When buying on eBay (and elsewhere, presumably), PayPal likes to charge you quite a bit to convert between to kinds of currency. While this convenience rarely comes free, it may be cheaper through your bank. As redditor ilki points out, you can just route the conversion through your bank instead and likely save some cash in the process.


By default, PayPal handles the conversion for you. This can cost you quite a bit more than you'd like to pay. In ilki's case, it was about $7. Instead, he just switched to the second option presented to him during the transaction that allowed him to be billed in the seller's local currency ("Bill me in the currency listed on the seller's invoice"), then paid as normal. The bank needed to handle the conversion of the funds, but it came at a much lower rate than PayPal. If you find yourself in a similar situation, check with your bank and find out what fees are associated with currency exchange. You might save yourself a good chunk of cash if you do.

If your bank doesn't charge exorbitant currency exchange fees, switch your 'conversion option' when making an international transaction through PayPal to not pay theirs | Reddit