Best uses for USD on Paypal?

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Forums › Bargains and Deals › Best uses for USD on Paypal?

Plato

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#160250 29-Dec-2014 23:57

I'm looking to get a tablet and/or new phone(s). I've got a fair bit of money on PayPal in USD. I'd quite like to spend some of it, because it'd save on currency conversion (implicitly, both ways - saving the ~2.5% to convert from USD to NZD, and implicitly 2.5% that I would have needed to convert to USD to buy something).

There don't seem to be a ton of options though. eBay? It seems like I might end up spending more on shipping and customs than I'd save. I'm curious about all the cheap Chinese tablets with no shipping, are any of them worth a look if you're willing to sacrifice a bit of flashiness?

toejam316

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#1205832 30-Dec-2014 00:09

Even with what you'd be paying on Customs fees, Amazon has some great stuff - and some of it even comes in under the minimum chargeable cost for customs. And don't be afraid to buy items that only ship within the US - Youshop.co.nz does a good job (at a cheap cost from what I've seen) for forwarding that stuff if Amazon, or who ever, won't ship it outside the states.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

Plato

17 posts

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#1205835 30-Dec-2014 00:20

toejam316: Even with what you'd be paying on Customs fees, Amazon has some great stuff - and some of it even comes in under the minimum chargeable cost for customs. And don't be afraid to buy items that only ship within the US - Youshop.co.nz does a good job (at a cheap cost from what I've seen) for forwarding that stuff if Amazon, or who ever, won't ship it outside the states.

I'm pretty sure you can't pay Amazon with PayPal, though. (Well, you can with some convoluted gift card method, so I've heard, which reduces its edge).

loceff13

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#1205839 30-Dec-2014 00:40

you are going to lose either way with it stuck on paypal, it should be free to withdraw to a NZ bank account if it's over $150NZD in there(but you would have to pay conversions fees from USD first)

richms

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#1205843 30-Dec-2014 00:58

Buy stuff on ebay? That always takes care of my USD I end up with

Richard rich.ms

sonyxperiageek

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#1205851 30-Dec-2014 03:33

Just withdraw it to your bank account. The fees shouldn't be that hefty anyway, if I recall correctly.

Sony

garyasta

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#1205957 30-Dec-2014 11:25

I recently purchased a tablet from China through Alliexpress. The initial transaction had problems as the seller wasn't all that cosher, but as the transaction had been done through PayPal, the eventual outcome was satisfactory. PayPay apparently doesn't pay the seller until the item has been received by the buyer. In my case, the seller became non-existant after I had completed my side of the transaction. I had to wait for about a month before PayPal released the funds back to my VISA account.

I then made another purchase on another tablet with good specs and it duly arrived in NZ after about 10 days from China. Be aware of which mail process is used as China Post is veeeerrry slow.

The purchase included postage and in some cases you can choose which mail process to use.

sangha

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#1205958 30-Dec-2014 11:27

Mightyape accepts paypal. Also jbhifi

You can also spend it at newegg.

Sharesies kids

Free kids accounts - trade shares and funds (NZ, US) with Sharesies (affiliate link).

Plato

17 posts

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#1206633 31-Dec-2014 19:00

Has anyone used any of the cheap Chinese tablets with HDMI capability for streaming Netflix/Hulu etc? My laptop doesn't have an HDMI port and I figure a converter would cost almost as much as a tablet with HDMI capability, so as long as it worked okay I'd want one.

richms

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#1206636 31-Dec-2014 19:19

was aweful on the one I tried it with - juddered all aver the place and was getting scaled and had underscan problems on its hdmi out.

Richard rich.ms

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#1206692 1-Jan-2015 00:39

buy NZD while it's cheap