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by pifm_guy 1232 days ago
PayPal does the same...

For non-us citizens, USD's either incur a conversation fee to another currency, or an international withdrawal fee. There is no way to get money out without paying one or other fee.

2 comments

Took me years to find out how they're scamming me on the conversion charges/exchange rate.

Say you want to buy product in USD, and you come from non-USA country. Paypal would "helpfully" convert USD to your local currency using their own exchange rate (worse than any other one - goes without saying), charge the linked bank account (which probably is in USD anyway, to avoid paying for conversion fees), then the local bank would charge you again by converting the payment from the local currency to say USD because the account is in USD. Those practices probably cost me thousands over the years until I've figured out what was happening.

I've turned on the option (intentionally buried and difficult to find) that tells Paypal to charge me in the currency I've was purchasing (USD), and not to do the conversion. But the fuckers had a habit of flipping that option so you're caught off guard. Needless to say, been Paypal-free for years now. One can imagine how much Paypal and banks profit from this scammy/dark-pattern behaviour on a global scale.

Can't find this on fees page https://www.paypal.com/al/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees. Which detail is it?
For Australia it’s on this page under Withdrawals Out of PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/au/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees

Coincidentally they added the 3% withdrawal fee soon after Wise became a popular bank account option. PayPal was a great choice until then!

But it has a max-fee of $10 if you withdraw to an USD card, correct?

So you can open an USD card on wise and withdraw there?

But they probably have a limit? If yes, there's no workaround?

That’s interesting, I didn’t know withdrawing to a card in USD was possible.

Maybe if I ever have to implement PayPal again I’ll test it out :)