Bought in pounds off UK site, bank debited more than converted rate

salad17 · 28-06-2016 02:54PM #1

So I buy regularly off a UK website. This order I placed over the phone, the total cost in pounds was:

£311.79

Converted to euro on google/xe on the day of purchase 24 June it came in at:

€381.71

However looking at my bank account today I was debited:

€395.94 (converted today with google as £327.45)

In pounds, that's a difference of £327.45 - £311.79 = £15.66

Is this normal? Where does that extra £15.66 disappear to? Does the website take it by giving a bad exchange rate, or does the bank take it (Ulster bank is my bank)?

Am I being ripped off or do I just have to deal with it?!

Yggr of Asgard · 28-06-2016 04:40PM

Banks don't charge you the google/xe rate, they use different rates with additional fees on top of it. And with the current £ turmoil there is a rather large difference between live interbank rates on google/xe and Visa/Mastercard rates which are set on different criteria.

Depending on what card it is the exchange rates might be different, Visa you could see here, Mastercard you could see here.

In addition using the card abroad (even virtual) cost additional fees which are added to the converted amount.

You need to check your T&C but if I recall it correctly you will be charged 1% charge (max 6€) and 1% Exchange Fee (max 6€), also it's not always the exchange rate used that was valid on the day you paid, but it might be on the day of the transaction hitting your account.

In theory your bank should show you both the rate used and the fee's separately but it's Ulster.

rubadub · 29-06-2016 08:32PM

Nobody gets the xe rate. This is a post from 2010

rubadub wrote: »

I ordered some items on amazon on 30 april. Came to

-Order Total: GBP 93.48

using their currency converter it was

-Payment Total: EUR 112,43

I checked on XE at the time and it was

93.48 GBP=107.672 EUR

Of course nobody gets this and it is usually 2-3% more than this using CC or paypal so I chose to pay in sterling via CC.

My BOI mastercard statement was
93.48GBP RATE 0.8549 €109.34

So mastercard was only 1.5% more than XE
Amazon was 4.4% more
And I saved €3.09 by choosing to pay in sterling rather than use amazons converter.

My statement shows the payment on 4 May, so I wonder if it is taken on that date and if the XE rate would have been the usual 2-3% I would expect.

since then amazons rate has gotten a lot better, I have noted the amazon rates and paid in £ and compared to what the bank charged and there was very little difference.

this is a post from 27th june as I wanted to compare xe to amazon with the whole brexit thing

rubadub wrote: »

Just testing there xe have

1.00 GBP = 1.19906 EUR
British Pound ↔ Euro
1 GBP = 1.19906 EUR 1 EUR = 0.833985 GBP

amazon's own rate (which is not as bad as it used to be).

Order Total:GBP 125.82
Payment Total: EUR 158,68

which is 1.261 vs 1.199 on xe. So about a 5% difference.

Maybe amazon were being overly cautious but it would not surprise me to see that difference with the banks too

salad17 · 30-06-2016 02:48PM

Ah that's interesting, good to know. Also I didn't know there was a conversion fee and a standard charge. Thanks for the replies.

Quackster · 13-07-2016 01:54PM

Use Revolut for sterling and other foreign-currency transactions in future and you'll pay pretty much the xe.com rates with no additional fees.

Bought in pounds off UK site, bank debited more than converted rate

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