4.4% surcharge by PayPal for non-USD payments

[James Good]

I've just ordered my first pine64 product, a USD 199.99 phone.  The only payment method accepted by pine64 was PayPal.  Other users express their dissatisfaction with this in other threads on this forum.

I want to highlight a frequenly overlooked additional cost due to PayPal, if you pay in a non-USD currency.  PayPal uses its own currency rate to convert pine64's USD price.  My currency is Australian dollar, AUD.  PayPal's exchange rate was 4.4% worse than the fair rate.  This is how currency exchangers typically make money.  The fair rate is the representative mid-price (between bids and offers) by global currency traders, e.g. banks.  One data source of the fair market exchange rates is https://www.xe.com, but there are many others.

The total amount of my order was
USD 226.99 = USD 199.99 (phone) + USD 27.00 (shipping).
This total at the time of the purchase at fair exchange rate of 0.7299 USD/AUD should have equalled:
AUD 310.99 = USD 226.99 / 0.7299.  Instead, PayPal charged me
AUD 324.93 = USD 226.99 / 0.6986, quoting PayPal's exchange rate 0.6986 USD per 1 AUD.
Thus, I was forced by PayPal to overpay ~AUD 14 ~USD 10 for my order, a ~4.4% surcharge.  Not a huge amount, but it affects each non-USD payer every purchase!  I'd rather give this extra 4.4% to an open source project than to PayPal.

Pine64 is my favorite company these days thanks for the products they create and the way they do things.  Except for this unpleasant payment methods situation.  Cryptocurrencies seem like such a perfect fit for both Pine64 and its typical customers.  But of course other payment methods (credit cards, bank transfers, etc.) could be natural to have too, as suggested elsewhere on this forum.

I'd like to keep buying more of Pine64's great products without the sour feeling that each time I have to pay 4.4% extra to PayPal.  Bring better payment methods to us, Pine64!

Personally, I do not have any experience with cryptocurrencies other than a few of the early 'horror stories' posted in other and older forums when that form of payment first came on the scene.  Credit cards are, in my opinion, somewhat better and safer than cryptocurrency because the credit card company already knows the identity of the purchaser (you the customer) and the vendor (in this case, Pine64).  The different banks in the various nations would know, through internal communication channels, the validity and identity of both the vendor and the purchaser and could complete the funds transfer a little (my opinion) easier than by using a third-party money changer.  But that is a matter that the leadership of Pine64 alone would be able to make when they decide to address alternate payment options.
Take care,
James Good