Paypal friends is now nation exclusive!

[Yavianice]

I noticed Paypal Friends is now exclusive per nation? This sucks! It used to be free to wire to any country from EU, but now I have to pay at least 2 euro fee on top of a poor exchange rate, with no ability to use a different exchange rate with a CreditCard. Because then Paypal charges an 8 euro flat fee!

 

 

O well, one more reason to use Transferwise....

[Suica]

What do you mean? Still says free within the EU, as you screenshot does. Or do you mean sending different currencies to non EUR EU countries (for examble PLN to Poland)?

I could've sworn it's been that way for a long time. I was never able to use Paypal friends for non-EU countries. At least they added the function now to enter the amount the receiver will actually get. Before that you had to subtract the fees yourself.

Edited October 11, 2018 by Suica

[JR 500系]

Paypal seems to take quite a fair bit of fees, especially for the recipient… TransferWise works better at much lower fees! 

 

[Yavianice]

57 minutes ago, Suica said:

What do you mean? Still says free within the EU, as you screenshot does. Or do you mean sending different currencies to non EUR EU countries (for examble PLN to Poland)?

I could've sworn it's been that way for a long time. I was never able to use Paypal friends for non-EU countries. At least they added the function now to enter the amount the receiver will actually get. Before that you had to subtract the fees yourself.

 

Yes for EU. So, before it was the situation that you could send money to people outside the EU for free also. Now this is not the case. Now the currency needs to be EU -AND- the recipient needs to be in the EU. And I'm pretty sure that before you could also do currency exchange rates from your creditcard. Now, this is no longer possible either.

[Suica]

3 minutes ago, Yavianice said:

 

Yes for EU. So, before it was the situation that you could send money to people outside the EU for free also. Now this is not the case. Now the currency needs to be EU -AND- the recipient needs to be in the EU. And I'm pretty sure that before you could also do currency exchange rates from your creditcard. Now, this is no longer possible either.

Hmmm... may I ask where your Paypal account is registered? I'm pretty sure international friends transactions were never available in Germany in particular. We generally got Paypal friends rather late and at first it was Germany only, not even EU.

[kvp]

It was always available in Hungary, but it was never free, regardless of the countries involved and the currency. It was always free for the recipient though as the sender has to pay all fees and taxes.

[Yavianice]

36 minutes ago, Suica said:

Hmmm... may I ask where your Paypal account is registered? I'm pretty sure international friends transactions were never available in Germany in particular. We generally got Paypal friends rather late and at first it was Germany only, not even EU.

My Paypal is registered in NL.

 

I use Paypal Friends a lot. Until now when they changed it and charged fees...

[Suica]

So as I see it, Paypal's services are highly depending on the country you're in.

[Yavianice]

9 minutes ago, Suica said:

So as I see it, Paypal's services are highly depending on the country you're in.

Correct. It used to be feasible for me to send money to anywhere in the world with low fees (or virtually no fees, meaning, less than 50 cents or so, if sent in Euro) and using the credit card exchange rate where I wanted it.

 

Now I'm forced to use the stupid Paypal exchange rate and on top of that pay very high fees to send any money (especially in a different currency) to recipients outside, in my case, the EU.

 

Fortunately there is still Transferwise...

Edited October 11, 2018 by Yavianice

[chadbag]

Here is a US example.   Not choosing "goods and services" but rather "sending to a friend"

 

So, if I (US based PayPal) send 20 USD to my friend in Munich and he receives USD, the fee is 0.99 if I take the money from my bank account, and $1.87 if I pay with a credit card.  If I send 20 USD and he receives Euro they use their crappy exchange (about 3 cents more than the bank interchange rate, which is close to what you get with using a CC).  Then the fee is the same 0.99 if they take it from my bank account, and 2.09 if they take it from my credit card, which would save me some on the exchange as they still allow me to convert with the card issuer making the overall "cost" more like 1.40--1.50.

 

PayPal has never been a good way to transfer money overseas...  But on a merchant payment is not bad from the payer's side as the merchant pays the fees.