Paying money to a bank account in France

eddi

Hi, I hope I'm posting this in the right place.

I need to pay the deposit for the campsite we are staying at in France later this year. Last year I noted my credit card details on their booking form and they sent me the card receipt and confirmation in the post. They have now changed their booking/deposit procedure to accept bank transfers only. I emailed them to ask if I could pay by credit card again and they said they would only accept bank transfer now.

I don't have a problem with doing this in essence as I know they are reputable but the H4lif4x want to charge just under £10 for doing it online. I sent the campsite a note to say I needed their bank address as well as all their IBAN numbers and so forth and just mentioned I would have to pay a fee to send the money by bank rather than using my card like last time. They have replied and said they are happy to perform the transaction from their end if I supplied them my bank details as it might be cheaper for me to do so? I don't have a problem with their honesty at all but I'm inclined to just send it online anyway through the H4lif4x and pay the fee.

I'm interested to know though how they would be able to take the money from my account and would it still incur charges?

benjus

I'm not sure what you're getting at here... you can't just take money from someone's account given their account number and sort code (or IBAN, which is effectively the same thing). If they were members of the UK Direct Debit scheme they could set up a direct debit using these details, but that's not what you want to achieve and I can't see a French campsite being a member of UK DD.

I'm also a bit confused about the card payment - if they sent you a card receipt, presumably they have already taken your deposit? Or have they refunded it? Or are you talking about a past trip to the same campsite?

Probably the cheapest way to send money from a UK bank account to a French bank account is to use a service such as http://www.transferwise.com

eddi

Hi Benjus, thanks for the reply. Thats what I thought about the direct debit scheme so I'm not sure how the campsite would be able to help in this way?

Just to clarify it was last year I paid by card which was easy and hassle free (for me). Apologies I perhaps didnt make that clear.

This year we have to pay by bank transfer because they have decided this is how they want to accept deposits - they tell me it is easier for them now. I wonder if the hassle for them is accepting card payments which I assume they have to pay fees on and sending receipts etc abroad by post? Perhaps it's a cost thing for them?

What confused me was when they said if I would prefer them to, they could perform the transaction from their end with my bank details as I didn't think they would be able to do this. I just wondered if anyone had had experience of this?

grumbler

eddi wrote: »

What confused me was when they said if I would prefer them to, they could perform the transaction from their end with my bank details as I didn't think they would be able to do this. I just wondered if anyone had had experience of this?

What details do they want? If it's just the account number and the sort code, then I think they are either incompetent or mistaken.

It's worth saying that there is some new method used by some companies and called "Online Bank Transfer". You give a company your online banking login details :eek: and they can 'pull' money from your bank account: http://www.online-bank-transfer.com/

I'd just use transferwise mentioned above...

eddi

Cheers grumbler. I think the campsite is perhaps trying to be helpful but mistaken as to how they can do so.

Thanks both for the suggestion of transferwise. I've read a couple of posts about it on the forum but wasn't sure how secure it all was. Just working out the difference in fees between them and bank.

grumbler

eddi wrote: »

.... Just working out the difference in fees between them and bank.

Don't forget about the hidden loss on the currency exchange. My guess it's about 3%.

eddi

grumbler wrote: »

Don't forget about the hidden loss on the currency exchange. My guess it's about 3%.

Thanks for that. I've done the quote for doing it through the bank so will work out the transferwise figures later on and see whats what.