Avoiding the Paypal currency conversion fee.

Yesterday, I purchased an item on Ebay from Europe in Euros. PayPal charged me 2.5% conversion fee from USD$ to Euros. The conversion fee was $40 plus $5 flat adjustment fee for the $1140 purchase. This was unexpected since my credit card attached to my Ebay account doesn’t charge for currency conversion. Ebay exclusively uses PayPal as the credit card processor. After much discussion with 3 PayPal reps, I discovered that they do offer an option to letting your credit card process the currency conversion – ONLY at the time of purchase. Of course, nobody knows that it is there. Here is how to do it. I hope this tip saves you some money – assuming that your credit card doesn’t charge a currency conversion fee.

1) Type in the total payment.

2) Click on the dropdown arrow below the USD currency.

2) Select the proper currency. Click Continue.

3) On the next page, click on Currency Exchange Options

4) On the next page, click on ‘Convert with Card Issuer’.