With the £ falling to it's lowest level against the $ in 7 years (and a 12% fall from last year), cards are getting expensive (especially when UK sellers sell in $'s!!!!).

yes then when you buy from out side the uk the £8. charge for the bit of cardboard to inform you youre being charged vat is a kick in the teeth.

quote:

Originally posted by vampy:
yes then when you buy from out side the uk the £8. charge for the bit of cardboard to inform you youre being charged vat is a kick in the teeth.

Fed Ex charge £12

If Parcelforce decide to put a 24 hour sticker on it, it's £13.50. I have a package that a US seller has very generously valued at $200 - about half the true value. It'll be interesting to see what I'm stung for when it arrives.

I remember around 2007 when it was pretty much $2/£1. Boy I picked up loads of great cards for a song.

I've been hit with customs for a couple of things before but luckily only once on a trading card (turned a £90 card into £120) in all the years I have been collecting. There we go, I just jinxed it!

The exchange rate and increased postal costs has definitely affected what I have bought in the last few months .

I no longer buy any new product, always wait in the hope prices will drop and thus missing out on some releases I would have bought cases of a couple of years ago.

At least I have the option of getting cards sent to me in the USA when on holiday so avoid the customs and postage charges. I rarely buy anything now from the USA to come to the UK, even when the price is cheap the extra charges negate any savings.

Yup, the £/$ thing is a killer at the moment. And that's before thinking of Customs and Royal Mail adding some more on top, as it seems to be really hit and miss as to what gets through and what gets charged lately.
I recently had two small jiffy bag parcels from a militaria company in the US, a month apart...same value/size on each. The first I got stung for Customs, the second got through no problem.

I've learned to try and buy from Europe if I can't buy in the UK. No Customs charges from EU countries...yet. And the £/Euro is fairly good still. But you can't always get the cards you need from a much smaller market.

I also don't like UK sellers selling in $, because the Paypal exchange rate is even more pants than the estimated evilbay rate, and nowhere near the actual exchange rate used by the financial world at the moment of purchase.

Makes certain cards an even more heavily considered purchase than before. I'm going to be very much tighter on my card purchases this year anyway.

Stop bellyaching you Brits are so sensitive LOL!

quote:

Originally posted by Batman:
Stop bellyaching you Brits are so sensitive LOL!

Shut your mouth

Maybe the USD will crash as people realise Trump may be in charge of the US economy. Several times he has had to use legal mechanisms to avoid bankruptcy, so presumably he thinks countries can do that too.

The poor exchange rate and USPS's recent rises have certainly made UK to US buying difficult.

I've been exploring other buying avenues such as COMC ($3 shipping), the sale section on another forum and when paying by PP having my CC handle the currency conversion exchange rate rather than PayPal. CC charges 2.75% with a slightly better exchange rate as opposed to PP's 4.4% & slightly worse rate.

The method of doing this is slightly convoluted but i'm hoping it'll work out better. Going to test on my next US purchase.

We could just collect UK produced cards then all these problems are solved. There must have been enough sets produced here over the last 100+ years to keep us all going for the rest of our lives.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
We could just collect UK produced cards then all these problems are solved. There must have been enough sets produced here over the last 100+ years to keep us all going for the rest of our lives.

would agree if a lot of the UK sets produced were what they promised in advertising. One UK company has let me down too many times to be trusted anymore

This message has been edited. Last edited by: hammer,

The postal rates really jumped this year for anything leaving the USA. It went from $25 to $35 for a regular 24 pack box. This, after gas prices dropped to their lowest prices in years, and the USPS raised the rates already just a couple of years ago (from $15 to $25). You would think they would DROP rates, but no. Heaven help us when gas prices rise again and they jack up the rates even MORE. It's totally out of control and the left hand doesn't know what the far left hand is doing. But it's worse mailing anything Down Under: A medium sized priority box to Australia went from $33 to $75!

quote:

Originally posted by Hedgehog Witch:
I also don't like UK sellers selling in $, because the Paypal exchange rate is even more pants than the estimated evilbay rate, and nowhere near the actual exchange rate used by the financial world at the moment of purchase.

I got around this by getting a card with no exchange fees, so I always use that one for purchases in $ and €, and my regular debit card for purchases in £.

quote:

Originally posted by ravenheart:

quote:

Originally posted by Hedgehog Witch:
I also don't like UK sellers selling in $, because the Paypal exchange rate is even more pants than the estimated evilbay rate, and nowhere near the actual exchange rate used by the financial world at the moment of purchase.

I got around this by getting a card with no exchange fees, so I always use that one for purchases in $ and €, and my regular debit card for purchases in £.

What I was talking about was the exchange rate. If you pay with paypal you don't get exchange commission fees no matter what card you use, because you always pay in your own currency converted by the exchange rate.

What I mean is, for example, this: you buy a card on ebay and by their exchange rate it works out as US$1.49 to £1. The actual financial world exchange rate at that moment is slightly better, maybe US$1.51 to £1. BUT when you checkout with Paypal the exchange rate used is a much lower US$1.43 to £1. That's just an example...the £ is nowhere near that great against the $ at the moment. But if you're making a purchase on evilbay over a few pounds those few pence/cents can make a huge difference to what you actually pay. And that's before you add on the postage.

