Checking my PayPal details today, I found that three of my most recent payments for Skype involved a dollar to euro conversion. This surprized me, since quite a while ago I had changed the currency of my Skype account from euros to dollars to match the currency of my PayPal account, in order to avoid conversion losses.

When I went to my Skype account I found that my currency indeed was set to dollars, however the recharge amount was set to €10. Auto-recharge is a convenient feature. With it turned on, whenever your account credit balance drops below $2, an automatic purchase using your credit card or PayPal account takes place to top it up again. As I use SkypeOut for all my international phone calls to landlines and mobile phones and also occasionally for call-forwarding from a SkypeIn number to my mobile phone (especially when I’m travelling), it helps me never to run out of Skype credit.

Evidently, changing your Skype currency does not change your account recharge currency (or amount). What’s more, the system would only let me pick a recharge amount of €10 or €25.

The only way to switch recharges from euros to dollars is to cancel auto-recharges and then re-enable them. However, the only way to enable recharging appears to be by topping up your balance – you’ll have to spend some money!

Thus if you have changed your Skype currency from euros to dollars and want to use auto-recharge in the new currency, you will first have to cancel the recharge and then buy another $10 worth of Skype credit, with the “enable auto-recharge” option checked.