PayPal Automatic payment conversion - need help, scared customers

bravechimp · #1 03-18-2017

Hello guys,
I watch this community from 3-4 years. I'm really impressed with the threads and posts, information is good, up to date and most members have good knowledge. Overall a fantastic community.
Most of my clients/customers are from USA. I had like 20+ stealth paypal accounts and all was perfect a half year ago (No i don't have any limitation problems). I just paused my online business in order to focus on my local business and my family.
Now I'm back and I try to reestablish my online business. All is good with one BIG EXCEPTION: PayPal has added "Auto Currency Conversion" late 2016. This "option" makes my clients very suspicious. Not to mention they often overlook and it leads to unfair exchange rate. I also have them believe i live in USA (because I am from a small country in European Union and my country reputation is not very good). Back on the topic. This new Paypal option ruins my business and it leads to issues with my clients.
Here are some example (just to give you a better idea about my issue):
http://imgur.com/a/BUihM

On top of that I tried:
"My selling tools -> Block payments -> Yes, accept and covert them to U.S. Dollars (Allow payments sent to me in a currency i do not hold)"
However this "option" doesn't work!!!, I had a customer from the US to test together with me and the option doesn't work, paypal still converts his funds into EURO. Weird (as he said).
Guys do you know any work around? Or should I open a stealth US Bank account?

I have my eyes on:
http://www.aspkin.com/forums/ebay-ac...ivery-123.html

If you have any ideas, solutions or recommendations I will be glad to see them. I have this issue on my mind all day all night.
Thanks in advance.

BleepBloop · #2 03-18-2017

You have to decide who gets the gains and losses from currency conversions. You or your customers.

Select a primary currency for your PayPal account. Your primary currency – the one you use most for sending and receiving payments – is automatically set to the local currency of where you opened the account but you're able to change this to any currency PayPal support like USD. Your primary currency also defines your withdrawal limits.

The currency conversion rate will be displayed each time you:

- Send a payment in a non-local currency.
- Accept and automatically convert a payment to your primary currency.
- Withdraw funds in a non-local currency to your local bank account.
- Transfer funds between currency balances.

There is no currency conversion for transactions where you:

- Send a payment using a payment method in the same currency.
- Receive a payment in a currency for which you hold a balance (you do not need to have funds in the currency balance).
- Withdraw funds in local currency to your local bank or card account.

So if you want your customers to deal with the conversion and you simply receive funds in your primary currency, ask your senders to try and pay with credit card to see if the option to use credit card conversion is available to them which would be better, as goods and services payment so there would be no PayPal fee for them to send. PayPal charges the sender on credit card payments for Friends and family payments.

Otherwise, you must let your senders send money in their local currency and you deal with the loss or gain when the payment comes in gets converted into your PayPal account's primary currency. Or set up currency balances for the various currencies your senders send you. For example, f you have a customer in the Philippines, create a PHP currency balance.

Note that when you withdrawl from all these different currency balances, PayPal converts the money to your local currency first to withdraw and the card or bank you withdraw to has to be in the same currency.

No hybrid currency accounts or bank accounts abroad and not on US soil for instance, that accepts USD and as you do not want to run into the problem where the money gets converted twice.

Hope this answers your question.

bravechimp · #3 03-18-2017

@BleepBloop: thank you for the detail post, yes it helps, but i am already aware.
I have all needed currencies like USD,CAD,GBP,EURO, etc on my account. I have USD as a main currency, and it still prompt customers for conversion. Quite obviously paypal tries to rip off here, because customer either overlook and PP applies their unfair exchange rate or notice the different and ask me questions.
It is such a shame that PayPal tries to fool people like this, like its not enough that i need to withdrawal in EURO at the very end.