Paypal charges 4% I think.
Ahh, thanks. So it must be something you can change per transaction.
Funnily enough I received a new credit card today, and a new set of contractual terms, where I noticed the 2.75% fee. That is on top of another fee, of I think 3%, but since I dumped the terms, I can’t find what it relates to.
Unusual for banks and financial institutions to screw their customers, isn’t it? 0:)
Edit> Yes, it’s a per transaction thing on PP.
You can check your card company rates at their site usually, but you also need to check with your bank as many banks add % to the conversion, some don’t. PayPal rates are awful I never use them.
And yes Visa uses their own rate as well, all card companies do, doesn’t matter which one you have. Because they handle the transaction, not your bank. So they convert it to your cards currency based on their own rates.
You also need to have money on your card and it takes like 1-2 days for the card company to register that. So if you move money to your account and want to pay, you can’t and have to wait 1-2 days before being able to if you had insufficient money on it before and topped it up.
BLF and CPF works
CPASTE13SPRING works
TENOFF does not
Thanks, Jack. It would be prudent to check. I think I have always used Paypal’s conversion, if it is the default.
It is default. Sometimes it may be cheaper because some banks charge way too high % fee for basically nothing, just deducting the money from your account.
You can check the rates here for each day and then see how much your bank got out of it from how much they actually deducted from your account:
Visa Europe rates
Another Visa rates, seems to have more options (currencies) and results are same as the first one for me.
At least on Visa you can also enter the banks fee in % to get a good estimate before purchase when you already know how much your bank takes from the transaction.
If your bank takes 0%, the savings are noticeable compared to default PayPal rates.
The only way to beat the liability of having to pay inflated exchange rates is to establish a US Bank account for yourself and fund it via post with a draft with currency you bought locally from a currency exchange such as Payline By Ice, etc., at wholesale rate (Mid-Market plus 1). You then link a Paypal account to this US Bank account and use it to fund your purchases that are based in USD. By so doing there is no exchange rate applied by Paypal. As Paypal will only ship to US Addresses for transactions that are funded from a US account, you have to allow it to send the order through with the US Address that is attached to your US Bank account, then contact the seller and have them change the address to your actual foreign address (Fasttech already has a slick procedure in place to allow for this, and IO, and Steve Ku also handle this well). Harris Bank is one such Bank that will allow foreign nationals to hold US Accounts. The end result is a 1 liability from your foreign currency through to your purchase in USD. That has been discussed in more detail in another thread.
Link it then, because this stuff is really hard to find on the net overall.
Most people just have their 1 expensive bank account and do not realize there actually are options and ways to save when it comes to banks and exchanging money.
Having PayPal linked to a different address is a big issue when shopping. At least on eBay etc.
You don’t even need a US bank account really. You just need a card that is in USD, can be from any bank but at least here the banks don’t issue these normally or easily or for free.
Or just switch the currency in PayPal to USD and hope it will use it and charge it from your bank account at the rate you like or from account in USD (no problem to have that, but having a card for it is).
Sending something somewhere? No no. Having to exchange it myself somewhere etc. what a hassle. If it even saves a cent. I get visa rates + 0% or so from the bank for the conversion. Free account, free card. No extra expenses. Just check that the card rate is used instead of PayPal rate and that’s all.
Yes if you’re transferring money between accounts with different currencies then services like paylinebyice etc. that offer better exchange rates are worth to check. I don’t know this one but there are other online around here. Some can exchange & send for free even small amounts.
Thanks for the advice. For some reason my Paypal is set to USD already, but it’s not a US account.
Link what exactly? There are many sources listed, all accessible via Google search.
For you perhaps. For me it has been a minor issue, but one that cannot be avoided, and is manageable, as noted FT, IO, and the Taiwan seller of Tritium vials have had no problems dealing with it.
Actually no. eBay ships to the address that is associated to your eBay account, NOT the address that is associated with the Paypal account you are using to pay with. eBay is the easy one. The problem is with sellers like Fasttech that are not using your eBay address, but as mentioned, it is an easy work-around.
That would be a faint hope withal. Unless the account that funds your Paypal account is a USD account, then there will be an exchange rate applied, no way to get around it I’m afraid.
There is an annual fee for these cards and it’s not cheap, EG: $50.00. When you pay the outstanding balance on the card you must pay the balance in US funds. How are you going to do that? Transfer from your Bank perhaps with a $20.00 or more wire transfer fee? If you’re going to pay the account by buying your US funds from a money broker and mailing it (the cheapest way) then you may as well just fund a proper USD bank account that way instead, and get the free credit card that goes with it and not pay the $50.00 a year for the card. Then you still have the problem of funding your Paypal account, as Paypal does not like credit cards so they charge more for that method.
Also BTW, for example Harris Bank gives the US Account holder a free US Mastercard debit card with their US account, and there are no service fees for accounts that have a balance of $1,000.00. Otherwise the service fee is $7.00 a month.
