Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

[pinknico]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

I have paid with my visa debit with Alliance and Leicester a lot this month and looking at my online statement no extra charges are showing.

On your statement does it show as a seperate amount of £1.25?

[scoobydoo]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

I pay with a cahoot visa debit card. No charges so far.

[hellzlena]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

Hi there. I have had the same problems as yourselves with the new Natwest Visa Debit cards. I spent a good few hours on the phone to natwest this morning to several departments who kept telling me that it was Paypal who were charging me, not them. It wasn't until they put me through to the natwest Visa debit Charge disputes (I have the number if anyone wants it) who finally admitted that yes they are charging us, it's all very legal and no I cannot have my Maestro card back nor a refund. Apparantly It is because Paypal are in Luxemburg so our payments go from our accounts, to Luxemburg (hence the international fee) then back to the UK Seller's bank account. I told the lady it seemed very unfair that we were being charged £1.25 a time to pay a UK Company. I did say I would write to FSA, but she told me they wouldnt' do anything as it was all above board. Instead I wrote to Watchdog.. Anne Robinson scares me, maybe she'll scare those at Natwest!!!

[Guest]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

Latest update.

The girl from natwest customer relations rang me back. She says that apperently its Paypal routing ALL Visa transactions through Luxembourg which is making it show as an international transaction, hence attracting the £1.25 charge.

So, just like I wrote in post #8 then?

[WendyB]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

Okay, I never disputed you were right Cet.


In reply to Hell, I've had an email back from my woman at Customer relations which basically contradicts what you've been told. Here's the relevant bit of the email.


I confirm our telephone conversation yesterday, the charge has been applied to your Visa debit card transaction because Paypal are routing the transaction via Europe and has therefore been treated as a foreign transaction.
Paypal have confirmed that there is a message on their website alerting customers to this potential charge and apparently all Visa debit cards including those issued by other UK Banks incur this charge. I understand that if you were to switch from using your debit card on Palpay to paying by direct debit you would avoid these charges.


So, conficting explanations. Well done on contacting Watchdog. Also it's blatantly wrong that ALL Visa cards are being charged, cos peeps on here have told me they haven't been charged.
I am going to email back, and see what happens.

Watch this space.

[Tools]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

From here
Fee Structure - PayPal

* Additional fees for cross-border payments and currency conversion (Please click on arrow to expand)
If your transaction involves a currency conversion, it will be completed at a retail exchange rate determined by PayPal. This rate includes a 2.5% spread above the wholesale exchange rate at which PayPal obtains foreign currency.
A cross-border fee of 0.5% may apply. This fee is waived for UK sellers who are registered with PayPal in a European Union country and who receive payments in Euros from other EU countries.

[hellzlena]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

Cheers Wendy. To be honest with you, I don't think anyone at Natwest really knows what is going on. Everybody I was speaking to at first were telling me that they weren't making the charges in the first place, then to be told by someone else at natwest that they were.. It's like the blind leading the blind!

That last bit Tools, has confused me!! I take it that means if we pay in Pound Sterling to a company asking for Pound Sterling, both of us would be charged??

[pinknico]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

Wendy if you go to your Paypal account and click on History at the top of the page, is ther any amounts in the fee columns?

[WendyB]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

No, none at all.

Tools, there's no currency conversion involved so I sdon'tt think that bit you've quoted is relevant.

Have looked all through the terms and conditions and the only bit I can see that applies quite clearly says that UK=UK there is no fee. There is another bit that said there might be a fee of £1. but it won't let me copy and paste so can't get it onto here.
I will emailNatwest again and am also going to email Paypal again cos this is really peeing me off now. Might email MoneyMail as well.
I am really not happy about this at all, especially as visa debits from other banks don't seem to be subjected to this fee which is what makes me think it;s a Natwest thing.

[Tools]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

I think you are right Wendy, however, I did wonder if the payment had been routed through Luxembourg, have they done a £>Euro>£ conversion at some point in the transaction?

[WendyB]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

I think you are right Wendy, however, I did wonder if the payment had been routed through Luxembourg, have they done a £>Euro>£ conversion at some point in the transaction?

Who knows????? Bit annoying if they have when the speedo clocks for me lorry came from Barnsley!!! or it may have been Doncaster. Either way it wasn't bloody Luxembourg!

I feel like I am going round in circles here, but in future will be very careful, about paying via Paypal, and am also going to email them and find out if its right that I can pay by Direct Debit for Paypal transactions. Cos tbh I think they are talking out their butts here, surely to God it's not possible to do a Buy It Now, for ecample, and pay by DD??? Are they mad? That would, in effect, be like Paypal doing a short term loan for the money if they allowed the transaction to go through, sent the money to the selleer then claimed the money be DD from me later! Yeah right like thats gonna happen.....

[CYNthesys]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

My daughter had similar problems using HSBC visa debit card a couple of weeks ago

She bought from play.com and ebay, and the pending transactions showed up on her online banking at £1 more than the cost of the goods she ordered. She spoke to Consumer Direct, they seemed aware of this practice but just advised her to keep an eye on her bank account.
When the payments actually hit her account they were for the correct amounts and the pending £1 had disappeared altogether.

[Jester]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

Interesting thread as I have been buying a lot of computer equipment off eBay this week.

I have a Smile (part of the Co-op) Visa Debit card and since reading this thread have been checking my statements online to see if I have been charged this errant £1.50.

I can report that I have not had any such charge. So that's another Bank you can list as not making that charge whereas RBS do !!

[hellzlena]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

I had replied back to Paypal when they sent me back an email saying It wasn't them and asked them if they converted our pounds to euro's and back to pounds again. This is the reply I got

Thank you for taking the time to contact PayPal with your concerns.

To answer your question, Mrs. Francis, it will not be converted from GBP to
EUR then back to GBP. If the UK Company holds a Pound Sterling currency on
the account it will be credited right away under that denomination.

However if the recipient does not, the payment will then be unclaimed for
them to decide if they will accept it in GBP and open a balance under it or
convert it to Euros or whichever currency they would like.

But if they have GBP open then you need not to worry about the funds being
converted.

Thank you for contacting PayPal.

[hellzlena]

Re: Paypal and Visa Debit Cards

Been on the phone to Natwest Visa Debit again this morning. You know you've been ringing up alot, when they start to recognise you!

I asked them why we're being charged when there is no currency conversion. The reason why we're being charged is because Paypal is based in Luxemburg and we're being charged because it's a foreign transaction. The fact that the company you are paying to isn't converting any money is regardless as all they (Natwest) are interested in, is the fact Paypal is a foreign company, hence the charges.

Once I got off the phone to the Visa Debit line I rang my branch up to find out if I can have my maestro back. As soon as I explained about the Paypal/Visa Debit fiasco the girl explained that I couldn't have my card back, however she thought it would be a good idea for me to make a complaint about the whole thing. She took a look through my account and saw that I've made a lot of payments via Paypal over the last year and understood that we were going to be forking out a lot of money through these charges. I now have to wait for someone to ring me before 5pm tomorrow. Hopefully someone at Natwest will realise how stupid the whole charges are and have them dropped. The lady at my Natwest branch did recommend that anyone who was having these same problems, to ring up their local branch and ask for complaints to be made also as this will cause reason for concern at the bank and kick their backsides into gear to sort it out (Her words not mine!)