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eBay international purchases - PayPal or card

Davidt
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Does anyone have any insight as to whether PayPal or eBay direct payments offers the best exchange rate?

Typically PayPal’s rate is quite poor and the bank rate is better, but I assume once eBay apply their conversion it may be as bad as PayPal.
Has anyone tried both and now has a preference?
 
sonicosa
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I tested this recently and using my Capital One Venture card was better than the exchange rate Paypal offered. I saved about $32 on a $1,000 purchase.
 
sonicosa
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...sorry, I typed Paypal but meant eBay direct payment.
 
kaplan
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Basically anything is better than Paypal, one of my banks is a sucker puncher, FX exchange rates are 3%-ish at off hours, still light years better than Paypal, Paypal's FX rates are 7%~
 
Mephisto
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Does one still get buyer protection if using direct card payments instead of PayPal?
 
kaplan
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My generalization is that its pretty challenging not getting your money back, in fact its too easy

They issue refunds pretty easily at the expense of the seller - you just have to talk to customer support after a ticket

Regular insurances are around 1% - one company charges 10% - the other 20% on average as fees
 
paddymoran
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Without a shadow of a doubt the best conversion rates are obtained by taking your bank’s exchange rate as opposed to simply accepting PayPal’s default option which is having PayPal convert the payment amount into your local currency.

If you frequently buy online in foreign currencies I’d advocate a fintech (online bank) account such as Revolut or N26. Revolut, for instance, have a free account option which offers up to €1,000 per month in Fx conversions at the interbank rate with a 0.5% commission about the €1,000 limit. Hands down significantly more competitive than a mainstream bank.

And, as mentioned above, your method of conversion has no impact on your PayPal buyer protection.
 
m84
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paddymoran paddymoran
Without a shadow of a doubt the best conversion rates are obtained by taking your bank’s exchange rate as opposed to simply accepting PayPal’s default option which is having PayPal convert the payment amount into your local currency.

If you frequently buy online in foreign currencies I’d advocate a fintech (online bank) account such as Revolut or N26. Revolut, for instance, have a free account option which offers up to €1,000 per month in Fx conversions at the interbank rate with a 0.5% commission about the €1,000 limit. Hands down significantly more competitive than a mainstream bank.

And, as mentioned above, your method of conversion has no impact on your PayPal buyer protection.
I've wondered about this myself!
Do you mean adding Revolut to Paypal as your money source, with the required currency amount already in your 'wallet'?
 
paddymoran
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m84 m84
I've wondered about this myself!
Do you mean adding Revolut to Paypal as your money source, with the required currency amount already in your 'wallet'?
Exactly, just as you describe! Complete your conversion in Revolut and then make the payment through PayPal using the foreign currency you have in your “wallet”. I’m just trying to figure out how I can withdraw US$ from PayPal to Revolut so that I can then do the conversion to € in Revolut. Probably too much hassle!
 
m84
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Thanks for the clarification! I had thought about this in the past, but was never certain about it actually working so ended up taking the hit with paypal's rates in my last purchase.

Re your question, I haven't tried it or looking into it myself, but at the time I did see some online chatter about being able to do so by using IBAN to transfer between accounts, or adding your Revolut card to PP and then transferring it from one side to the other. But again, I haven't looked into it yet.
 
sonicosa
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I was able to test this again today on another ebay purchase in the UK and saved 3.8% using my personal CC's conversion over eBay direct payment on a $75 purchase.
 
Davidt
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Thanks to everyone who replied, I appreciate it.
 
kaplan
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Made a purchase myself yesterday, I had some money in Paypal, so checked out the splitting options

Funny thing is, unless you convert to USD, you can't split wallet/CC using Paypal, however, in the case where your wallet covers the FX cost but an FX shift could make it not so, they charge the overdraft from your CC

So unless they scam you with their extreme %5 FX rate, they are not interested in making things practical, even though they have the flows to make it so

Would be nice if eBay had a payment by bank account option, all this CC/Paypal business is demotivating, I have no idea how I'm going to pay for something if it ever exceeds the highest CC I have
 
YYTIN
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Not directly answering the OP question but I can recommend WISE when you have to deal with exchange rate.
It has worked for me many times over the last 3 years at least.

edit : sorry I realized you’re talking about eBay only. Not sure my reco is applicable then. I was more on a peer to peer case or with a dealer but out of ebay.
Edited:
 
Davidt
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Can’t be used on eBay but agree Wise is brilliant. I first used them back in 2012 for my first purchase on OF and they’re still My go to for international transfers.
 
kaplan
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It seems like there's a Wise card too, I also checked out Revolut, both are unavailable in Turkey though 😁

I hope Wise card is available at one point
 
ext1
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I always use the 'currency rate determined by card issuer' option, although it's not available sometimes if it's a currency my card doesn't accept.
 
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