So my account in local bank is strictly in USD (I can set EUR if I want to but it's USD ONLY as it is) and is totally different from my account in domestic currency (RSD, Serbia) and I have that account tied with PayPal. You are all saying that PayPal will convert USD to RSD and then again from RSD to USD and then send transfer me the money in USD? Doesn't sound logical to me.

Sure I must convert USD to RSD between my accounts in local bank but that is fee-free with my bank.

Quote from: zeamonkey on January 27, 2017, 14:26
I have a thai paypal and get paid in usd. I then opened a payoneer account with atm card. At same time they gave me Bank of america bank acc. and i nvr set foot in the US. Now i transfer my usd from thai paypal to BOM acc for no charge from paypal, and then take out thai currency with my payoneer atm card. The exchange rate on payoneer uses mastercard rates and is much better than paypals rates.

Snedigt søren ;-)


That was clever

Quote from: zeamonkey on January 27, 2017, 14:26
I have a thai paypal and get paid in usd. I then opened a payoneer account with atm card. At same time they gave me Bank of america bank acc. and i nvr set foot in the US. Now i transfer my usd from thai paypal to BOM acc for no charge from paypal, and then take out thai currency with my payoneer atm card. The exchange rate on payoneer uses mastercard rates and is much better than paypals rates.

By the way, when was that? I was there mid december 2016, and around 1 of december they made a new law against terror end financial crime, so the possibility to get the bank account was way harder than just 3 months ago.

A buddy of mine did it in 2015, and he just walked in and got one in 10 minutes.

I spend almost 5 hours in a meeting documenting everything. The banker told me, that 3 weeks before she could just have opened it for me with no problems.


So maybe it´s not that easy anymore.

Quote from: qunamax on January 27, 2017, 14:44
So my account in local bank is strictly in USD (I can set EUR if I want to but it's USD ONLY as it is) and is totally different from my account in domestic currency (RSD, Serbia) and I have that account tied with PayPal. You are all saying that PayPal will convert USD to RSD and then again from RSD to USD and then send transfer me the money in USD? Doesn't sound logical to me.

Sure I must convert USD to RSD between my accounts in local bank but that is fee-free with my bank.

Logical or not, PayPal won't send USD outside the country as far as I understand. Naturally, they want their juicy fee.

Quote from: langstrup on January 27, 2017, 18:05
I spend almost 5 hours in a meeting documenting everything. The banker told me, that 3 weeks before she could just have opened it for me with no problems.


So maybe it´s not that easy anymore.

I think you can run into tax problems if you get big amounts of USD into a US bank account.

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on January 27, 2017, 19:09

Quote from: langstrup on January 27, 2017, 18:05
I spend almost 5 hours in a meeting documenting everything. The banker told me, that 3 weeks before she could just have opened it for me with no problems.


So maybe it´s not that easy anymore.

I think you can run into tax problems if you get big amounts of USD into a US bank account.

No - You just have to fill out a W8-BEN-E ( Business tax form) at the bank. I live in Denmark, and we have a tax treaty with US, so as long as the TAX documents are filled out there is no problems. But otherwise! Certainly

We been thrue 4 "controllers" at the bank, whom all checked out the documents. They are very strict these days.

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on January 27, 2017, 09:43
The important thing is: When you can use the money, like buy milk, what currency is it in? The conversion happens somewhere and remember that the PayPal fees are HIDDEN, it doesn't say: look, here's the fee, they just give you a bad exchange rate.

PayPal fees are not hidden at all. ALL fees are in the T and C you signed for when opening your account. don't blame PayPal for your ignorance

Quote from: Microstockphoto on January 27, 2017, 21:31
PayPal fees are not hidden at all. ALL fees are in the T and C you signed for when opening your account. don't blame PayPal for your ignorance

Where did you dream up I was ignorant about the fees? Of course they are in the T&C since they have great lawyers, but they're hidden in a sneaky way at each withdrawal by being baked into the exchange rate.

What reason other than to sneak in high fees would there be to not just write out:

Currency conversion fee 2.5% = $xx.xx? Of course they're trying their best to hide it from the average customer.

They used to not even mention anything about a currency conversion fee, but they have changed it now, I'm sure due to complaints.

its not sneaky and they re not hidden. all fees are listed, been like that for years,  just check which fees apply to you and you know your cost to use paypal.  the Internet is full of people too lazy to check, they rather complain and accuse paypal. clueless

Quote from: Microstockphoto on January 27, 2017, 21:47
its not sneaky and they re not hidden. all fees are listed, been like that for years,  just check which fees apply to you and you know your cost to use paypal.  the Internet is full of people too lazy to check, they rather complain and accuse paypal. clueless

The fee is hidden upon each withdrawal. Of course all fees are listed in other places, but they try to hide it from the average customer upon withdrawal. I know it's 2.5%. You know it's 2.5%. But it's still sneaky.

Anyway, the main thing here is not that there ARE fees, or whether or not they're clearly visible - it's that the fee is currently 2.5%, which is quite high.

they are not hidden, 2.5% is the fee. Period . that's your cost. i think the fees are fair,  considering the service they provide

The information you get is this: "Includes fees. (go search for a few minutes to find out what they are)".

