anyone used XE to transer money to US?

debs66_2

Hi

Has anyone used the XE.com service XEtrade for sending money abroad?

Martin doesn't mention it in his advice page, but i'm sure I was once told about this option on this forum, over a year ago.

We will be needing to send money to the USA soon to book rental accomodation, and will need to send in total around £2000 ($4000), but made up of 2 x deposits and 2 x balances/bonds, so actually amounts of £200-£250, and then £700-£1000.

Our main concern is people getting hit with charges at the other end, and also us this end. We don't mind a fair amount, but you can seriously get clobbered.

Thanks for any help forthcoming.

Debs

ps I spoke to one guy in the US who has taken a cheque from a UK client. How would that work...? any ideas?

dzug

debs66 wrote: »

ps I spoke to one guy in the US who has taken a cheque from a UK client. How would that work...? any ideas?

You write a cheque in £UK

The guy the far end gets clobbered for charges to negotiate it

It takes about a month...

The alternative (and maybe what is meant) is you go to your (or any) bank (or Thomas Cook) and get a cheque made out in $US. There's a fairly hefty fee for you but AFAIK none at the far end.

alchemista

Yes, I've used XE. They are good for sending large amounts of money. They require a lot of identifying information, which I was uncomfortable with, but they say it's because of the various international finance laws.

There's no direct fee if you send a cheque through them, only if you wire. However, they make their money in the exchange rate skew. Their fee is basically 3% because that's how they differ on the exchange rate.

Nordictat2

When I have to send high amounts of money to another country. I send it via my bank account and use the persons Swift/IBAN codes etc. and it gets there fairly quickly too. You have an option on the page (when you are sending the money) if you want to pay all the fee's or just the fee's in your country etc. so if you haven't already looked into this option...do so

bcl999

I have used them to send money to Finland. I was pleased with the service. As alchemista says, they do ask a lot of questions when you are setting up an account but I actually found this reassuring rather than worrying. To me, it seemed they were taking their responsibilities about money laundering etc seriously.

Philippa36

I used them to pay for a villa in the US a couple of months ago. The initial set up process took longer than I thought it would but once it was done, it was easy and a lot cheaper than other methods.

I would recommend it.

blindman

Philippa36 wrote: »

I used them to pay for a villa in the US a couple of months ago. The initial set up process took longer than I thought it would but once it was done, it was easy and a lot cheaper than other methods.

I would recommend it.

Ditto:

Used it a few times now, cheapest and quickest for the amounts you are wanting to transfer.

lolarentt

I would recommend RationalFX highly having used them this year to transfer various, and sometimes large, amounts of money to buy a house abroad.
http://www.rationalfx.com/

It was easy to set up an account (over the phone and confirmed in writing same day), had a personal contact (who I was able to call each time to check their ER against other FX dealers), there are NO charges of any sort and transfers are moved to receiving account immediatley they are received by RationalFX.

I couldn't fault their service! There are plenty of other FX dealers around and I egistered with 3 altogether, to give me flexibility each time, but in fact only ever used RationalFX for transfer.

dzug

lolarentt wrote: »

there are NO charges of any sort .

Really? I'm sure there is a charge, even if a small one, built into the exchange rate. They ain't going to work for you for nothing at all.

Reading their web site seems to confirm this.

lolarentt

dzug wrote: »

Really? I'm sure there is a charge, even if a small one, built into the exchange rate. They ain't going to work for you for nothing at all.

Reading their web site seems to confirm this.

Yes obviously there is a profit for them in the ER - what I meant is there are no 'add-ons' like all the banks and many other FX dealers include - what you're quoted is what you get, which isn't always the case.