Sending Money Overseas article discussion

innovate

Sam37 wrote: »

Innovate, Moneybookers looks interesting, but I don't get how it works..

You state that the foreign account needs to be in your name (which I have), but the explanations on the site seem to suggest that you can send money to anyone with an email address (which I find quite obscure, and wouldn't know how to get the money ''from'' my email address).

Is the ''send money'' different from ''upload and withdrawal"?

The charges are 1.80 euro plus 1.75% on the exchange rate from what I can gather.

Sorry for delayed response, been away for a bit.

Yes, "send money" is different from "upload and withdrawal". "Send money" means transferring money from one Moneybookers account to another. All you need to specifiy for the sending is an email address.

Once the money is in your Moneybookers account, you can withdraw it to your bank account(s) - which you previously had registered (and verified).

To transfer between your own UK and Euro bank account, you don't 'send' any money using Money bookers. You simply:

1. upload [to Moneybookers] from your UK bank account. Bank transfer or Maestro card uploads costs nothing. Bank transfer takes a few days, Maestro is instant (though it's quite difficult to get a Maestro these days - RBS are one bank that seem to still do them). Debit and credit card uploads cost a fortune, I wouldn't do them unless you are in dire need of the money.
2. as soon as your money is in Moneybookers, you can withdraw it to your Euro account. Charges are as you mentioned above. You can see how many Euros you will get before you confirm. Depending on your Euro bank, the money arrives between immediately and a few days later.

Same works the other way round, and you have to have your bank accounts registered and verified before you can do it. Registration takes a minute, but verification can take somewhat longer because it involves Moneybookers making a dummy deposit to your accounts, and you then need to enter the deposit code they send in your Moneybookers account. This is a one-off activity, and step-by-step instructions and help are provided on the Moneybookers site.

NOTE: you cannot send and/or withdraw more money than your 'outgoing transaction limit' allows. The outgoing limit is a max amount for a rolling 90 day period, specified in your account. It's initially set quite low (just a few K), but as soon as you have completed verification of your address, debit- or credit-card, and bank account, they up your limit to something like £20K. I.e. you can then send/withdraw up to max £20K every 90 days. They also do VIP accounts that have no outgoing limits, but I think you can only get a VIP account if you spend a lot of money with merchants who take Moneybookers.

If you want to transfer money from your UK account to someone else's Euro bank account, procedure is similar to above. Both people need to have their own Moneybookers accounts, with their respective bank accounts registered and verified. Then

1. you upload money to your Moneybookers account, as above
2. you send money to the other person from within Moneybookers - just specify the email address of the other person. A charge of 48p is levied, regardless of amount sent. The recipient gets an automated email, advising that the money has arrived (it's instantly transferred, and transfer is irreversible).
3. the other person then withdraws to their bank account, similar to above

Again, this also works the other way round, i.e. someone else can send you money that way.

Hope this clarifies the procedure - I think you will find it's easier to do than to describe how to do it.

One major point to remember: don't leave anything above £1K in your Moneybookers for any length of time, since those amounts are not covered by the FSA (FSCS) guarantee (and you get zero % interest). Withdraw as soon as your money is available in Moneybookers. Moneybookers have gone to great length recently to assure their customers that their money is "safe in Moneybookers" - - - after the third email with this assurance, I decided to definitely not leave much money in my Moneybookers account, ever, lol!

Edit: I don't monitor this thread regularly, if you have other questions, you can prod me via PM

innovate

barbary_coaster wrote: »

The Guide suggests opening a Nationwide Bank Account to get a debit card for free cash withdrawals abroad.

I decided to do this, but have noticed that you need to have the account open for 7 months before they will give you a debit card.

Is this something new that Nationwide have brought in to discourage folks like me from opening an account, for use abroad only??

I got three Nationwide Flexaccounts myself, got a VISA Debit instantly with all of them. Not sure how they determine who gets a VISA Debit instantly and who has to wait.

Damien101

one service i use is XE (xe.com) they very good and don't charge any fees. And their exchange rates are some of the best (if not the best) around

par_3

I am new to foreign currency exchange. I thought I was getting a quote but have ended up having a contract because I ticked the Terms & conditions box. I did not want to proceed and have ended up owing thousands of pounds. They said they would defer the date of transfer but I did not send a deposit and did not put anything in writing. I was told they had bought the currency and that I had agreed to it verbally . Now they have sold the currency as I have not paid a deposit and am not prepared to do so - they did this before they put me through to the compliance team to discuss. They said if I paid a deposit even though they had sold the currency, I could keep it at a fixed rate for 2 years. I had always said I was new to this and wasn't sure I wanted to proceed and didn't understand how it worked. They are going to send me tapes of conversations and give me 14 days to pay up. Do I have any chance of getting out of this?

runciblespoon

They all make deals verbally - markets move around very fast and it's the only way to agree a deal before the price moves.

However they should have made it clear on the phone that you were buying currency, not just asking for a quote. The tapes should make that clear. They should have asked for your verbal agreement to buy the currency. I would listen to the tapes carefully before proceeding.

I'm also slightly surprised that they didn't ask you to sign something before opening an account. Usually they need a signature before they'll even quote prices. Have a read of anything you signed.

In my experience these brokers can be very sharp about terms and conditions, and love charging for any extra work incurred, so be careful.

engelsepiet

Damien101 wrote: »

one service i use is XE (xe.com) they very good and don't charge any fees. And their exchange rates are some of the best (if not the best) around

Check again. Xe does charge fees for wire transfer.

Christine_Hall

We were advised to use XE to check what the current rates were, when we got a rate from Lloyds it was well off the figure on XE. The broker my husband used in October was a lot closer to the XE rate, the name escapes me at the moment, but we did get their details reccomended to us by compareforeigncurrency.com.

Hope that helps! We were advised to buy our euros in October due to the possible drop in rates, thankfully we got about 1.28. If I find out who the broker was I shall let you know.

JudyM_3

First Rate FX (www.firstratefx.com) charges no fees at all, and still gives great rates.

My husband uses the company to move his RAF pension to France. He just rings up his personal currency dealer and gives his debit card over the phone. We save about 4% against the High St banks. They use Barclays to hold client funds so the money is completely safe.

We have moved as little as £500 - £750 at one time, and a much greater sum when we bought our house. The currency team is just as friendly whether we are moving a small amount or a lot. They even rang us up to tell us when the rate was really high (seems like a lifetime ago!) and we fixed the rate for a whole year :j

hulmevillas

I support a charity in Nepal & would like to send donations directly. I have their bank account details in Nepal. I have a Paypal account. Can I transfer monies from it direct into their Nepalese bank account? The language differences might make it difficult to explain to the charity that they also need to set up a Paypal account.
John Hulme

agsnu

hulmevillas wrote: »

I support a charity in Nepal & would like to send donations directly. I have their bank account details in Nepal. I have a Paypal account. Can I transfer monies from it direct into their Nepalese bank account? The language differences might make it difficult to explain to the charity that they also need to set up a Paypal account.
John Hulme

In a word, no.