Bank withdrawals to UK banks: Fiverr doesn't send funds in GBP?

[anniejenkinson]

Hello all,

I am a Brit in the UK and have been withdrawing to Barclays Bank for several years using Payoneer. No longer happy with Barclays, I wanted to change to Starling Bank. I removed Barclays from my Fiverr account and added Starling Bank.

But when I clicked to withdraw, it showed the withdrawal amount only in USD (where previously, clicking withdraw to Barclays always showed me the sum I was taking out in GBP, just before I accepted and completed the withdrawal).

Fiverr support tell me that withdrawals 'can only be made to Payoneer in USD or Euro' and that Payoneer drives this.

Does that sound correct? It's the first time I have heard this. Thus, I have no confidence to complete the transaction as this is the first time in five years that it has shown me only USD and not GBP (nor any option to amend from within Fiverr, not even to the euros they have mentioned).

I cannot fathom out how this now works--does Payoneer convert the currency to GBP itself after receipt, thus it should not even matter if Fiverr send USD? My British bank accounts only handle GBP and it's really scary clicking 'withdraw' when the sum shown is in USD and my end account will take only GBP, just in case it causes a massive... well, you can imagine the word I would like to say! Something beginning with F. Like 'fiasco', but worse.

I am very confused as Payoneer's records also seem to show that all funds from Fiverr to date were in GBP, as if Fiverr sent it in this currency. I find the replies from support here really scant and uninformative. 

And aside from the above, I'd also love to know: do any of you Brits receive funds from Fiverr to Starling Bank successfully?

Thanks so much,

Annie

[anniejenkinson]

Hi all, an update. 

I finally managed to effect a transfer from Fiverr to Starling Bank and after many hours of anxious waiting to see if it ended up in the account or sat pending and unprocessed in Payoneer Limbo Land, it went in fine. So, it was withdrawn in USD and did end up in GBP in my account but the rate of exchange was, of course, appalling. It is a good sign, however, that a purely online bank is able to link to Payoneer after all.

Payoneer and Paypal both said they would not deal with banks that were online and had no physical presence.

It's kind of odd since the banks all do have a physical presence even though they trade solely online. I have never encountered a ghost bank!

I'm still mystified about how I was taking in GBP from Fiverr (into Barclays) via Payoneer for five years but at the moment of a bank switch, I can now only withdraw USD. But in the end, the funds came and that's what matters.

To anyone considering Starling, my experience has been really good--impressive customer service and they even seem to have live people--yes, real humans--processing queries in the middle of the night! For example, an operative personally messaged me by SMS at 5 a.m. to tell me my funds had indeed reached them despite all Fiverr's mixed messages. Earlier, too, when I'd contacted Starling about Paypal not adding Starling as a new linked bank, the support agent went to the trouble of trying to link up his own account to see what was going on because it was the first they'd heard of this.

Also, when I registered a new phone at 3 a.m. a few nights ago, someone called me to talk me through security. Most impressive. 

I was decidedly underwhelmed by Fiverr's support on this occasion. I don't know what this 'Pro Support' is supposed to offer me but that experience was not it! Mixed messages, a couldn't-care-less air and formulaic replies without any insight or attempt to answer the questions. Plus, they marked an issue as solved without so much as a hello.

It was one of the worst Fiverr CS experiences I had had to date. And it seems we now do not get the satisfaction surveys Fiverr used to send out.

That's one reason why the agents don't care as much, perhaps! The old surveys kept them on their toes a bit more.