buying from Amazon.fr and paying with sterling credit card?

[mint]

Christmas round the corner and more shopping than usual to be done.

Maybe you are buying from Amazon for someone or even yourself in France and don't want to pay postage so you use Amazon Fr rather than Amazon UK?

Exchange rate looking good so you think you'd use the French site and pay using, say, your Nationwide CC which doesn't charge fees?

Tread carefully!  Amazon Fr now seems to only let you pay in sterling IF you use their exchange rate!  So, with today's rate standing at 1.17, you think it's OK, to pay with your UK card but do pause, the Amazon rate is only 1.12.

This is entirely new but I am not sure from when.  I haven't bought since I changed my internet provider so I have had to set up a new account.

Just be very careful, do not fall into their trap..............Amazon must be pretty desperate, seeing that they now owe billions in some countries on account of not having paid their due taxes!

[Gardengirl]

What a con, Mint - a timely warning!

My back was terrible after flying with Ryanair a firtnight ago, and I hadn't bothered taking my TENS machine with me. Looked uo amazon.fr and found it would cost almost 3 times what I paid on Amazon.uk. So had it sent out from the UK site, postage didn't cost much, so I felt I'd got a bargain!

I came back on the tgv and Eurostar today, got a bit concerned in case they thought at Eurostar security I was a terrorist, with my machine and wires attached to my back. So I mentioned it to one of the staff, who went round telling the rest of the security staff not to worry about me as I had wires stuck on my back. I can't help thinking their security was a bit lax!

It seemed very odd seeing armed guards all around with children passing them carrying their Mickey Mouse soft toys etc.

[mint]

Poor GG, not good to have a bad back but even worse at this time of year with visitors, paying visits, all the extra things to be done.  Hope it improves soon.

As you say, très bizarre with armed guards everywhere and children growing up to think that's a normal sight. 

You might remember we first had increased security in 2006 at airports and we could no longer take so much as a lipstick in our hand-luggage?

I was in our French house, taking care of some necessary official stuff and flew back to the UK via Bordeaux.  I had a bunch of dahlias (which were huge and beautiful and I had never seen dahlias that size in the UK!) in a plastic bag (stems wrapped in damp kitchen towels) with me and explained to the security people that they were for mon mari.  Oh, they exclaimed, how nice, madame, we are sure he'd like them!

Lax, perhaps, but at that time, Paris and Nice hadn't happened..............seems like a lifetime ago. 

[woolybanana]

Amazon's latest little trick is to tie discounts on articles to Amazon Premium. Sign up or pay the full price (or at least get less discount).

Slippery or what.

And they are not always the cheapest. Recently wanted a Lego set for the grandson and found it was cheaper on the Lego.com and there was no post to pay.

You have to go between Amazon uk and Amazon fr to get the best from them; having someone coming over with a car and who is happy to bring stuff enables this more easily, of course.

[pomme]

Curiua.com can be useful. It does an automatic search of UK, FR, DE, IT Amazon and ebay sites and gives you the euro prices with sterling equivalent (excluding delivery costs)

[mint]

Will try your site, pomme, as it would mean not having to open up multiple screens and flitting between them!

I find Amazon DE amazingly competitive.

What I'm describing though is not the euro or sterling equivalent.  Perhaps I didn't explain it too well.  I mean that if you pay with a sterling card for a euro-priced article, you have to accept Amazon's own exchange rate and not that of the card issuer.  I can't remember the exact wording but it was called something like your "local device" or something like that.  THAT was what I found incredible so, in the end, I paid with our local euro card.

AFAIK, this is a new practice from Amazon.  I recently bought an expensive-ish item from an online German company and was able to use my Nationwide card with no problems at all.  As it happened, the item was not suitable so I returned it.  Postage both ways paid by the company and they re-credited my CC account with the exact sum in euros that I'd paid.

Which brings me neatly to Amazon's other little recent trick and that is that if you returned anything, do NOT assume that Amazon will pay your postage.  So, say you bought something of low value and the return postage is nearly or even more than the cost of the item, what would you most likely do?  So you can see that Amazon has calculated that most people would then keep the item and Amazon notches up another sale.

Wooly, I don't know if you still buy books but, if you do, the Book Depository often have extremely good prices and, of course, no postage.

[AnOther]

What you experienced is common practice with suppliers who have web sites in different countries and currencies, if you look on Paypal for instance you'll find that currently their £-€ rate is 1.121

The only sure way to avoid it is to pay in the displayed currency with no conversion.

