PayPal TIPS : When NOT to use Friends Option

[CPUShack]

Paypal is again raising prices for currency conversion (They raised them back in April lol)

Amendments to the PayPal Account User Agreement and the PayPal Cash and PayPal Cash Plus Terms & Conditions

We are changing the PayPal currency conversion spread to 3.75% for transactions that involve a PayPal currency conversion when you pay for goods or services or send money.
We are changing the PayPal currency conversion spread to 3.0% for all other transactions involving a PayPal currency conversion.

So if you convert currency BEFORE sending money (or paying for an item) you will save 0.75%

[cvandijk]

Time for an worldwide alternative

[Marcin]

[debs3759]

I like to use xe.com for large international transactions, but not all banks accept them, and some banks charge exorbitant fees for incoming international transfers. I recently signed up to Paysend as well - they can send payments to a recipients credit card, in any currency, with very low fees. Not as cheap as xe.com, but seems to work better.

I also recently opened Euro and USD accounts through Transferwise, a services that gives very good conversion rates. Now I just need the money to make proper use of all these services.

[CPUShack]

Bank Transfers seem to be common in Europe but in the US they still think they are complicated, and charge $25 to RECEIVE one lol

I have used Transfer Wise to send money internationally cheaply but dont know how it is sending to the US

And in the US there is Venmo (no fees, and owned by Paypal, its like a social media version of PP lol)

[Marcin]

I have opened Transferwise with hope to get funds there from PayPal and transfer them to bank but that idea fail. PayPal are not an idiots.

Making EU bank transfers was more common years ago than now. It is still not easy for users and most of us need to have funds on PayPal to send them to US/China/Japan and so on. That is why bank transfers between countries are not common in EU And you will sell nothing on eBay not accepting PayPal that's fact.

[cvandijk]

In Europe you can pay easily from bank to bank because since a few years we have IBAN, but the problem is to transfer money cheap to the USA and China.

[debs3759]

With Transferwise, I can receive money in GBP, USD, EUR, AUD and NZD and I can convert to and pay in many other currencies. If I had the money, I would use them to save my GBP in USD before the GBP tanks after Brexit

[Marcin]

SEPA bank transfers will be free in all EU banks soon - new directive requiring in EU law. My bank will offer it since 12 December 2019. I encourage swap of PayPal to bank transfers in european zone.

[Marcin]

I found a new way of PayPal choosing payment method. Now they are asking if you want to send payment with PayPal protection or without Do you have the same ?

PS. It will be hard to reason the buyer to pay the second option without PayPal protection - at least it sounds not trustworthy lol

[cuttingedgecs]

Yeah, has been like that here for months. It's just an indirect way of asking friends(no protection)/goods(protection).

[cuttingedgecs]

Paypal has advised me of the following, effective (presumably for all of Australia) 19/09/22

"Business accounts will not be able to receive personal transactions and PayPal accounts will not be able to send personal transactions to business accounts."

As I had to set mine up as a business account to enable some other features, it seems from next month, I won't be able to accept "friends and family" payments at all.

It's like they're trying to annoy their customers at a time when their competition is only growing. I can't make sense of Paypal's constant attempts to give me a reason to shop around for one of their competitors.

[i440bx]

This i cant confirm.

I have a business PayPal account too and customers can pay via friends option the bills. But i'm in germany and most of my customers too.

I think it depends on county (of the recipient) if a business account can receive payments as friend.

[cedrik]

At least in Europe, Revolut become a good solution for payments..

[CHips]

Yeah, made the leap to Revolut too lately, feels good to pay Avicc bills without any Fee ! Even 0% for Chf -> Usd conversion! Though, if only they had a Desktop App or a WebApp that works without Phone/Tablet...
PayPal is going to die... In a few years, nobody is going to use it anymore unless they reduce their scandalous fees and stop changing their terms 10 times a year...
They enjoyed their monopoly for too long...