Hello All,

I just wanted to share with you a PayPal glitch that may cost you money if you are in the U.S. I am unsure if this is true for people outside of the U.S.

We only accept payments from confirmed PayPal addresses. According to PayPal they may only confirm the U.K. and North America (Canada and the U.S.). We do have is set up in PayPal to block unconfirmed addresses. However, sometimes customers find a work around and we get their payment from a country that can not be confirmed by PayPal.

When we receive an unconfirmed payment we issue a full refund. Here is where the glitch is...if this customer paid in an International (to the U.S.) currency (again, outside of your primary currency...the U.S. dollar) you may be charged a fee by PayPal "in error".

When we first noticed this and asked for the money back as the foreign currency was refunded the same day the customer made the transaction (so currency rate would be the same for that day), we were told that it was because we sent the customer back U.S. Dollars instead of Pounds. PayPal continued to explain that it was because we did not have a British Pound balance to pull the return from. Our current PayPal balance was in U.S. Dollars. They gave us a one time "courtesy credit" for this "fee".

Today we received another international payment via PayPal from an unconfirmed address. Immediately after that transaction there was another transaction from a different customer in the U.S. This customer paid lets say $50 and the PayPal fee was $1.50.

We called PayPal to find out how to return the international payment without incurring a fee. They walked us through how to manage currencies, convert our U.S. balance to Euros (the currency in which the unconfirmed address having customer paid). We then issued the customer the FULL REFUND back in Euros. When we looked at the PayPal balance, it was now $10.51 less the second customer's payment.

Let me clarify, the second transaction right after the foreign transaction was $50, remember? The fee for this transaction was $1.50. Our PayPal balance should have been $48.50. Instead it was $37.99. When we brought this to their attention, the manager explained that their system should not have done that. We will get the refund of the $10.51 within 24 to 72 hours.

So... when you issue a refund through PayPal and the currencies are not the same as your primary currency, make note of your balance BEFORE you do the refund. This is a glitch they should really fix as sellers are losing money because of their error.

I hope our experience helps you.