The information you should be getting upon each withdrawal is this: "Currency conversion fee is 2.5% which equals xx dollars". People don't like seeing that it costs $125 to withdraw $5,000 so PP don't show it.

I'm sure you see the difference. To me, that is not a transparent way of showing the fee, meaning they are indeed doing their best to mask it.

If my bank is sent USD they charge a 0.5% conversion fee. Even 1% is perfectly reasonable but not 2.5%. That is a new camera every year in currency conversion fees...

people may not like it,  but thats nit what they say,  they  say paypal is corrupt,  stealing,  hidden fees,  etc,  etc which is tinfoil hat rubbish

by the way if there is one institution with untransparant fees its the banks!

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on January 27, 2017, 19:09

Quote from: qunamax on January 27, 2017, 14:44
So my account in local bank is strictly in USD (I can set EUR if I want to but it's USD ONLY as it is) and is totally different from my account in domestic currency (RSD, Serbia) and I have that account tied with PayPal. You are all saying that PayPal will convert USD to RSD and then again from RSD to USD and then send transfer me the money in USD? Doesn't sound logical to me.

Sure I must convert USD to RSD between my accounts in local bank but that is fee-free with my bank.

Logical or not, PayPal won't send USD outside the country as far as I understand. Naturally, they want their juicy fee.

But If they send me money in local currency it would bounce I guess since my account can accept anything but USD, or if my bank converts from local currency sent by PayPal before filling my account then I'd lose nothing since my bank ain't charging me for conversion. I'm still not sure any of this happens except when the bank account is set to receive EUR only.

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on January 27, 2017, 14:10

Quote from: nadalbg on January 27, 2017, 14:06
I get internel error when I try to calculate withdrawal now, but I am almost sure that I withdraw usd and I dont get charged with currency convertion.

It's hidden as a really bad exchange rate, which translates into a 2.5% fee. The average exchange rate today should be around 1.83 levs per dollar.

But I withdraw 600$ usd and I pay the withdrawal fee which smth like 2.5 usd, and I get 600$ usd in my bank account/ debit card.

EDIT: Just withdrew 530 usd and I will update you when I receive it, but I make withdrawals monthly and I always receive my money in usd, always exactly the same ammount I withdraw.

withdrawing money is free of charge

Quote from: Microstockphoto on January 28, 2017, 07:51
withdrawing money is free of charge

Where are you located? Please note that the entire population of the world does not live in your country. There are withdrawal fees. They exist. Not in the US. But they do exist. I thought you had read the entire T&C?

yes,  I am in the US. i checked the tc,  but not really for zimbabwe or wherever. Europe most countries have no withdrawal fees either

Thanks everyone for the replies!

Exchange rate to EUR is 3.5%. This means it costs $350 for every $10k, which is insane.

It's high enough that I will try to open a bank account in the USA if I happen to be there. It's not expensive enough to take the gamble of booking a flight, especially considering the difficulties of actually getting a bank account without have an actual address somewhere in the USA.

The exchange rate from USD to EUR is indeed insane. The worst thing is that Paypal claims it's the 'current exchange rate', while it's the current exchange minus 2.5%. Sneaky.

I don't see any easy way to circumvent the bad rates though. Opening a US bank account seems too much of a hassle, and that isn't free either.

I always keep my money from stock photography in my paypal account, and when i need to pay something on ebay or where i can pay by paypal i pay from the balance...
I understand when are big amounts... you will need your money!

Here in Romania just one bank has a conversion fee, the rest doesn't have, so maybe in Europe you can find a bank that doesn't have any conversion fee in your country... i think it has to be... even if is a smaller bank, or one that just entered on the market (this ones have almost no commissions).

As i know for all the banks in Europe the main currency is Euro, so it is possible your bank will transform usd in euro and then back in USD. I had this problem once... but i made a complaint at the bank and they gave me the commissions back as i asked about this before making the account and they said that don't have this! and after i found a bank and made a card in $ and didn't had this change from $ to euro and back!

Lecaro, I can open a USD bank account right here where I live, but it's Paypal policy to only payout in currency local to where the bank account is situated.
The banks are not at fault here. They won't change USD to EUR, Paypal does that.

Lecaro, your remark on paying out to a credit card made me google this stuff again, I found this: https://jeangalea.com/changing-paypal-withdrawal-currency/
It's promising, I'll be digging into it.

Quote from: nadalbg on January 28, 2017, 06:13

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on January 27, 2017, 14:10

Quote from: nadalbg on January 27, 2017, 14:06
I get internel error when I try to calculate withdrawal now, but I am almost sure that I withdraw usd and I dont get charged with currency convertion.

It's hidden as a really bad exchange rate, which translates into a 2.5% fee. The average exchange rate today should be around 1.83 levs per dollar.

But I withdraw 600$ usd and I pay the withdrawal fee which smth like 2.5 usd, and I get 600$ usd in my bank account/ debit card.

EDIT: Just withdrew 530 usd and I will update you when I receive it, but I make withdrawals monthly and I always receive my money in usd, always exactly the same ammount I withdraw.

I can confirm withdrawing 530 usd and receiving 530 usd in my debit card. So no money lost, no conversion.  Only the 2.5 usd fee is what I pay.
I dont know if its politics of paypal in my country.