Paypal hassles again.

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Jan,
your not responding to my post in any rational way. What's with the stupid comment about trying to get everything for free and you hav'nt answered my question do you work in any kind of capacity for the EU - not answering a question is an answer. The Lexis statement suggests irrational personality.

Jacques - be careful, be very careful. You have correctly identified a huge risk. I have friends who had money and not insignifcant amounts taken from their bank accounts when fraudsters lied and said that they had'nt received audio equipment.

I have yet to post a question on diy about transferring my LP collection to hard disk. If I get the right info and if I can achieve at or near the analogue quality I have now then I will sell them (about 1000). No way am I going to use Payal as a payment method, it will be IBAN or cheques to my UK and French bank accounts.

gpauk - check out Barclays, you'll find it there. Banks will screw you the world over, so you have to accept that they will charge you more than their 'service' is worth anyway. If you are savvy and if your in business and aren't you will get humped more than you need to be especially with currency conversion. If you trade internationally you can save clients on currency conversion and maybe win more business if they can pay you in their own currency. The craic is to keep yourself informed on currency trending/movement, so that you switch to currencies on an upswing.
 
Hello Stuart,

Your view on non-discrimination on the basis of nationality within the EU is essmetiaaly correct. If I properly understand your complaint, it is PayPal France that is the culprit.

I would suggest to file a complaint against PayPal at the Autorité de la concurrence , the French supervisory body.

Good Luck,

Eelco
 
AX tech editor
Joined 2002
Paid Member
Jan,
your not responding to my post in any rational way. What's with the stupid comment about trying to get everything for free and you hav'nt answered my question do you work in any kind of capacity for the EU - not answering a question is an answer. The Lexis statement suggests irrational personality.

Haha! Always interesting to meet someone who doesn't get what you say yet has strong opinions on what you didn't say.

Jan
 
Virtually all my transactions from where I live (Netherlands) with customers outside the European Union are done with Paypal.
Recently, with some vague action the fee has been raised from 3.9 to 4.4% for payments from the USA to my place.
However, there is a good and reliable alternative, called Transferwise.
Transferwise is a registered bank (settled in London) run by some clever guys from Estonia when I am right.
I had a couple of transactions with US customers using Transferwise.
For payments up to a couple of grands the transfer fee paid by the customer was less than 10 USD, and I had the correct amount on my account in a couple of days.
Besides they seem to handle better exchange rates; Paypal makes extra money with their exchange rates too!
I tell customers about this option since; it saves quite a lot!
You can check Transferwise; it seems to be rather simple.
 
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Hi Boden,
thanks for that.

Pieter, yes knew about them, apparently very good up to a reasonable limit. The problem is that my problem and the reason I started this thread was about buying and later maybe selling on Ebay. So many sellers specify Paypal only and I buy or used to, a lot on Ebay.uk because the prices of so much are better than on the mainland, the exception being Germany.

When I look on Ebay.fr so much comes from the UK. delivery prices to UK addresses are way lower than to France, sometimes it is free. Of course delivery to France or any other country will be higher but when I check out Royal Mail I see clearly that a lot of sellers are making a second often bigger profit on the postage than the product. I just got banned from another forum for saying that, especially relating to vinyl sellers. I took delivery yesterday of a double LP I should have bought decades ago from a USA seller - Electric Ladyland, a repressing from the original analogue tapes. It took 19 days to get here but it only cost me $6.99 against the 'normal cost' of $22. I look for 'value for money' or as the Americans say 'bang for the buck'.

If you look on Ebay.uk - check out the various prices for Goo Gone/32oz bottle and the postage, this stuff is excellent for removing labels, ink etc. There is one company that really stands out for price and postage and I mean really stands out and I can pay by UK cheque/c/card or Paypal. This company does'nt charge for accepting a cheque either, both seller and buyer benefit.

If you annualise that 4.4% fee from Paypal it's scandalous. In the UK we have what called 'payday lenders' and they pale into insignificance beside Paypal rates.

BTW - Paypal still hasn't replied to my emails. If refusing to let me have a secondary UK delivery address was legal and if refusing to let me use my UK c/card registered to my French address was legal then I'm sure they would have replied quoting the appropriate EU/French legislation. How long before Ebay/Paypal insist on payment by Paypal only and Ebay postage only?
 
pieter t,

I think you have hit on a solution for when I want to sell outside the EU. Transferwise is indeed the cheapest way to transfer money. Here's the question - if you want to sell something on an Ebay site in Europe and non EU people want to buy, would any Ebay site let you quote bank transfer ie. IBAN/Swift or Transferwise.

I reckon that Ebay/Paypal would put a block on it. I'll bet that Paypal want to stop IBAN transfers which a lot of Germans/Dutch quite rightly use, it shut's them right out.

Setting up a Transferwise account is a doddle and for transferring rel;atively small amounts of money it's a no-brainer - vamos a ver/let's see.
 
pieter t,
I paid attention to your post and checked out Transferwise. You will probably already know they have a new account, the kind I have been waiting years to appear - Borderless.

You can have accounts in various currencies and leave money there, something you could only do with accounts with big traditional banks. They have both personal and business versions. Soon they will offer to selected clients a debit card which you will be able to use with different currencies and incur no charges if you have set up accounts in those currencies.

Here's the thing - to convince sellers to use Transferwise, it will certainly be more profitable for the seller and a better deal for the buyer. There is no need to transfer currencies into any particular currency, especially if you think that the rate will move in your favour.

Previously this kind of option was only open to big business. The only problem I can see is that Ebay will try to ban the use of companies like Transferwise or others.

There is another company called Revolut.com based in London that offers both (a) a UK bank account and (b) a Euro/IBAN one, (c) it charges no fees and uses the mid-market price, fee free transactions in 130 currencies, a credit card. Revolut also offer very cheap travel insurance. For me the only problem is it's all done by mobiles - there is always a risque with wi-fi. My PC is line contact, so is the phone I use for contact.

These companies pose real risks for big traditional banks and Paypal. Certainly for people on the move or travelling, the costs drop through the floor - keeping your mobile secure at all times is the price, not difficult for sensible people.
 
Exactly Juergen,

The more people use these new 'moneymovers' the better. As I said my one worry I have with Revolut is business can only be done with mobiles.

With Transferwise - each and every time before you log on and gain access to your account, you have to click for a computer generated security code to be sent by SMS or in our case by landline.

I don't know the procedure with Revolut but I think the ultimate security measure for personal accounts would be that both 'send' and 'receive' accounts would have to be set by the account holder and any new 'receive' account/s would have to be verified by actual voice/phone contact with the account holder, thereby making it impossible for accounts to be raided.

The only remaining positive for Paypal is the ability to claw back money from dodgy or corrupt sellers. Even though live in France I don't know how easy it is to get a refund from a credit card here, in the UK it is simple. I don't think that is a feature of these new moneymover companies - maybe others can supply this info.
 
As I said my one worry I have with Revolut is business can only be done with mobiles.
you need a smartphone! You need to access the app for all the account maintenance, like topping up via credit card, exchanging currencies, accessing reports, contacting support etc. However you don't need to access the app for purchases with your physical or virtual revolut mastercard.
 
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