Unfortunately there is no ingenious tricks to get around the Paypal exchange rates. If you are buying something in US funds, you either pay with a US based Paypal account, or you pay exchange rates. And even if you buy from a seller that directly accepts credit card payments, if you pay in any currency other than the seller’s currency, then your card company will take a premium exchange rate much worse than you could get by buying from a money broker, so you are best off to use a credit card that is USD that is funded from an account that you seed with funds you got at wholesale rate.
Oh really, then share just one.
Online sellers are fine as you fill out your shipping address.
On the other hand eBay sellers often note and want to ship to your PayPal address, want your eBay and PayPal address to be the same.
Yeah right, as easy as it is to get stuff shipped from US. Really depends on the sellers.
Maybe in the US.
Here if you want to send money outside the country or in a different currency inside the country you get charged for that type of transfer depending on your bank. Depends on what currency as well, if we’re talking USD then it may be from $8-$10 per transfer + the rate of the bank which is bad. So you can instead use services of other companies that will do the transfer sometimes even for free (for small amounts) and with better rates 
Mailing? Who the heck mails money? Ah well, you guys still probably use checks as well. Everybody else just transfers the money electronically in the modern world.
No credit cards thank you.
Not bad, any comparison of such services? List of similar banks with these free options? (Offered to non US citizens.)
It did not seem to me that bad the rates used by Visa and rates available when sending money between banks (via better options than expensive bank rates).
To give you some real numbers for today:
PayPal: 20.63
Bank 1: 20.308
Bank 2: 20.269
Foreign exchange company (I don’t know how you guys call these with one word, we have one word for it):
A: 20.000
B: 19.910
Best bank rate: 19.940
Best cash exchange: 19.900
National bank rate: 19.871 (means no local bank will be under this and probably nobody else around here either)
Visa: 19.703
If you can beat these Visa conversion rates with 0% bank fee, let me know how.
Because I doubt that you can do that with an account and card in USD and all the hassle of charging the account and having money left there most likely on no interest. And having to use some of the currency conversions that are probably even worse than what Visa uses on it’s cards.
Yes it’s a whopping 0.927 difference between Visa rates with 0% bank fee and PayPal rates. 4.49% cheaper than PayPal rates. So even if your bank charges you a couple % on the transfer, you are likely to save compared to PayPal rates anyway.
It’s useless at least when you have the PayPal account type set to paying via a card without charging the account. I thought the money would stay there when refunded but no, they get charged all the way back to the card account. So my PayPal balance is always 0.
You can add a few currencies and make USD a primary but it will have an effect I think only when you charge your PP account from a bank account, not use a card for the payments.
And I thought this thread was about coupon codes. Silly me. Guess I’ll look around, see if BLF still works at FT.
It's actually pretty easy to check that directly on the FT site, you just add something/anything to your cart, then enter coupon code and confirm by clicking on "Apply" in one or two seconds you will know if it works or not ;)
BLF, CPF 5% lights
CPASTE13SPRING 5% all
Having your currency conversion done well, can save you around 4% too. That’s why the talk.
I didn’t have to convert currency, used BLF for a savings of $1.60. Yay! .40 off on each battery, got 4 Panny’s for the Solarforce S2200 that’s also on the way. 
Just like bank regulations and credit card practices, Paypal's rules and processing can vary somewhat in different countries. Here in Canada, I have had my Paypal funded with nothing but a Canadian dollar credit card. Paypal does not charge me for using a CC instead of a bank account and using a CC is simpler, and although the CC exchange rate was not very good, it was acceptable.
Then a few months ago Paypal informed me that they would be performing any needed currency exchanges going forward. Obviously they had found another way to make money. I wasn't happy to see an increase in my exchange costs, but what really annoyed me was Paypal's arrogant attitude - no alternative was offered.
So I obtained a no fee CC denominated in US $. Just yesterday I added it to my Paypal account and changed the account's Primary currency to US$. I then bought the 8.99 C8 from AuraBuy and voila - no outrageous currency exchange rate. In fact no currency exchange took place at all. I can buy US currency in small amounts, as needed from a local currency dealer at rates better than the banks or CC companies provide, and much better than Paypal.
BLF is an international community and financial products and services vary widely from one country to another, so you may need change it up a bit. This worked for me, and I hope others can find a way to avoid PP's heavy handedness.
Here in EU the biggest problem is to get a hold of a no fees USD card of any kind and a cheap way of putting money onto that card, plus a conversion rate that is better than the VISA rate posted above. Since all transfers outside local currency and EUR are more expensive. EUR can be cheaper but does not even have to be actually, depends on the bank. That is in countries that don’t have EUR.
Personally I found it nearly very hard to find anything that would have better rate than VISA has on cards. I don’t know about MC I guess they have similarly good rates. Not to praise VISA or something. Card currency conversion rates. Sure depends on options in your country.
This is one of the best here as far as I know and found out. And this is a place where people save money, are cautious and try to cut out unnecessary expenditures, find ways to save.
CPASTE13SPRING 5% all
This code is not working to me… what i’m doing wrong?
It works for me. Post it in the box when you look at your cart, and click on “Have a coupon code?”
http://www.fasttech.com/shoppingcart