Receiving funds from France

rover_2

I sold something last week on eBay and the buyer has opted to pay via an international bank transfer (he is in France)

The item cost, including postage, was £189.50 and he told me he had transferred £190.

I have just logged into my internet banking to see the transaction has cleared but only £178 is showing in my account. It seems to imply it was done via CHAPS.

Where has the other £12 gone? Could my bank have taken this as a charge from me as a consequence of receiving the funds? I can't find anything on their website to indicate as much and I am a bit baffled by all this.

Sugar_Coated_Owl

Perhaps the £12.00 is the charge that your bank impose for receiving funds in euros.

frivolous_fay

Receiving funds in euros would have been virtually free, unless he hadn't selected 'shared charges' |The other explanation is that your bank is one of the lousy few that charge for this kind of payment.

If he paid in stirling there may have been a fee, although that would normally be paid by the sender.

frivolous_fay

I'll say it again because I seem to have to keep repeating this

Receiving euros from europe via bank transfer is free
Receiving euros from europe via bank transfer is free
Receiving euros from europe via bank transfer is free

soolin

frivolous_fay wrote:

I'll say it again because I seem to have to keep repeating this

Receiving euros from europe via bank transfer is free
Receiving euros from europe via bank transfer is free
Receiving euros from europe via bank transfer is free

Not at HSBC it isn't, they will impose a charge but were unable to confirm on the phone whether that would be £7 or £12. In fact HSBC got horribly confused when I looked into setting up bank transfers to receive European bank transfers, even when the person overseas elected to pay all charges HSBC insisted I would still be charged 'handling' as we are not in the eurozone.

Soo

frivolous_fay

Yeah, HSBC is one of the lousy few.

frivolous_fay

What worries me is that I keep seeing posts saying that receiving euros is the wrong way to do it.

soolin

frivolous_fay wrote:

What worries me is that I keep seeing posts saying that receiving euros is the wrong way to do it.

I did decide to offer foreign bank transfers but as HSBC could not guarantee I would not be charged I changed my mind. I asked Smile as well and they also could not guarantee that my funds would not be subject to a handling charge, again because we are not within the Euro zone and they said whether or not I would pay a charge would depend on the bank sending the money and how they were registered as some foreign banks are not banks as we understand the term so would be chargeable.

I would not want to take euros though, I would expect my payment in sterling so perhaps that is where the charge/no charge difference applies. I have no need for a euro account, which again would be chargeable, and with the exchamge rate fluctuating all the time I would never know whether I had received full payment or not.

Soo

martindow

I understood that within the Euro zone Euro transfers should not cost more than the bank would charge for a transfer within the same country. In many places this makes them free.

Unfortunately the UK is not in the Euro zone and charges are certainly possible. It does seem wrong when the foreign customer pays a charge and then an extra cut is taken. When I've queried this with Abbey they say they are not making a charge but intermediary banks are. The charges often seem to be a flat rate which can be a big percentage on small amounts of money. I want the Euro in the UK!

soolin

frivolous_fay wrote:

I'll say it again because I seem to have to keep repeating this

Receiving euros from europe via bank transfer is free
Receiving euros from europe via bank transfer is free
Receiving euros from europe via bank transfer is free

Out of interest can you confirm which UK banks can receive European bank transfers, in sterling free of charge as I think this might be useful as so far I haven't found one that will confirm that these transfers are actually free.

I think it is like martindow says that as we are not in the eurozone we will continue to be charged.

Soo

frivolous_fay

There was a huge experiment on the ebay community forums. As you have noticed, banks seem clueless and unable to tell you whether they charge.

This was the experiment - a group of posters transferred money to each other, using different banks, to find out which ones charged. (In euros, shared charges, from the euro zone, to UK) Almost all only incurred a token conversion fee.

This, and other well-documented examples, leads me to advise people to accept euros, use shared charges, and don't bank with scumbags ;-)

Don't believe me? There's a lot of good info here:

http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Non-Paypal-International-Payments-made-easy_W0QQugidZ10000000001043274

and here:

http://forums.ebay.co.uk/thread.jspa?messageID=1200517284&forumID=14#1200517284