Disappointed on Payoneer. Very.

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1

So, the story goes like this. Applied for the Payoneer card. Got the card. Loaded money in. Happy with the card with my money!! Yay! Went to the city! Aaaand started doing some tests by withdrawing and purchasing.
Ok so, I live in Lithuania so ~2,5 LTL = 1 USD (Master Card Rates)

I withdrawn 100LTL at atm and 44,73USD (111,8LTL) were removed. Ok so its 3,25USD(8,1LTL) for the withdrawal + 3% (3LTL) - ALL GREAT! ok… not that great but At least as promissed.

And then I decided to pay with the card for some coffe and food.

I bought two cups of coffee - actual price in cafeteria 11,80 LTL - bought it… and 5,80USD were removed from my card. Wait a minute ? The purchases made with card has to be free + 3% if your card is issued outside US OR in a currency different than the card currency right ? Ok so 5,80USD is 14,5LTL . Where did the ~2,70LTL go ? Hmmm… Weird.

So now I thought ok this has to be something I missed… I went and checked the fees in the official page. Yeah its free + 3% if your card is issued outside US OR in a currency different than the card currency. obviously 2,70LTL is not 3% of 11,80 LTL…

Ok i went to different shop and I even asked if their bank is different and then bought some food with the card. The actual price in the shop was 31LTL. And after the purchase I checked my card… 15.26USD was removed for this particular purchase. WAHHAHATTT?? 15.26USD x 2.5 = 38,15LTL…
38,15LTL was removed from the card for a 31LTL purchase ???

Thats supposed to be free + 3% :smiley:

“*There is a fee for transactions originated in a country outside of the country of issuance OR in a currency different than the card currency of up to 3% above all fees assessed by MasterCard.”

So you are saying the mastercard took it? Ok, I need to know that. What fees ? where ? what for ?

And Now I am waiting Nissim to see this thread and explain where did every missing dollar went because that is absolutely not tolerated and the fees explanation is misleading.

PS: I don’t actually care too much who and why takes that missing money. i used your card and alot of that money goes to the wind… that is total waste.

2

I thought that it much depends on the bank processing the card at the point-of-purchase.

Anyway, now that you brought it up, I wanna add something. So far, for a few months, I’ve been pretty much satisfied with the conversion rate when using the card for purchase. But today I used it to pay and I thought that the charge was a bit off, but I discarded the thought because it was not a large sum and I was in a hurry. However, now I’m starting to wonder :slight_smile:

Has something changed recently? Or am I wrong at something? :slight_smile:

3

I’m fairly satisfied with Payoneer card, use it more than 2 years.

Sometimes it happens that you pay more than you expected. It happens to me few times, but mostly I withdraw at atm. It all depends on what bank the shop use. Some of this banks have crazy conversion, for example, not 1USD ~ 2.5LTL but 2.4LTL or even 2.3LTL. And if you have dollar card you lose your money in such places all the time.

Month ago I was in Vilnius, and here is my experience:

  • atm - 400.00 LTL - $167.69
  • Chili Pizza - 35.96 LTL - $14.81
  • shop - 474.99 LTL - $195.17

    Pretty normal, isn’t it?
4
DOGmotion said

I’m fairly satisfied with Payoneer card, use it more than 2 years.

Sometimes it happens that you pay more than you expected. It happens to me few times, but mostly I withdraw at atm. It all depends on what bank the shop use. Some of this banks have crazy conversion, for example, not 1USD ~ 2.5LTL but 2.4LTL or even 2.3LTL. And if you have dollar card you lose your money in such places all the time.

Month ago I was in Vilnius, and here is my experience:

  • atm - 400.00 LTL - $167.69
  • Chili Pizza - 35.96 LTL - $14.81
  • shop - 474.99 LTL - $195.17

    Pretty normal, isn’t it?

Atm - 167.69x2.5 + 3.25x2.5 + the 3%. = good.

Chilli pizza - 14.81x2.5 + 3%. = verry off. Very bad.

Shop - very bad.

Seems that the only reasonable use of this card is atm.

5
cyzer said

Chilli pizza - 14.81x2.5 + 3%. = verry off. Very bad.

Sorry I don’t get, what is bad here?

