Fees when receiving money from abroad?

Ellie83

Hello everyone! Hopefully, someone will be able to shed some light on my siuation before I go to the bank.

My parents sent me £1000 from France. They choose to pay all the fees themselves so that I can receive the £1000 without having to pay any charge/fees once it lands on my barclays account.

However, I saw today that Barclays charged me £6. It is not the first time they do that. They did it last year as well, although the amount sent was different. When I called them to investigate a year ago, they said it was a charge imposed by the bank of origin. I did not believe them but they were adamant they were right. I should have been more forceful.

Have you ever heard of Barclays charging £6 for money received from abroad?

I am 100% sure that the charges associated with international money transfer were taken from my parents' account. So what are these £6 for?

Thanks for your help.

onlypaddy

if they sent it from france then the payment would be in Euros, yes?

In that case it is a foreign currency conversion fee or something along those lines

Ellie83

Onlypaddy, actually, my parents bank let them choose the currency. so they decided to send £1000 and their bank would charge them for currency conversion, etc.

What I find strange is that the last time they sent me money, Barclays charged the exact same fee.

choc_mouse

I've found with LTSB and Natwest that there is a fixed charge £7 or £12 for receiving a payment from abroad. This is regardless of currency or external fees (which your parents paid) e.g. it's part of your bank account and agreement with your bank.

E.g: LTSB http://www.lloydstsb.com/rates_and_charges/current_account_charges.asp:

- Electronic payments received from abroad. £7.
- Cheques received from abroad.
£5-£80 (the charges will depend upon the way we choose to get payment of the cheques from the paying bank, the amount of the cheque and which country the cheque is from).

I think Barclays (and probably most banks) have a similar policy though it might be harder to find the detail.

Additional info:
Costs between international banks vary widely and are complicated by how the money goes from A to B (e.g. it could go A to B or A>X>Y>Z>B. All you really need to be concerned with is what Barclays will charge you. I think if your parents didn't choose to pay your fee, the sending bank would just deduct it from your £1000, e.g. you'll just get £990 and then Barclays will take their cut so you'll just have £984.

Ellie83

Thank you choc-mouse! I am going to investigate, but I am relieved that this is indeed a set charge and not something that we paid for twice.

This is the only charge I had to pay and I receive the entire £1000 on my account (the charge was deducted before the £1000 were put on my account).

I learn everyday!

rb10

Open a Halifax account - that way you will be able to receive foreign currency transactions (of up to £8000 in Euros and £100 in other currencies) for free.

Any transactions received above these limits will be charged £3.

Ellie83

Thanks for the advice rb10! I'll definitely look into that!

currencyman76

if you are transferring funds abroad you are better off using a broker as most of them wont charge a transfer fee and the exchange rate will be better so you'll end up with more euros in your account!

glider3560

rb10 wrote: »

Open a Halifax account - that way you will be able to receive foreign currency transactions (of up to £8000 in Euros and £100 in other currencies) for free.

Any transactions received above these limits will be charged £3.

Also, Nationwide don't charge anything for payments received from abroad. I believe they use HSBC as their intermediate bank, so you should get a pretty good FX rate if the payment wasn't made in pounds sterling.

I've never had a charge from HSBC either - but the payments I've received have always been very small (<£100).