The credit card commission fee only counts if you use your card directly with the seller. Paypal are not charging commission fees, they're just using a much more rubbish exchange rate. I've had way too much credit card fraud over the years to want to use my credit card directly with overseas sellers...much prefer Paypal for the safety. So I accept the bad exchange rate...grudgingly.

quote:

Originally posted by Hedgehog Witch:The credit card commission fee only counts if you use your card directly with the seller. Paypal are not charging commission fees, they're just using a much more rubbish exchange rate. I've had way too much credit card fraud over the years to want to use my credit card directly with overseas sellers...much prefer Paypal for the safety. So I accept the bad exchange rate...grudgingly. Big Grin

Yes, exactly. That is a fee, as far as I'm concerned. It's not an explicitly declared per transaction fee at a set amount, or split out as a commission fee, it's hidden as a loading on the exchange rate. It's still a fee.

The way to avoid that is don't pay in your own currency. Pay in the currency of the seller, then no exchange rate at the point of purchase comes into it.

What happens then is instead of PayPal converting the purchase price into your currency using their terrible rate, then requesting that amount of £ from your bank, it requests the correct amount of $ from your bank, and your bank uses their exchange rate to convert that into and amount of £s to be deducted from your account. Banks also load their fees in order to make a little profit, but most of them aren't as bad as PayPal. You can change this setting in your PayPal account somewhere (I think it's called currency preference, or something similar), but you have to do it for all of your payment methods individually, and you can't do it when paying with credit on your PayPal account, only with debit and credit card payment methods (and I assume any of kind direct bank account payment methods?). The minor downside is you can't see what you're really paying in your own currency until you get your next bank statement, because everything up until then will be displayed in the seller's currency, including in your PayPal transaction statements.

After that, the second thing I did was get a credit card with no exchange fees (neither an explicit per transaction fixed fee, or a loading on the exchange rate - I used Money Saving Expert's pages on the subject to find out which was the best one at the time). So now, when I'm buying something that was listed in $, I pay in $, not in £, and I don't use PayPal's exchange rate, or my bank's, I use Mastercard's, which is as close as possible to the correct presiding exchange rate at the time.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ravenheart,

quote:

Originally posted by WarriorBabe:
PayPal are charging fees on top of the exchange rate.

For a UK payment going to USA it's currently 3.9% + a fixed fee which I think is 0.5%. Plus the poorer exchange rate.

https://www.paypal.com/uk/weba...-and-conversion-fees

Yeah, this transaction fee however can't be worked around

Unless it doesn't apply when you don't convert, seeing as it's declared specifically as a "conversion" fee... Hmmm...

quote:

Originally posted by ravenheart:

quote:

Originally posted by WarriorBabe:
PayPal are charging fees on top of the exchange rate.

For a UK payment going to USA it's currently 3.9% + a fixed fee which I think is 0.5%. Plus the poorer exchange rate.

https://www.paypal.com/uk/weba...-and-conversion-fees

Yeah, this however can't be worked around

I deleted that post because i'm not 100% sure of my facts and figures right now.

But when paying by PayPal you can opt for a CC to handle the transaction, while still paying as Paypal. That means the CC exchange fee & rate will apply. Both of mine currently beat PayPal.

https://www.paypal-community.c...n-option/td-p/920926

There is some debate about how widely available this still is, but it's certainly there on my account.

quote:

Originally posted by ravenheart:
You can change this setting in your PayPal account somewhere (I think it's called currency preference, or something similar), but you have to do it for all of your payment methods individually, and you can't do it when paying with credit on your PayPal account, on with debit and credit card payment methods.

Found it!

This is what I was talking about. Against each card payment method you have in your account should be a link for "Conversion options".

https://www.paypal.com/?cmd=_p...erchant-pull-funding

For each one you can then choose from:

"Use PayPal's conversion process to complete my transaction using my card's currency.
Both the original transaction currency and the converted amount that I will be charged are disclosed for my convenience. I understand that MasterCard and Visa have a currency conversion process. I have chosen not to use the MasterCard and Visa currency conversion process, and I will have no recourse against MasterCard and Visa with respect to any matter related to this conversion."

Or

"Bill me in the currency listed on the seller's invoice.
I will not know which foreign exchange rate has been applied to this transaction until I receive my card statement from my card issuer. I acknowledge that by choosing this option, my card issuer will determine the foreign exchange rate to apply to this transaction, and that I will not be informed of the foreign exchange rate or any additional foreign exchange fees applied until I am billed by my card issuer."

They've intentionally tried to make it sound scarier than it is, but these two options boil down to "I will use PayPal's horrible exchange rate and have the convenience of a £ amount being displayed for me, which I understand will be higher than it should be" and "I'll use my credit card's rate thankseversomuch, and yes, I know that means I won't get a converted amount on the screen."

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ravenheart,