14.81 x 2.5 = 37.025

35.96 / 100 x 3 = 1.0788

35.96 + 1.0788 = 37.0388

So I paid 37.025, but I needed to pay 37.0388, if the conversion is exactly 2.5LTL = 1USD

cyzer said

Shop – very bad.

The same thing:
195.17 x 2.5 = 487.925
474.99 / 100 x 3 = 14.2497
474.99 + 14.2497 = 489.2397
So one more time I paid less, because the conversion is not exactly 2.5

Am I wrong?

PS: But I agree with you, it's better to use this card with atm and withdraw the max money that possible in one time. Then you lose minimum.
6
DOGmotion said
cyzer said

Chilli pizza - 14.81x2.5 + 3%. = verry off. Very bad.

Sorry I don’t get, what is bad here?

14.81 x 2.5 = 37.025

35.96 / 100 x 3 = 1.0788

35.96 + 1.0788 = 37.0388

So I paid 37.025, but I needed to pay 37.0388, if the conversion is exactly 2.5LTL = 1USD

cyzer said

Shop – very bad.

The same thing:
195.17 x 2.5 = 487.925
474.99 / 100 x 3 = 14.2497
474.99 + 14.2497 = 489.2397
So one more time I paid less, because the conversion is not exactly 2.5

Am I wrong?

PS: But I agree with you, it's better to use this card with atm and withdraw the max money that possible in one time. Then you lose minimum.

Well it is much better than what i paid. I dont understand where my money went to.

7

not sure why the card companies advertise a service but then you get a lot of surprises, maybe because greed :smiley:

I don’t think you will find a honest service, they all pretty much owned by the same people and show in front of you with different names but they are the same :slight_smile: so they act the same, they advertise something good so they can gain you as a client and then try and succeed to milk money from you.

in your specific case I’m sure they will find some good excuse (from their point of view) why you have to pay those expensive fees. I’m also curios of the answer but I don’t think you will get one here for privacy reasons probably.

Tell us what they said if they answer you privately

in the end you should just use a service for what is good at. If withdrawing from atm is convenient do that and nothing else.

8

I wrote letter to payoneer support. Will see what they come up with.

9

I would never use Payoneer card for purchases. It’s way too hard to keep track of all kinds of hidden fees. When I first used the card I tried to withdraw money. Apparently my exchange rate calculations were wrong and I tried to take out more money than I had on the card. I tried once without sucess, then reduced the ammount by 10$ and tried again - no sucess, reduced by 10$ more and tried again. Still no sucess. Went home to see where is the problem and found out I was actually charged comission for each unsucessful attempt. That’s when i decided I’ll use that card as little as possible which were basically - take out all my money as soon as it arrives.

International money transfer is expensive. Don’t let them fool yourself believing someone could do that for cheep. They have their own methods to cover the expenses. If you are getting that for low price - then someone else is covering those expenses through all kinds of fees. Be smart and don’t be one who covers expenses for others.

10
placdarms said

I would never use Payoneer card for purchases. It’s way too hard to keep track of all kinds of hidden fees. When I first used the card I tried to withdraw money. Apparently my exchange rate calculations were wrong and I tried to take out more money than I had on the card. I tried once without sucess, then reduced the ammount by 10$ and tried again - no sucess, reduced by 10$ more and tried again. Still no sucess. Went home to see where is the problem and found out I was actually charged comission for each unsucessful attempt. That’s when i decided I’ll use that card as little as possible which were basically - take out all my money as soon as it arrives.

International money transfer is expensive. Don’t let them fool yourself believing someone could do that for cheep. They have their own methods to cover the expenses. If you are getting that for low price - then someone else is covering those expenses through all kinds of fees. Be smart and don’t be one who covers expenses for others.

Thanks Filips for your advice!

11

I don’t know, i use payoneer since begining, benefit of Payoneer card is that you can use it anywhere in the world. I could be anywhere in the world and my money is always with me. That is something that you can’t pay. About exchange rates, you can always check it here: https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/

Use it or not, It’s up to you, i’m very satisfied with payoneer.

P.S. Just imagine that you were in Ukraine, and because of situation you need to resettle with your family? There is no price for that… I’m talking this because i was in similar situation few months ago.

12

Had same problems cyzer. Switched from payoneer long time ago to SWIFT. Although, you have around $100 expsenses with each transaction, I still think its better. At least it’s like that with me. I convert it to my local currency, and I have money tracked in detail. As plac said, with payoneer, you can only guess how much money you can withdraw.

