Thumbs down on Amazon currency conversion
Amazon (both .com and .ca) have launched a new "feature" that charges you in the currency of your card, by default.
Banks pay less than 0.01% to convert currency and then charge consumers 2.5% to convert. Then the banks charge that 2.5% again on a return.
Amazon pays less than 0.01% to convert currency. It could have offered its customers access to that same value - saving customers 2.5% and gaining goodwill.
Except Amazon decided to charge 4% on the currency conversion. That's even worse than the ripoff the banks and Paypal are charging. Amazon is ripping off customers for an extra 1.5%, because it thinks its customers are too dumb to notice or care.
What's more, you have to opt out of this everytime you make a foreign currency purchase. You can set a card's default currency - but since that is synced across Amazon.ca and Amazon.com, you can either set it to process everything in CAD (and pay 4% on a USD purchase when you forget to opt out) or everything in USD (and pay 4% on a CAD purchase when you forget to opt out). This is extremely annoying for someone using the Rogers card and making Amazon.com purchases, where I'll pay 4% more if I forget to uncheck the box.
Disappointed, and annoyed with Amazon.
Banks pay less than 0.01% to convert currency and then charge consumers 2.5% to convert. Then the banks charge that 2.5% again on a return.
Amazon pays less than 0.01% to convert currency. It could have offered its customers access to that same value - saving customers 2.5% and gaining goodwill.
Except Amazon decided to charge 4% on the currency conversion. That's even worse than the ripoff the banks and Paypal are charging. Amazon is ripping off customers for an extra 1.5%, because it thinks its customers are too dumb to notice or care.
What's more, you have to opt out of this everytime you make a foreign currency purchase. You can set a card's default currency - but since that is synced across Amazon.ca and Amazon.com, you can either set it to process everything in CAD (and pay 4% on a USD purchase when you forget to opt out) or everything in USD (and pay 4% on a CAD purchase when you forget to opt out). This is extremely annoying for someone using the Rogers card and making Amazon.com purchases, where I'll pay 4% more if I forget to uncheck the box.
Disappointed, and annoyed with Amazon.
