Hi,
I made a search no this but could find much. I regularly pay for my Skype subscription and credit through Paypal. Recently I switched the card on my Paypal account from a Chase card to the US Bank WorldPerks card.
Chase never charged me any conversion fees for Skype purchases through Paypal.
US bank charged me a foreign conversion fee of 2%, claiming that since Skype Inc is based in UK it is a foreign charge.
My understanding was that when I pay through Paypal I would never get charged a foreign conversion fee since it is a US based company. Am I correct?

Thanks!

I would dispute that, you are not paying Skype directly, you are paying Paypal which is a US company, and I assume you are paying in USD?

Yes. The Skype receipt and the Paypal receipt were both in US dollars. The amount is relatively small but still out of a principle I think they shouldn't charge foreign conversion fee for Paypal payments.

I paid a deposit for renting an apartment in Barcelona. The owner accepted payment thru PayPal (a big plus versus most other owners want you to REMIT money to their bank accounts). When I paid on PayPal, the page told me it would access 2% forex fee, to become part of the payment.

When the charge hit my AMEX, the forex fee was included in the line item.

So may be your previous payments had forex fee, but were not billed separately, versus now it was billed separately. Just a guess.

A good suggestion! But I took a look at old statements and Chase never charged me any fees for my payments to Skype through Paypal.

This is what Paypal receipt says (quote, emphasis mine):

FOR INTERNATIONAL PAYMENTS ONLY

Commissions and Fees incurred by sender: $0.00

Rate of Exchange: The above exchange rate includes a 2.5% spread above the wholesale exchange rate at which PayPal obtains foreign currency, and the spread is retained by PayPal. If and when the Recipient chooses to withdraw these funds from the PayPal System, and if the withdrawal involves a currency conversion, the Recipient will convert the funds at the applicable currency exchange rate at the time of the withdrawal, and the Recipient may incur a withdrawal fee.

End of quote.

It's not a big deal, I'll switch back my Paypal payments to Chase or AMEX who didn't charge me any forex fees on Skype-through-Paypal purchases. I just thought it wasn't fair.

Thanks for your advice guys!