[pomme]

[quote user="mint"]Will try your site, pomme, as it would mean not having to open up multiple screens and flitting between them!

Wooly, I don't know if you still buy books but, if you do, the Book Depository often have extremely good prices and, of course, no postage.

[/quote]

Bookfinder4u does something similar with a wide range of online book stores. Just set your preferred delivery country and currency.

Although Book Depository is owned by Amazon it always seems to take a lot longer for books to be delivered than from Amazon UK.

[mint]

[quote user="AnOther"]What you experienced is common practice with suppliers who have web sites in different countries and currencies, if you look on Paypal for instance you'll find that currently their £-€ rate is 1.121

The only sure way to avoid it is to pay in the displayed currency with no conversion.

[/quote]

Your remark is spot on, of course, Ano[:)]

My reason for posting is that I know many of us do use Amazon and also that many of us have a Nationwide CC precisely because there are no fees to use it and the exchange rate is the BOE rate at the close of business on the day the purchase goes through.

Also, the post specifically points out that this might be a RECENT  thing with Amazon.fr.  When you in put your CC details, it has asked, for a few years now, to say whether it is a sterling or euro card (as though they don't know already just from the number)!

Then it asks whether you want to pay in sterling or euro and that bit is also not new.  What is new is that it then says, if you choose to pay in euros, they will be applying THEIR rate.  In the past, if I chose to pay in euro then, when the payment was registered with Nationwide, NW gave me the rate of the day.

I just thought I'd warn people to be extra careful and think about if they really want to pay Amazon's rate.

I suppose it's like changing money in your hotel or at the airport:  DON'T DO IT!  But, of course, a few extra pounds is neither here nor there with some, they like the convenience and are happy to pay for it.

Me, I don't mind a bit of "inconvenience" such as it is...........when you are used to something, you could fall into a bit of routine and not notice when things change and I think that's the sort of thing that Amazon hopes is the case

It was nothing more than a friendly warning, Ano, as I am sure your post is too!

[Chancer]

Ah, that is what I thought, that "convenience" scam has been like that for at least 10 years, when paying by a UK card in French supermarkets the message used to come up.

 

So sorry to say this Mint, but in the nicest possible way "more fool you", they asked you the question and you chose to go with the sterling amount they quoted you, you have learnt the hard way just as I did.

 

Playing devils advocat, if you were a UK purchaser buying something from an EU site with the price in Euros you may not know how much that will be in pounds and you will not know for sure what conversion rate your credit card company will use when they process the transaction which may be a few days later, Amazon or whoever give you the option to accept the transaction at a firm and fixed albeit unfavorable amount.

 

The majority of people paying with a UK credit/debit card will be domiciled in the UK, lets say its Mr Smith ordering something for his elderly neighbour who doesnt have a computer, hey I can get it much cheaper on Amazon.fr/de, instead of saying you owe me €100 whatever that will come to in £'s at a later date he can say "the site says its £117 is that OK, shall I go ahead?"

[mint]

Mais, non, Chance, I was not caught!  As I have explained, I used my euro card.

I posted in case someone else got caught.

In fact, I do feel that the NW card is always very fair with the rate; always the interbank rate at the close of business for the day.  Of course, you will not know when the retailer puts the transaction through but that also is fine because nowadays, things are greatly speeded up and it is often than not the same day.

For internet retailers, it's usually the day on which they dispatch the goods.

No, I myself am fine as far as that goes.  Like you, I have money in both countries and no longer change sterling-euro or vice versa.

[Hereford]

I almost always pay with a nationwide card with Amazon.fr.  On the payment page is sometimes says my card is sterling but I always change/switch that to read euros!! Page does not seem to mind and it goes through NW as it always did.  I have never been forced to use sterling and I have bought twice this last week.

Prime can be annoying! I bought a new battery for the laptop this week and the euro price (26.60) included free postage but I was still offered Prime to get it the next day.  I declined!  I don't think I have ever had a discount refused.

The trick I don't like is that some shops now offer sterling equivalents at the till (i.e. showing on the card reader thin). I always insist I want to use euros and so far that has always resulted in a better rate when it gets to NW. I know that it could go the other way...

Mrs H

[idun]

mint the general rule for me is, buying from France or EU use french card, buying from UK use £ card.

