PayPal doesn't let me withdraw USD

Ll91N

please, help

thank you in advance

masonic

If you are in the UK with a GBP bank account, then you'd need to convert it into pounds before withdrawing.

Futuristic

Try send via their FX brand (Xoom.com) it may let you send USD via your PayPal account (not 100% sure). Otherwise you just have to convert to GBP at their steep fee which is 3%!! 

boingy

Yep, I've never found a way. I have a very small and irregular income stream from royalties from a US company. They pay me in USD via PayPal. The money has to come via a US management company who take a slice, then PayPal take a slice, then it's in the PayPal account but in USD so I can either convert it to GBP at an extortionate rate, giving PayPal another slice, or I can leave it in USD and spend it from there. When you spend it you get a terrible conversion rate too unless you can find something in USD to buy. The amounts are $50 to $100 every couple of months so it's pocket money really. I end up losing about 45% of the money on all those slices. If the amounts were larger I could specify a different method of payment but it is what it is and I just treat it as bonus money rather than lose sleep over it.

If only I had a friend or relative across the pond...

wmb194

boingy said:

Yep, I've never found a way. I have a very small and irregular income stream from royalties from a US company. They pay me in USD via PayPal. The money has to come via a US management company who take a slice, then PayPal take a slice, then it's in the PayPal account but in USD so I can either convert it to GBP at an extortionate rate, giving PayPal another slice, or I can leave it in USD and spend it from there. When you spend it you get a terrible conversion rate too unless you can find something in USD to buy. The amounts are $50 to $100 every couple of months so it's pocket money really. I end up losing about 45% of the money on all those slices. If the amounts were larger I could specify a different method of payment but it is what it is and I just treat it as bonus money rather than lose sleep over it.

If only I had a friend or relative across the pond...

You can't use Wise? Its USD account comes with ACH details so it ought to be easy for US entities to transfer money to it.

boingy

wmb194 said:

boingy said:

Yep, I've never found a way. I have a very small and irregular income stream from royalties from a US company. They pay me in USD via PayPal. The money has to come via a US management company who take a slice, then PayPal take a slice, then it's in the PayPal account but in USD so I can either convert it to GBP at an extortionate rate, giving PayPal another slice, or I can leave it in USD and spend it from there. When you spend it you get a terrible conversion rate too unless you can find something in USD to buy. The amounts are $50 to $100 every couple of months so it's pocket money really. I end up losing about 45% of the money on all those slices. If the amounts were larger I could specify a different method of payment but it is what it is and I just treat it as bonus money rather than lose sleep over it.

If only I had a friend or relative across the pond...

You can't use Wise? Its USD account comes with ACH details so it ought to be easy for US entities to transfer money to it.

I don't get any say in how they pay me. If the amounts were an order of magnitude larger there would be more options. That's the deal. From their viewpoint it's a pain to pay me and a bunch of other people small amounts of money every month or two. But on the upside I have done nothing in the last 23 years towards that income so it's kinda "free" money. I used to wish there was a way for them to hide all the details from me and just give me half the amount in GBP but now I just roll with it. 

mikb

masonic said:

If you are in the UK with a GBP bank account, then you'd need to convert it into pounds before withdrawing.

I receive occasional payments in USD to Paypal. You used to have to "convert" between your USD balance and GBP balance. That hasn't happened in ... years. Now, all I do is select to withdraw from the account. amount in USD, it comes back with a proposed GBP equivalent (after fee/exchange rate) and I hit "Yeah, that!" No separate conversion step. My current account is GBP only, so nothing special there.

masonic

mikb said:

masonic said:

If you are in the UK with a GBP bank account, then you'd need to convert it into pounds before withdrawing.

I receive occasional payments in USD to Paypal. You used to have to "convert" between your USD balance and GBP balance. That hasn't happened in ... years. Now, all I do is select to withdraw from the account. amount in USD, it comes back with a proposed GBP equivalent (after fee/exchange rate) and I hit "Yeah, that!" No separate conversion step. My current account is GBP only, so nothing special there.

Yes, that's been my experience too. I didn't know there used to be a separate manual conversion step, just that the conversion had to be done before it could be sent. The point is, you can't send USD to a UK bank account from Paypal and have your bank do the conversion. Presumably Paypal is using Faster Payments rather than a SWIFT transfer.