13

Thanks everyone for posting and sharing your feedback. Hearing from our community is very important - transparency regarding our services and fees is a major focus of ours and if there is any confusion the best thing to do is ask.

When using your Payoneer card to make a purchase, the base conversion rates are set by MasterCard (the card is a Prepaid Debit MasterCard card). Payoneer applies an additional charge for conversion of up to 3%. For most major currencies, you can estimate the rates here: https://www.mastercard.com/global/currencyconversion/

If there is any specific transaction you are unsure of, or want to know which rates were used, please send me an e-mail with the date and amount of the transaction and I will be happy to send that information to you (you can also reach out to our customer support department). Without access to your account I would unfortunately not be able to comment on any specific transaction.

Another thing I wanted to mention is that Payoneer provides Envato members with two options:

  • The Payoneer Card
  • Global Bank Transfer Service

If anyone is currently receiving payments via SWIFT, I would very much recommend switching to Payoneer’s bank transfer solution. We charge only $3.00 for non-USD transfers and $15.00 for USD SWIFT, which is much lower in cost compared to the basic SWIFT payment option. In addition:

  • We support local bank transfers to more than 90 countries, which means we send your funds from a local bank in your country, in your local currency
  • We support SWIFT to an additional 110+ countries (total 200+ countries supported)
  • As Payoneer manages the conversion, funds are converted from USD to your local currency using rates of only 2-2.75% above the official mid-market rate (this is an extremely competitive rate).
EFEKT_Studio said

Had same problems cyzer. Switched from payoneer long time ago to SWIFT. Although, you have around $100 expsenses with each transaction, I still think its better. At least it’s like that with me. I convert it to my local currency, and I have money tracked in detail. As plac said, with payoneer, you can only guess how much money you can withdraw.

If you haven’t tried our Global Bank Transfer Service yet I would recommend it to reduce the cost and time of receiving your payments.

Nissim | Head of Community at Payoneer | www.payoneer.com

14

Will think about it Nissim, thanks for the info.

15

can’t wait to see what those transparent fees are :slight_smile: that one needs to go to support to find out about them.

cyzer hope you will tell us the answer :slight_smile:

16

So apparently - we have got 20% pre-authorization fee until the transaction is complete.

Nissim answer:

"Hi,

One thing I wanted to mention quickly that may be causing some confusion in rates. When using the prepaid debit card, there are two stages to each transcation:

  •      Pre-authorization of merchant charge request: the merchant’s payment processor contact Payoneer and asks to charge the card

  •      Processing of charge: once authorized, the merchant’s payment processor completes the purchase

This is a fully automated process that normally happens in seconds. In some cases, however, merchants do not complete the purchase right away. When this happens, you will see the charge as “pending authorization” in your Payoneer account until the merchant completes it.

For specific merchants, pre-authorizations are made at amounts up to 20% higher than the actual amount. This is to ensure that you have sufficient funds to complete the purchase, and is applied for merchant times such as restaurants, hotels, car rental companies, etc (merchants that offer service prior to payment being completed).

If the charges below are for such merchants, this means the pending amounts you see are up to 20% higher than what the actual charge will be. Once the merchant completes the charge you will be able to see the actual amount applied (at that time I can also provide you with a full breakdown of rates/fees applied)."

This definetly should be public and written clearly in the fees list.

17

Please keep in mind that this is not a fee - you will not actually be charged this amount. Simply that amount of funds will be pre-authorized (put on hold) until the charge is completed. This is something common for prepaid debit cards.

In the majority of cases the merchant processes the charge immediately after authorization. Even if the merchant decides to cancel the charge and not complete it, the full authorization amount will be released to your card balance (with no charge).

I do apologize if this caused any confusion and will pass your feedback on to our product department (a solution may be to add a note in the transaction description).

18
cyzer said

So apparently - we have got 20% pre-authorization fee until the transaction is complete.

This actually made sense for my case which I mentioned. Thanks to Nissim and cyzer for clarifying this :wink:

19
cyzer said

So apparently - we have got 20% pre-authorization fee until the transaction is complete.

It happens from time to time. You need to wait a day or less until the transaction will be complete. Nothing to worry about.

It’s not a fee at all.

20

here is the explanation

let us know if the money get back in your account