Otherwise this is simply common practice and what companies do, I am slightly surprised that you have not encountered this before.

Look at the banks and travel agents in the UK with their offers, no charges if you exchange some money back when returning from holiday, if you got your travel money from them. And that is right, so no exchange charge but the rates are rubbish and one loses a LOT. Exchanging money is a wonderful way of fleecing folk quite legally.

And frankly I am not that happy with Currency Fair at the moment, although have not looked into alternatives for the moment. I used to look at Reuters and know what currency fair would offer, but it is always that bit worse than it ever used to be, so we get less money.

[alittlebitfrench]

I do the same Idun.

UK card = Amazon UK

French card = Amazon FR

What could not be more simple.

[suein56]

[quote user="idun"]

And frankly I am not that happy with Currency Fair at the moment, although have not looked into alternatives for the moment.

[/quote]

When exchanging I have 3 windows open : Yahoo currency converter for the current rate, Currency Fair and Transferwise. In the last month I have used both CF and TWise, deciding on the day I needed to exchange which one would give me the better deal. This week it was TW, 3 weeks ago it was CF.

Edit  : signing up with TW is half the faff it was signing up with CF and you can use your UK debit card if you are in real hurry.

Sue

[pomme]

I've just simulated a purchase on amazon.fr to my French address, selecting payment with my Lloyds UK Visa debit card rather than my French euro card.

At the final step of making the payment I had the following details where I had the choice of paying in euro or ticking the box to pay a specified amount in £ sterling:

Récapitulatif de Commande

Articles : EUR 7,90

Livraison : EUR 2,99

Montant total : EUR 10,89

Le total de la commande inclut la TVA. Voir les détails.

Modification du montant du paiement à GBP 9.70. En cochant cette case, vous pourrez payer des commandes éligibles dans la devise de votre carte.

So I had a choice of paying in euro or in sterling rather than being forced to pay in sterling when using a UK card.

However, I don't know if I would have had the choice if I tried to use a UK credit card.

[Chancer]

Ok with that example I can see what Mint was saying, either pay in Euros and let Visa make the currency conversion which were it today would be €1.17 less maybe 1/4 of a percent or use the £ Stirling figure they give which works out to €1.12 for those with free overseas use credit cards its a small loss for the rest of us we have to pay a 2.5% surcharge anyway.

 

Glad that I no longer have to worry about paying in one currency or the other and transferring money.

 

Devises means exchange (rates) does it not? If so then their statement is misleading at least to me, I read it that the card company would give the rate, if it means currency then it is clear enough.

[pomme]

I thought Mint was implying that if you paid with a sterling card Amazon would only charge that card their converted sterling amount.

There is no way Amazon can know the all the exchange rates and additional charges for every debit/credit card.

Amazon FR are giving you a choice when you use a foreign card:

you can let them charge the card in euro (and then you will have to let the card provider work out their exchange rate/charges for that sum)

or

you can pay the Amazon-calculated sterling charge and know you aren't going to have an amount charged to your account which you don't know at the time of placing the order.

It is explained in the Amazon help. The same options apply if you decide to pay on Amazon UK with a foreign card.

And you can't compare the Amazon exchange rate with the rate on the day. It could take a day or so before the charge reaches your bank and the exchange rate they use could then be significantly different (especially given the way it has been up and down recently).

[mint]

Right back to explain what I meant.

Idun and ALBF, I have already agreed with Another earlier today and indeed I do this myself, that is, euro card for euro purchases and sterling card for pound purchases.  OK?  No disagreement.

Mrs Hereford, when did you last buy on Amazon.fr with your NW card?  Until day before yesterday, my last time was a few months back.  As far as I can remember, you were always asked whether you wanted to pay in sterling or in euros and you just chose.  I always chose euros if it was Amazon.fr and it used to be as you described.  The purchase would appear at the appropriate time on your NW CC account and the rate was always interbank rate of the day, with no further charges of any kind if you cleared your account every month.

However, for this last transaction, it was the first time I'd seen this thing about the rate.  Therefore, I take that to mean that if you want to pay using a sterling card, you'd pay the rate Amazon says.  THAT is what's different!  In the old days, whilst they asked you what currency you wanted to pay in, they didn't dictate the rate.

