency transactions. I learned about it when I was younger and funnily enough, never forgot what to look for in judging right and wrong - didn't everyone?

For the likes of jones, pmduk and the usual suspects, please note I was deceived by Paypal's involvement with the transaction on the matter of the correct price and on the matter of their fee charging. The understanding of their "service" which they have deliberately created in the market place is that sellers pay them a fee to receive purchase payments but the buyer pays PayPal nothing. That is now false for any purchase in "foreign currency", mostly because PayPal has evidently decided it is now powerful enough to stand up to VISA and Mastercard to renege on the VISA and Mastercard merchant agreement rule to make it mandatory to offer choice on notorious Dynamic Currency Conversion. At least that's all I can deduce from my experience. So now they just force it upon customers. Anyone say different? Have I missed something?

JuicyJesus

agarnett wrote: »

The Truth is that "Thieving" is the correct word for what they've recently started to do now in such an underhand way with foreign currency transactions.

...

For the likes of jones, pmduk and the usual suspects, please note I was deceived by Paypal's involvement with the transaction on the matter of the correct price and on the matter of their fee charging.

Charging their own commercial rate rather than the Visa/MasterCard/interbank rate in order to make a profit from the margin, like all businesses that process foreign exchange transactions?

No, that's not the right word. "Thieving" implies no action on your part and that you were not consenting to this. In fact, PayPal make their exchange rate policy quite explicit (actually more explicit than most places), and either knowing this or not you proceeded on their basis. The spread is 2.5% - they say as much here.

We receive a wholesale rate quote from our bank twice a day and add 2.5% to determine the retail foreign exchange rate to apply to transactions that involve a currency conversion.

It is not "crooked" to not offer payment deduction in USD. Nor is it "crooked" to have an exchange rate spread. It is their commercial decision as a business, and you are free to use them or not. Indeed, if you are with one of the credit card providers who charge around or upwards of £3 or 3% to process a foreign currency transaction (e.g. Barclaycard charging 2.99% for a non sterling transaction), PayPal's service is a steal. Just perhaps not in the rather hyperbolic sense you meant.

agarnett

No, that's not the right word. "Thieving" implies no action on your part and that you were not consenting to this.

And there you have it. I've taken no action since I was regularly paying for USD purchases via Paypal. I see I bought an air ticket booked direct with a European airline at the end of June that included a special "use Paypal and get a discount" feature. I realised I was probably foregoing Section 75 protection but judged that the particular airline wasn't going bust before I flew.

So that one appears in my Paypal account as a USD transaction, but actually that is false accounting by PayPal because I see now that they converted that one too and charged me in Sterling.

In July I have a Euros transaction in my Paypal account (falsely accounted), again I thought, without incurring a FOREX charge from anyone (I have no less than two credit cards and two debit cards which charge zero FOREX fees for online purchases made in foreign currency, doesn't any sensible person with the necessary creditworthiness?).

This has caused me to just now start going through my Paypal transactions with a fine tooth comb.

Thus far I have established I did a USD transaction in December 2014 with no PayPal conversion and one in another world currency with no Paypal conversion and no FOREX charge from anyone on either.

I have another USD one with no problems in January 2015.

I had no more until early June and I see that Paypal converted it.

So Paypal started the thieving from me sometime between January and June this year.

Just because Barclaycard charge 2.99% doesn't mean a penny of it fairly taken. Barclays have been recently been fined an enormous amount for their extremely crooked foreign currency exchange price rigging so I don't think quoting what they do indicates what a "clean" business looks like, and I can't imagine why you should think otherwise.

chrisc2615

PayPal seem to just about to have a monopoly on purchases from eBay and the like. Here in S Africa its either use them or go without. Generally speaking, their exchange rate to our local currency has between 2% and 4% of the official rate

Now and then my local bank won't charge a FOREX fee, maybe once every 12 transactions