Fiverr Community Forum

Currency shady tactics

Your Fiverr Experience The Ranting Pot
#1

I hate it when I have to attack the same platform I love but this is way too much .

Fiverr has automatically changed my withdrawal currency . Even though I changed it last month to the previous currency USD, it had automatically changed to EUR when I withdrew my balance an hour ago . This was simply to get their own conversions fees working which are way worse than the actual conversion fees . I received 40 $ less the amount in EUR that I would have received if it had been USD .

On top of that, my PayPal account is set in USD, I do this in order to avoid conversion fees . Now since I received the amount in EUR Paypal has the right to use its own conversions fees to revert it back to USD .

Result : 90 $ LOSS

Like come on guys, do not use these tactics on us, sellers . Change my currency automatically just to squeeze the money out of that human mistake ? Like come on, are you that greedy ?

I have contacted customer support to revert the transaction but I am not sure if they will do it as I am pretty sure this is intentional .

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#2

I set my Fiverr account to Euros, as is my PayPal account. I just withdrew for the first time, and it withdrew in dollars. I lost quite a big chunk due to Paypal conversion, and it upset me a bit since my settings clearly say “€ EUR”. But such is life, I suppose

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#3

When they started to offer withdrawal in €, they had “defaulted” it to € for me too, but I just changed it back to US$ (as I could see I’d end up with less € vs. letting PayPal take care of currency conversion) and it stayed US$, I just had to manually switch it back to US$ that one time.

I don’t remember how exactly it was but I think there was a pop-up or notification that told me I can now withdraw in € but it was no problem to switch it back to US$ and thankfully that apparently set my default back to US$ and I can just click Withdraw as before, without needing to switch it to US$ every time.

I wish the exchange rate was the same or better than PayPal’s obviously, and that I could withdraw in € but I didn’t lose any money (well, not more than PayPal’s usual currency cut). Sorry to read you lost so much.

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#4

Letting Paypal converse it is actually better than letting Fiverr do so?

#5

I haven’t checked in a while but some of us have when they started to give the local currency option and it seemed so, yes, for € and for me, at least. Let me see if I can find the thread …

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#6

I’m not sure if will be your case as it changes to every country, but earlier this year I made an extensive research about which way would be the best to handle my conversions, including testing 4 different routes at the same time (same exchange rate) to see which one would effectively pay me more and Payoneer was by far the best…even paying the extra $1 to withdraw.

Paypal’s spread is roughly 5.5% to me, while Payoneer’s is only 2% so it might be worth having a look.

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#7

Interesting… I just checked, and it seems Paypal takes far more money than Fiverr does.

Paypal: $5 - €4.43
Fiverr: $5 - €4.80

#8

For me, PayPal takes 2.5% as fee and the actual exchange rate, as far as I know depends on your bank to which you forward the money from PayPal but any time I compared, I’d have ended up with fewer € through Fiverr’s conversion than through PayPal’s, but maybe it depends on your country/bank.

Some people say PayPal is better for them, others say Payoneer. I haven’t yet looked into Payoneer because I need a PayPal account in any case while I’d not need a Payoneer account else and I don’t really want to have yet another account, it’s enough of an accounting and tax nightmare as it is. 5.5% vs. 2% of course would be a very big difference if it was the same or similar for me, I guess I should investigate that.

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#9

Ok it seems you guys have some difficulty understanding how the system works .

FIVER CURRENCY (usd) - PAYPAL CURRENCY(usd) - YOUR BANK (whatever)
This is the best choice as the only conversion is being made by your bank which fees are much more regulated than PayPal

What happened to me ?
FIVERR (usd) - FIVERR (eur) - PayPal (eur) - PayPal (usd)-YOUR BANK

I lost money for both conversions , fiver USD TO EUR, and paypal EUR TO USD , while if they would have been USD in the first place none of this would have happened .

#10

I also did that the first time it was offered but voila, they changed it again automatically .

#11

Hm, that’s weird, not for me. Maybe tell support, perhaps it’s a bug.

And I understand how the system works, that’s why I switched back to US$ and let PayPal/my bank handle my US$>€ conversion and not Fiverr.

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#12

Yes, this happened to me too! I posted last week about it but few even read my message.

It’s important to DOUBLE CHECK your withdrawal currency EVERY SINGLE TIME you need to withdraw your funds.

#13

Update:
I contacted CS and they told me I had to contact PayPal to reverse the transaction and they would return the funds to the original currency without the conversion fees . I am glad it worked .

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