As pomme says, with the rate going up and down like a yo-yo, nobody can really predict the rate.  However, what I question is this and let me give you an example.  You buy something for 100 euros, you have said you'd pay in euros, so they'd get 100 euros, whichever way the rate goes.  It shouldn't be any concern of theirs what the rate is or will be:  they get their 100 euros and the only party who might see the price go up or down is you, the purchaser.

 When you think that the numbers of these "foreign" transactions could be in the tens of thousands daily, it's not difficult to conclude that Amazon is obviously doing this to squeeze out of you the extra few centimes or even tens of euros (depending on total spend) as a sort of bonus for them.  Makes me think of Italian restaurants when you see the prices for your meal choices and, when you come to pay, there is a cover charge, a service charge, a charge for walking through the door for all I know!

And, Idun, it simply is not true that all companies do this.  I think I have explained that I bought something from Germany, using my NW card but paying them in euros and no rate was dictated by the company and I saw on my CC account that the rate of the day was used in calculating the sterling equivalent.  Amazon also used not to say what rate and that was what prompted my initial post, the fact that Amazon has now introduced this.

As many will know, some French companies refuse to accept sterling credit cards.  I think that is more honest, if I used a sterling card and it is declined, I then have the choice of paying with a euro card.  I do use the euro or sterling card as appropriate.  Only, this time I was buying OH a present and, whilst I have my own UK bank account, our French bank account is a joint one.  After all, it's not much of a present if you are buying it using a joint account, is it?

[cajal]

[quote user="pomme"]Curiua.com can be useful. It does an automatic search of UK, FR, DE, IT Amazon and ebay sites and gives you the euro prices with sterling equivalent (excluding delivery costs)[/quote]

Thanks pomme for the heads up. Very useful.

I bought one of these  in June, to replace our 15 year old one, from Amazon UK.

It was a 'Deal of the Day'....£59.99 + £6.98 delivery and, because of a kock-up on their behalf, they refunded the delivery cost.

Now, using pomme's useful link, check out the eye watering difference I would have to have stumped up   had I purchased from mainland Europe.(the ebay listing is for a paddle only.)

regards

cajal

[pomme]

Mint: I'm not sure you saw my earlier post a few hours ago:

I've just simulated a purchase on amazon.fr to my French address, selecting payment with my Lloyds UK Visa debit card rather than my French euro card.

At the final step of making the payment I had the following details where I had the choice of paying in euro or ticking the box to pay a specified amount in £ sterling:

Récapitulatif de Commande

Articles : EUR 7,90

Livraison : EUR 2,99

Montant total : EUR 10,89

Le total de la commande inclut la TVA. Voir les détails.

Modification du montant du paiement à GBP 9.70. En cochant cette case, vous pourrez payer des commandes éligibles dans la devise de votre carte.

So I had a choice of paying in euro or in sterling rather than being forced to pay in sterling when using a UK card.

However, I don't know if I would have had the choice if I tried to use a UK credit card.

[Chancer]

Mint.

You had never chosen to make a payment in £'s sterling on your NW card when buying from Amazon.fr, you had always wisely chosen Euros, had you chosen £'s you would have been charged more, nothing has changed in that respect, if anything it is more transparent now.

 

So what is it that you are complaining about?

[mint]

I ain't complaining, Chance.  As the box with the rate was new to me and I might easily have chosen the "wrong" box, I just thought I'd tell people about it.

[idun]

I keep trying to work out just how that german company did that for you.

Unless they have a UK branch, then how could they pay £'s into their german € account and either they have had their own exchange rate to cover all eventualities, ie lousy for you....... or a multi currency account, which banks probably charge companies a lot for,  as wouldn't their bank do the exchange immediately otherwise.

You have certainly got me wondering about this.

[Judith]

Mint,

I nearly gave up trying to reply, could just not get the page to stop loading enough to type something ... for 2 days !!!!! and I think perhaps by now the answer is clear ... BUT, I rarely buy from Amazon.fr because even when I have to pay postage from the UK it is nearly always cheaper from Amazon.uk, even given the exchange rate.  If I did buy from the french site, I'd use a French card, though I might have done as you did in the past and used my NW card, I have bought so little on Amazon. fr that It is too long ago to remember.  I've had other similar problems to this recently, eg being unable to use any credit card to top up my multi currency card (which is a UK one), and now can only top up via an internet bank transfer.  They (the supplier)  "said" it was new rules which came in during May, but I have no idea how true that is, or if they are just playing awkward, so it may be because of something along the same lines that Amazon have changed their rules too.