I have been made aware this week that 2checkout, a very popular payment processor, is no longer processing payments inside the United States, incurring foreign fees for US customers.
2checkout has moved its processing centers outside the US, to Ireland, Germany, Cyprus, and Hong Kong. For customers from the US, this means that they will be charged for a transaction outside of the United states and their bank will most likely charge them an international transaction fee. These fees will vary by bank and the card that has been used to make payment.
I contacted 2checkout an asked them about this, as I could not find any information on their new corporate payment processing policy. They responded as follows:
We are transacting payments through a new payment processor and we will no longer be using our previous payment processor. The changes that you have noted are going to continue and we have no immediate plans to change this information.
A lot of people making payments through 2checkout are from the US just as a lot of 2checkout sellers are. Payment processing with credit and debit cards is still most popular in North America.
In fact, I would say it is raises ethical questions when a company lists a US and UK business address on their site and no longer processes funds in the US anymore, overnight, out of nowhere.
I wonder if they are warning customers ahead of the charge about possible foreign fees in the checkout process.
(photo by Nick Wheeler)
I have had to pay my bank for “international transaction fee” for the last 3 months. The fee my bank charges is 3 cents on the dollar. I dont llike the idea of having to pay international fees for what have been local charges
Hello – I work at 2Checkout and I am responding on our behalf. I wanted to clear up any confusion. Our banking relationships have not changed in the United States. We still process payments in the US as we always have so our sellers are not incurring any new fees – everything is the same as it always has been. Also, Non-US sellers will not incur any new fees as nothing has changed with any country outside of the US as well. I hope this helps! Please let me know if I can do anything else for you. My email is aeshelman@2co.com
Dear 2checkout,
thank you for commenting on this post. It is much appreciated.
Let me clarify this issue, as it is not seller related.
A buyer from the US has been using 2checkout since 2005 to make monthly payments to a seller in the US.
Starting in November 2012, the buyer has had to pay foreign fees of 3% for the same payment he has made since 2005 without any foreign fees, as the payment is now processed in Hong Kong.
The buyer has contacted 2checkout and he has been given the answer that his payments will from now on be processed in Hong Kong and he will continue to see these foreign fees, as 2checkout no longer processes his payments in the US.
The buyer is (IMHO understandably) upset, as these charges incurred without his doing and without any previous warnings from 2checkout.
Hello! Thank you for the clarification. If the seller is in the US then this should not be happening. Do you know who the seller is? You can email me with the website or any contact info that would help!
For clarification: this will not happen with a seller in the US because we are processing all Seller transactions that are based in the US through our Bank of America partnership. You are likely referring to a currency fee because as of today, there is no foreign transaction fee.
2Checkout are extremely underhand and keep all their clients in the dark about all their shady business practices.
Most processing is now done out of Hong Kong. They never per-warned any of their clients about this move. Just ask yourself why they would do this…
If you think the foreign charge is bad, just watch your charge backs go through the roof. What you might now find is that your customers bank will start treating these offshore transactions as fraud. Even had your bank call you to check a transaction? Yep,that will be your charge they are referring to. What happens if your customer doesn’t recognize the charge? Bingo, charge back.
It looks as if they are in the process of transferring some accounts offshore – if you’re an unlucky one then good luck keeping your account. Perhaps this might be something to do with their processing partner pulling MasterCard processing. Again, ask yourself why this would happen.
If you’re not running to another processor right now then i would get your head examined.
hello Matt – neither sellers nor buyers are charged a foreign transaction fee by 2Checkout. This fee is assessed by the card-issuing banks and is usually about 3% of the order total. This, however, doesn’t happen with all banks and each customer should be aware of any additional fee they might be assessed by their banks when making cross-border transactions. If you are a US buyer purchasing from a US seller, there are no foreign transaction fees. Additionally, if you are located in the US, then your orders will be processed domestically. International sellers get their orders processed internationally, because they are international. In which case a FX fee may be assessed by their banks.
Ah yes but that is the joke isn’t it. Your referring to ‘international sellers’ when the customer might be local to the US. So being based in another country and operating a US based website is totally misleading. The US customer gets foreign charges even though they are not foreign.
What is worse is the fact you never let your clients know about these changes. International seller weren’t always processed internationally. You switched your back end processor offshore. Did you tell anyone? NO.
Let me explain, although you being the processor should realize this, is the fact that you have a subscription based system. You go from processing from US to Cyprus, then to Hong Kong. What do you think happens to these regular subscriptions? Oh yes they start flagging bank fraud checks. That equals lots of charge backs as it looks very suspect processing in different countries. And of course it would….stinks of shady business practices.
It took a lot of digging around to find the above facts. You should be upfront with your business practices and take ownership for your companies mistakes.
The above caused a lot of international sellers to have their accounts closed by yourselves for your underhand business practices.