Currency Conversion Fee Outrage

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1

Hi,

I’m an investor in Curve, and a Metal card subscriber.

I’m confused as to what the Currency Conversion Fees are.

1)

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This is a screenshot from the main pricing page. When it says “additional fees may apply” one assumes this only applies to the Free and Curve X plans since the Black and the Metal plans have the “Unlimited fee-free” wording. If this isn’t the case it should be explicitly stated.

I already know this isn’t the case because I’ve already been having weekend FX charges for a while now.

2) On this Subscriptions Page - which I found via Google, not the site navigation, I noticed there’s a 2% fee for FX transactions once you go past a ‘fair use’ limit of £60,000 a year. Is this really true?

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If this is true, the main pricing page is very misleading. £60,000 does not = Unlimited, far from it. Nowhere on the pricing page does it mention or reference these fees. Also how can the “Unlimited” amount differ between the Black card (£15,000/year) and the Metal card (£60,000)?

How would I know if I’ve already passed the ‘fair limit’ or how close I am to it? There doesn’t seems to be any screen within the Curve App that’d help me calculate how much I’ve used this year.

3) As many other Users have mentioned - it’s high time Curve provides Users the option to turn off Curve’s currency conversion for any of their cards. Several of my underlying cards provide better FX rates and terms.

Right now Curve only lets you set the currency of the card to a particular currency, but what I need is to be able to set it to ‘any’ so Curve never does FX when I have that card selected.

It’d be easier to accept these FX fair limits if this were the case.

Right now it feels like Curve is doing everything they can to trick/manipulate the customer in order to earn the FX fees

I want to use Curve for everything - but it feels like I’ll be punished for using the card - no matter how much I pay as a monthly subscription to Curve.

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2

This is actually bed. I always thought Curve has competing FX rates, but it is not a thing anymore.
I have a metal card, so I would think I have best FX rates. I have just bought some plante tickets, both were worth 144 PLN. Boght within10 mins, here how I was charged for FX:

  1. Curve - 1:46 pm today £27.34
  2. Crypto.com 1:52 pm today £27.02

I know crypto.com is changing FX rates pretty soon (19 DEC), but I’ve lost on this transaction £0.32. This is not good.

3

Not sure what crypto.com does but curve uses Mastercard rates.

If you want the best possible fx like if you spend a lot of time in Poland but your income is GBP you should maybe use Revolut, they don’t do visa or Mastercard rates but “interbank rate”.
Currently Revolut says 26,92GBP for your example and you can make the exchange to PLN up front if the rate is important for you

4

I can’t use Revolut, they banned me in 2020 … The other alternative for me is Aion bank, they have interbank rates…however no cashback. I will have to come up with some strategies for the new year.
It is just a shame that Curve doesn’t have interbank rates…even with limits for customers. One of the concepts was to use it to save on FX …

5

Even with Mastercard rates it’s fine for me as most banks here would add 1,6-2,0% fee on all fx on top of Mastercard/visa.

Or I just use Revolut through curve (by selecting the currency for the card in curve) which still lets me utilize the curve cashback.

1 Like
6

Have you tried Zen?

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7

Yeah, voiced these dishonest/fraudulent statements, at one point there was a Curve employee asking for feedback regarding the weekend surcharge.
No big hope that they stop lying unfortunately. Shame, one of my biggest issues with Curve, that and lack of reliable support.

8

Well, the major challenger banks like Starling and Monzo, both use MasterCard rate, both have no additional fees.

Even major banks like Halifax, they have the Clarity credit card that uses MasterCard rates without extra fees.

Curve could do better than this. At least for paying customers like Metal and Black subscribers by scrapping the weekend fees.

The other day I was try to purchase a long haul flight tickets, the fees are at £15+!

9

That might be true if you’re based in the UK :slight_smile:
In Sweden, pretty much every bank adds fees of at least 1,6%

I agree it would be better if Curve scrapped weekend fees for at least metal subscribers tho

1 Like