Paying in sterling with paypal.

dashcamdanny

Hey.

Wondering what the best option is for buying an item in sterling.

the item cost £404

I just checked with paypal
Exchange rate
EUR 491.64 = GBP 404.81
1 EUR = 0.8234 GBP

Thats a bit of a Pizss take to be honest.

The actual rate on the exchange market is

1 Euro equals
0.87 Pound sterling

Would using the Revolut card be better?

jimmii

Using anything would be better. If you have a revolut card I dont see why you would even consider using PayPal for the conversion!

dashcamdanny

jimmii wrote: »

Using anything would be better. If you have a revolut card I dont see why you would even consider using PayPal for the conversion!

I have always used paypal exchange , but was not aware of how much they were screwing me till I considered a large purchase.

Im new to revolute and never used it before.


Fair to say its better.

Im guessing Im not going to get any protection like paypal offers?

ohnonotgmail

You can make the payment directly in sterling without paypal doing the conversion. You then pay whatever rate your card provider offers.

dashcamdanny

Yes. It worked well

Transferred money to revolut

Set it as revolut as prefared payment in paypal.

Set paypal to pounds as my currency.

Payed at 1 Euro equals
0.87 Pound sterling with no bank fees . And paypal protection which is important for buying stuff from China.

TheChizler

dashcamdanny wrote: »

Yes. It worked well

Transferred money to revolut

Set it as revolut as prefared payment in paypal.

Set paypal to pounds as my currency.

Payed at 1 Euro equals
0.87 Pound sterling with no bank fees . And paypal protection which is important for buying stuff from China.

Your best bet is to turn off the Paypal auto conversion full stop, currently if you want to pay for something in € it will convert to £ for you. Even your bank's rate would be better than the Paypal rate.

stronglikebull

This comes up all the time on various forums, and there's usually a lot of misinformation on it, especially where credit and debit cards are concerned. To be sure, you need to check the exchange rate at the time of purchasing and compare between Paypal and your bank's rate. Also, bear in mind that Irish banks will charge a fee on top of the exchange rate for a non-euro transaction, which you will avoid if Paypal is handling the exchange and charging your card in euro.

I just checked on Paypal and Bank of Ireland right now, for a £100 payment. Paypal say €121.62 and BOI say €121.17. That's 0.37% in the difference.


XE will tell you it's €117.08, a 3.7% difference, which is what people normally compare to, but this isn't the rate the end user gets and shouldn't be used when comparing banks and Paypal, Amazon, etc.

http://www.moneyguideireland.com/bank-debit-and-credit-card-charges-outside-the-eurozone.html
This site details the fees associated with non-euro charges on debit and credit cards. Anything between 1-3%, depending on the bank and type of card being used.
People forget about this bit all the time, and have fooled themselves into thinking they're getting a better rate without actually checking it first.

So before you make a payment, especially if it's a large amount, take a minute to check it first. Revolut does give you the Interbank exchange rate, or about 1% over it outside trading hours, which is about the best you'll find.

dashcamdanny

I have a 400 pound refund on the way also from ebay- paypal.

I assume im going to be charged twice of exchange on the same product.


Is it still cheaper to receive money back via Revolut?