Exchange rate rip off?

plankd

I feel like my bank is ripping me off!

I just received payment in Euros from a Dutch client and noticed the Sterling amount was a lot lower than I was expecting. I checked Euro/Sterling exchanges rates for the date in question being advertised by other organisations (Bank of England, Mastercard, etc.) and they all seemed to be in the same ball park. My banks was nowhere near the same and I calculate that if they'd used a similar rate, I would have been hundreds of pounds better off. 

This feels to me like a sneaky way for my bank to extract a fat fee from me. Am I being unreasonable about this? Do all banks do this?

Grateful for any info and opinions.

(by the way, there were no bank charges levied by either my bank or the client's bank, and they paid the full Euro amount I was expecting)

Voyager2002

Why not ask your bank for an explanation? And for a large transaction it is often possible to negotiate the exchange rate.

jonesMUFCforever

Why not tell us the amount of Euros and exchange rate used.

DCFC79

Doesn't seem it was a sneaky way at all.
Why have you not spoken to Starling before posting this ?

J_B

DCFC79 said:

Why have you not spoken to Starling before posting this ?

Who mentioned Starling?

jonesMUFCforever

We will never know .............LOL

plankd

It was approx. €51,000 and the rate used on the 27 april was 1.163. Other advertised rates were 1.146 from xe.com, 1.148 from Mastercard, 1.144 from Bank of England. 
I raised it with Santander and they say they don't seek to set a competitive exchange rate.
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Starling? Who is Starling?!

bradders1983

Someone has clearly misread the word Sterling as Starling, the name of a bank. Calm your passions.

bengalknights

plankd said:

It was approx. €51,000 and the rate used on the 27 april was 1.163. Other advertised rates were 1.146 from xe.com, 1.148 from Mastercard, 1.144 from Bank of England. 
I raised it with Santander and they say they don't seek to set a competitive exchange rate.
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Starling? Who is Starling?!

Unfortunatly a lesson learned never known any high street bank to offer a competive rate, usually you have to go through the exchanges to get a close to market rate and then transfer to account.

If its quite significant loss you could ask Santander to "return" the funds back to payer and then have the transaction go through a exchange.

jonesMUFCforever

bengalknights said:

plankd said:

It was approx. €51,000 and the rate used on the 27 april was 1.163. Other advertised rates were 1.146 from xe.com, 1.148 from Mastercard, 1.144 from Bank of England. 
I raised it with Santander and they say they don't seek to set a competitive exchange rate.
---
Starling? Who is Starling?!

Unfortunatly a lesson learned never known any high street bank to offer a competive rate, usually you have to go through the exchanges to get a close to market rate and then transfer to account.

If its quite significant loss you could ask Santander to "return" the funds back to payer and then have the transaction go through a exchange.

The time to stop the payment was before it was received - it is far too late now.
If the OP is going to be receiving future overseas credits - 2 things to consider - ask to be paid in sterling so there is no exchange rate risk or speak to a business manager at the bank who could discuss forward contracts with him.