I am from Canada and mainly (99%) a seller on eBay and I do not accept PayPal as a payment form but I have a personal account with them. Recently I won a couple of items from the same seller and she doesn't accept BillPoint, I had to use my personal PayPal account and pay from my credit card since I don't have any balance with them. The total I had to pay for my items was $168.91 US. On my credit card statement I was charged for $172.58 US converted to CAD $.
BillPoint is free for customers to make their payment and they charge only the sellers for accepting money. Is it any different for PayPal?
Is PayPal making money on both the sellers and the buyers?
posted on August 16, 2001 10:08:22 AM new
Yes, this is another of Paypal's "gotchas." They charge the buyer what they call a "conversion fee" even though the conversion is already built into the exchange rate charged by the bank that did it. And as other posters have already stated, the conversion rate they give is very generous to Paypal when compared to rates charged by other banks. But I'm sure if you ask the cheerleaders, they'll be able to explain why this is all for your own good.
