Sending Money Overseas article discussion

grumbler

First you ask questions about this company.
Now you start promoting it...
ed

koru

grumbler wrote: »

First you ask questions about this company.
Now you start promoting it...
ed

They have made 90 posts, so not your typical spammer.

nottned

I urge anybody contemplating transferring large sums abroad to stick to the safety of the big banks . I have been attempting to transfer a large sum to S korea to help my son with a house purchase. I sent the first tranche via Travelex/UKForex but this appears to have been lost somewhere between Bank of America and Woori bank in korea. 3 weeks after doing the deal I am no nearer getting the money delivered or reimbursed. In contrast the same sum sent via Natwest intntl transfers arrived in 2 business days and the difference in exchange rate was minimal..!!:eek:
UPDATED 20.1.15

UPDATE
The money was eventually paid into my son's account today nearly 4 weeks since the start. After 6 requests we obtained the MT103 ( the electronic record of the transaction) which showed the money was stuck in the bank of America in Seoul. Thanks to my sons and Woori banks effort the money was eventually transferred to his account.
No explanation or apology has been recieved . In my opinion Travelex /ukforex have been at best lackadaisical about chasing this money and the behaviour of the Bank of America lives upto its abominable reputation !!!
To return to my original point, saving £100 by using the likes of Travelex /ukforex, when you are transferring tens of thousands is just not worth the risk ; I must have spent that amount in phone bills and shoe leather never mind the stress !!!!:mad:

AislingB

atticusfinch99 wrote: »

Hi,

I'm starting as a student in the US in August, and will need to make regular transfers from my Dad to me once I'm there.

[...]

Our bank has no linked banks where I will be, and specialist plastic is not an option - so the two options for sending regular payments in the article aren't ideal for me. Also, we recently transfered money to my future housemates directly through our bank (Handelsbanken), and in addition to the fee we knew we were charged, the recipient was charged a $15 fee and he received slightly less money than what was removed from our account. So that was very unimpressive.

Not sure I have managed to separate the quote from my question, but this just happened to me. I sent $150 dollars to a college in the US as a deposit for a course but they only received $130 dollars. The company I sent it through clearly stated that there was no fee and that the amount I was sending to the college was $150. I need to send the rest of the course fee at some point so I need to know how I can avoid being ripped off like this again and also being in the embarrassing position of not paying the correct amount.

grumbler

AislingB wrote: »

...I sent $150 dollars to a college in the US as a deposit for a course but they only received $130 dollars. The company I sent it through clearly stated that there was no fee and that the amount I was sending to the college was $150. I need to send the rest of the course fee at some point so I need to know how I can avoid being ripped off like this again and also being in the embarrassing position of not paying the correct amount.

https://www.fxcompared.com/money-transfer/UK-USA?amount=103&ref=filter

http://www.mycurrencytransfer.com/money-transfer-to-USA/103-GBP

Porcupine

johnfthetraveller wrote: »

As a seasoned recipient of Martin's normally accurate emails, I'm surprised that the "Sending Money Abroad" advice page seems to be deeply flawed.

As the article mentions, there are two elements to transfer "fees" - the usually visible upfront fee, and the usually hidden exchange rate loading. Currency firms often rely on people not noticing that they are being given a poor exchange rate.

(Bit late to this, but just read the article and thought very similar thoughts)

That's right. If you call up the FX broker and ask to do a big transfer, they'll vary the rate depending on how much you're transferring. There's a song and dance about going into the market to get the best rate etc etc but at the end of the day they load the rate in the usual way (last time I did the stats, was about 0.5% for large sums). Plus there are often steep fees on top (CHAPS fee, SWIFT fee, fees for chasing transactions etc). The calculator on the broker site is just the midmarket price and they say 'rates are indicative' or 'for information purposes only'.

Haven't used TransferWise, but CurrencyFair also have a marketplace, it's simply clicking on one of a list of offers at a range of prices.

There are some useful features of the brokers though. They'll allow you to make orders upfront, ie make order today and then CHAPS the money across to them, rather than having to have it on deposit with them. They'll also do forward contracts (make order, pay deposit now, pay rest of cash in 6 months). However these are riskier (in case they go bust with your deposit).

eagleeye

AislingB wrote: »

atticusfinch99 wrote: »

Hi,

I'm starting as a student in the US in August, and will need to make regular transfers from my Dad to me once I'm there.

[...]

Our bank has no linked banks where I will be, and specialist plastic is not an option - so the two options for sending regular payments in the article aren't ideal for me. Also, we recently transfered money to my future housemates directly through our bank (Handelsbanken), and in addition to the fee we knew we were charged, the recipient was charged a $15 fee and he received slightly less money than what was removed from our account. So that was very unimpressive.

Not sure I have managed to separate the quote from my question, but this just happened to me. I sent $150 dollars to a college in the US as a deposit for a course but they only received $130 dollars. The company I sent it through clearly stated that there was no fee and that the amount I was sending to the college was $150. I need to send the rest of the course fee at some point so I need to know how I can avoid being ripped off like this again and also being in the embarrassing position of not paying the correct amount.

Hi
I had similar issue when transferred money to US through a broker.The broker later on claimed that this is not under their control,etc.
I had to transfer another amount and used different broker . This time no charges were deducted .All these charges depend on your american bank relationship with the intermediary used in the transaction.

The first broker was torfx and second broker i used was smartcurrency exchange.The smartcurrency exchange used bank of america to transfer money into the local american account .

You can check with american bank about their foreign exchange intermediary bank and see which broker/bank in the uk is using the same intermediatory /agent. I hope this way you can avoid hidden charges.

grumbler

You seem to have not learned the lesson and stubbornly keep wasting your time.
At least we know now for sure which company you are spamming - it's definitely not HI FX and not Moneycorp.

clicked and ed to Abuse once again....

AislingB

I contacted Transferwise and they have assured me that with their service the amount I send will be the amount that arrives in the US university's bank account. Since I'm just making a one-off payment and I don't want to lose my place on the course by failing to pay the correct fees, I will probably go with them even if their exchange rate is not as good as some others.

Archi_Bald

With Transferwise, as with any good currency transfer service, you can either send a specified amount in the sending currency, or you can specify how much the recipient should receive in their currency.

Example 1- receive CAD 1,000





Example 2 - send €1,000