Choosing Currency During Payment
At checkout you are asked to pick a currency. The friendly-looking option is usually the expensive one — here is what the numbers actually say.
Paying online, a small box appears: choose a currency. One button shows the price in euro, the other in dollars. It looks like a courtesy. It is a conversion fee wearing a friendly face.
01The two offers
Picking euro shows €13.72 with the note '1 USD = 0.9147 EUR'. Picking dollars shows $15.00 with the note that the exchange rate and fees of your bank may apply. Same cart, two prices.
The market rate that morning was 1 USD = 0.8795 EUR. At the real rate, $15.00 is about €13.19. The merchant's 'convenient' euro price of €13.72 hides roughly four percent on top — that spread is the whole business model.
02What the bank actually charged
Letting the bank convert, the statement read: charged by merchant $15, exchange rate €1 = $1.1315, exchanged amount €13.26, no fee. Half a euro saved on a fifteen dollar purchase, simply by refusing the offered convenience.
“When someone offers to do the conversion for you, they are not doing it for free.”
It is legal, disclosed in small grey text, and designed to be accepted without thinking. Always pay in the merchant's own currency and let your bank do the maths.
- Money
- Trick
- Legal-Scam
- Economy
- Attention
