Buyer with U.S. shipping address but pays in foreign currency resulting in higher Paypal fees. How?

[kbcate]

My sales are listed as U.S. only. When I checked my ebay Paypal transaction for a sale, the fees were higher than the 2.9% plus .30 cents. The buyer has a U.S. shipping address. I would have only figured this out as the buyer was requesting to cancel the order. When I spoke to ebay rep about the cancelation, I also asked her how ebay allows for a buyer to pay with foreign currency when that raises the paypla fee for the unaware seller who has stipulated U.S. sales only. eBay rep was unable to address this issue. When I spoke to paypal, they confirmed that the buyer pays with foreign currency. How does this happen? Shouldn't ebay have it set up that if a seller only sells in the U.S. then the buyer must use a form of U.S. currency? 

[missjen831 · Accepted solution]

eBay can’t control that and I can’t see why they would even try while PayPal is still the main payment processor. Blocking foreign currency is a PayPal setting. And you can avoid this by blocking payments from non-US PayPal accounts. 

[emerald40]

I buy a lot from ebay france and ebay germany.

Dosn't the buyer pay extra for the conversion rate?

[7606dennis]

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@emerald40 wrote:

I buy a lot from ebay france and ebay germany.

Dosn't the buyer pay extra for the conversion rate?

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If memory serves, the answer is YES.

[pjcdn2005]

The buyer pays a currency conversion fee and you are paid in whatever currency you listed. The extra PP fee is charged because the buyers account is with a non US Paypal account.  Some users have more than one currency in their account, for example, I have both Canadian and US dollars but even if I paid you in $US I'm sure that PP would still charge you extra because I use PP Canada.

To be honest I'm just assuming that last part, I haven't ever asked a US seller how much they were charged in PP fees but I'm fairly sure that's how it works.

[missjen831]

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@emerald40 wrote:

I buy a lot from ebay france and ebay germany.

Dosn't the buyer pay extra for the conversion rate?

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Yes buyer pays for concddnsion but the seller’s processing fee is still higher 

[kbcate]

Hi emerald40. When I did the paypal "chat" they said that I was charged the higher fee because the buyer used foreign currency. One of the replies here had good advice for me to change my settings in paypal regarding the currencies I accept. It really was a negligible amount, but I thought it was weird. Thanks.

[kbcate]

Thanks jen_proudleowife. I will check out my paypal settings.

[emerald40]

I just got my statement and as the buyer I am definitely paying for the conversion fee.

Are you saying sellers are charged as well for the same reaon?

[pjcdn2005]

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@kbcate wrote:

Hi emerald40. When I did the paypal "chat" they said that I was charged the higher fee because the buyer used foreign currency. One of the replies here had good advice for me to change my settings in paypal regarding the currencies I accept. It really was a negligible amount, but I thought it was weird. Thanks.

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That doesn't make sense so I suspect they are referring to non ebay transactions. For one thing checking off that you don't accept different currencies doesn't affect anything on ebay because you aren't getting a different currency, you are receiving $US.  Whether or not you have it checked off, you will pay an extra percentage for an international transaction. It used to be 1 percent now I think that it is 1.4 of 1.5%.

Currency conversion which is paid by the buyer is not at a flat percentage.  It is based on the market conversion rate of that currency at the time of the transaction and then PP adds a fee for converting it. If you werer paying for the conversion you would paying a lot more than 1%+ of the transaction.

[pjcdn2005]

Sellers are not charged a currency conversion fee.  As I said earlier, if I made a purchase on .com  and paid in $US directly from my PP acount, the seller would still pay an extra transaction fee so the fee that the op is referring to is not a currency conversion fee.