UK Launch Charges for Paypal Website Payments Pro

Why are we paying double in Rip off Britain?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I have just received an email from Paypal announcing their Website Payments Pro option here in the UK. The subscription is free until the end of March then it will be £20 per month.

In the US the charge is $20 per month, which is almost half the UK charge. How can Paypal justify this?

For non-UK people there is a popular term in use here, "Rip off Britain", which is often used in this context. Just about all of the major US software and IT companies charge much more for their products here in the UK and Europe. It gets so frustrating that they do this knowing that we are fully aware of the real value of the products. Companies like M$ are amongst the biggest culprits.

[Miklo]

Maybe because the standard of living in the UK is much higher than in the US?
If the average minimum wage in the U.S. is let's say 1,000 USD/month and the U.K. it's 1,000 GBP/months, that makes a big difference in terms of pricing.
These things are normal in business, I guess they will charge less for it in Indonesia as well. :)

[ectect]

I think it's Rip Off Britain, and nothing to do with standard of living. Same happens on some of the cheap airlines with the "same" prices quoted in Euros or Pounds depending where your outward journey is from - that really gets my goat!

[axgrindr]

So should the UK monthly Paypal fee change as the exchange rate changes?
Or should the US monthly Paypal fee change as the exchange rate changes?
How often should the monthly fee change to reflect the exchange rate? Monthly, weekly, daily?

[ectect]

No, but anything under twice the price might be fairer.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I think it's Rip Off Britain, and nothing to do with standard of living.

Of course it is. Do you honestly think we have a better standard of living in the UK than they do in the US?

Axgrindr, you are in NZ and you may think this is unimportant but for years people here in the UK have been placing orders for goods with friends who are travelling to the states. Everything is so much cheaper there.

To further illustrate this I just did a quick check on Amazon.co.uk versus Amazon.com.

MS Office 2003 Small business edition UK £325.99 : US $374.99.

Dreamweaver 8 UK £339 : US $369.

This pattern is repeated almost everywhere. We are getting ripped off big time!

[axgrindr]

I don't think it is unimportant at all. On my site I change the exchange rate for Euros every month so that my customers in Europe are paying exactly the same as the customers in the States.

I think you have a point that single items should be priced more fairly to reflect the exchange rate.

But a monthly fee seems like something that would be very hard to price fairly as it would change on a daily basis from country to country.

(btw- we've relocated to Barcelona, it feels great to be closer to the rest of the world again)

[coultog]

I always work on a 1$ for £1 ratio.

As for standard of living... With the possible exception of New York City, I've never seen a small one bedroom flat starting at £250,000 anywhere in the US. Our perceived increased salary is eaten by our exhorbitant house prices.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I always work on a 1$ for £1 ratio.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you happy to accept this?

Regarding salaries, who says salaries are higher in the UK? I did a quick, unscientific check and it seems that the average wage in the US last year was about $70K while in the UK it was about £22.5K. This makes my case even stronger.

[coultog]

when a company sells a product. If it's $100, it normally sells for £100. If you work on a one dollar to one pound ratio, you're never going to be far out. As someone pointed out earlier, there's not a great difference. No I'm not happy about that! :)

I had a colleague in Ohio and she earnt almost exactly the same as me. Don't know if this helps :)

[axgrindr]

If you work on a one dollar to one pound ratio, you're never going to be far out. As someone pointed out earlier, there's not a great difference.

I'm not sure I understand. There is a big difference.
The pound is currently twice as strong as the US dollar:

1.00 GBP = 1.96094 USD

[coultog]

That's the point. It costs us twice whatever it costs you!

[axgrindr]

I think you have it backwards.
According to your 1:1 ratio someone in the UK buying from a US website would be paying twice as much as they should.

Our ecommerce site take this into account and we change our exchange rates once a month so that prices are fair across the board.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Coultog Windows provides a wee calculator, which is free to use. Maybe you should try it :)

[coultog]

I live in the UK.

If I spend £1, that's the same as (last time I checked) $1.9.

If I pay £100 for a piece of software, which cost $100 in the US. Realistically I'm paying $190 for the same software.Which is almost twice the price someone in the US pays.

Why is that concept so tough for you to grasp?

[Leosghost]

coultog ..
everyone else in this thread is saying that one pound is nearly two dollars ..including BDW ..who started the thread based upon that fact ..

only you

I always work on a 1$ for £1 ratio.

said different ..

you might want to express yourself more clearly to save arguments ..because based on your own posts it does look like you were the one saying that £1.00 = $1.00 and thus only you were not "getting it" :)..

BDW ..least you guys in the UK just get ripped off in an obvious way ..unless I download the software here ( and thus pay in dollars ) ..most IT stuff costs me double what even you pay ..even though the euro is high against the dollar ..

for example most of what you see on amazon Uk ..is marked not for shipping to Europe ..and then in amazon France we pay double what you do for the same item ..

ie: you pay $10.00 we pay 27.00 euros ..and we get far less choice ..take wacom graphic tablets on amazon uk and then the same ones on amazon fr..ouch ( and we have nearly within one decimal point the same VAT /TVA rate ) ..and forget trying to buy boxed software in english here ..even 'doze or adobe apps ..XP pro in english ..bought in France will cost you 4 times the US price ..when you can find it ..need to go to Paris for that ..

And BTW our paypal.fr dont offer this pro service at all ..at any price ..and the french paypal customer service is 9-5 monday to friday only ..even though they actually pick up the phones in Ireland ..they keep french hours ..

edited clarity , typos and to compensate with what the WebmasterWorld style code did to my euro symbol first time around :)

nearly forgot ..to call paypal customer service in France is a paid for each minute premium rate call ( our voip cannot call premium rate numbers by design ) ..so I call them in the states where their customers service number is a normal phone number ..transatlantic ..for free ..via voip ..and can do so at weekends ..

rip off Britain? ..there is so much worse ..just a train ride away ..

[edited by: Leosghost at 11:48 am (utc) on Dec. 19, 2006]

[cbarling]

french paypal customer service is 9-5 monday to friday only ..even though they actually pick up the phones in Ireland ..they keep french hours ..

Thanks Leosghost. That actually made me laugh. At least some good is coming from your suffering (from my perspective).

Chris

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Why is that concept so tough for you to grasp?

Doh! I almost had it now I've lost it. Can you explain it to me again? :)

LG I am aware that some European countries are even worse than Britain. The whole situation is shocking. PC Pro magazine UK continually highlights instances of this.

Getting back to the Paypal thing. I emailed them to ask why it was more expensive in the UK. Guess what? They didn't reply.

[akmac]

Average salary in the US isn't $70,000, it's slightly more than half that. $35,000-$40,000 depending on who you ask. Not sure where you got the $70,000 figure, but it's off.

I price my goods in dollars, so when the euro/gbp is strong I get more orders. If I were in the UK I'd be more upset with the astronomical taxes and import fees charged by my own government.

;-)

[Miklo]

The point I was trying to make maybe did not apply to the U.S. and U.K., but I know for sure that the average wages in the U.S. are not around 35,000-40,000/year. The U.S. is almost a third world country if you look at the figures. The 35,000-40,000 is for those ones who are lucky enough to get a job or have two jobs or more.

Let's say the item you want to buy is 100 USD.
Wouldn't it be much easier to buy it in India for that matter and pay 30,000 rupees for it? That would save a lot! (I don't even know what the conversion rate for the Indian rupee is, but let's for the sake of argument not go there right now.) Point is, why not buy from a country where everything is priced low in comparison with U.K. and U.S.

At least they still have pretty good gas prices in the U.S.! I know they have been rising for the last months, but that's still nothing in comparison to where we live... :)

[rj87uk]

BeeDeeDubbleU,

Send the whole story with several facts to maybe a paper and also see if the watchdog can get some answers out of them.

RJ

[rj87uk]

The U.S. is almost a third world country

What planet you on? Tell that comment to all the starving kids around the world.

[Grassroots]

17% of the UK live BELOW the poverty line and living here in the UK I can tell you that the standard of living being high doesn't quite reveal the full picture. Because the COST of living is so high it appears so too is the standard but something like 80% of the country are in some form of debt and owe on average £8,000 plus per household, not including mortgages. Rip-off Britain indeed, one of the reasons I want out of the country. I'd be rich in the States.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Point is, why not buy from a country where everything is priced low in comparison with U.K. and U.S.

I have tried but they won't deliver if you don't have an address there.

[edited by: BeeDeeDubbleU at 4:52 pm (utc) on Dec. 20, 2006]