Feel like I've just been robbed...

irishbran77

A few days ago I sent over 100 dollars to my friend in America through the Bank of Ireland online transfer system. I was expecting a 13 dollar fee to be taken by the bank in the US but when I checked today I found out that a second company, JP Morgan, has also been involved in processing the transfer and they apparently can charge a discretionary sum which, in this case, was just under 50 dollars! So all in all, I've been charged half the 100 dollars to simply send it to the friend!!

Has anyone else been in this situation with an American money transfer?

emmemm

what have the legislators been doing these last hundreds of years?
legalised robbery.

jimoc

I know its not going to help you now as your money is already gone, but perhaps you should consider Paypal the next time?
Or alternatively convert some euros to dollars here and send it by registered post?

Kepp the gougers far away from it!!

nearly_there

Hi!
Hope you dont mind me hijaking you thread. Something similiar is happening me and id love some advice.

I have recently moved to England, I have an Irish current a/c and a recently opened natwest current a/c. Now i dont have a job yet so am getting an unofficial loan from my Dad until im on my feet.

Now i have a credit card and have been using this to withdraw money that i have put into this a/c because i thought that credit cards arent charged for overseas transcactions (Im sure somebody in the bank told me this but cant be def, theres good reason i thought this tho).

Anyway the upshot of it is I am being charged thru the nose for taking out pounds. And unfortunatley didnt know about it until i got my brother to open the statement at home. There are all kinds of charges, the charge to convert money, the bank charge and the uk bank charge. Again, as i didnt see the stement myself i cant be exact.

So what to do? I enquired about a bank transfer but natwest told me they will charge a % to accept and likely the irish bank will charge a % to send it. And as it would be a considerable sum of money Im wary of this.

My brother suggested PayPal, so that my dad could effectively "buy" something from me thus avoiding fees? My boyfriend told me that this is money laundering but im not sure how serious he was.

Id love anyones help on this matter! every penny counts at this stage. HAs anybody been thru something similiar and hoe did u fix it?

Thanks
Sorry for the long post!!

samhail

could he write you a cheque ? or take it out in cash through the foreign exchange ?

Toots

samhail wrote: »

could he write you a cheque ? or take it out in cash through the foreign exchange ?

An Irish cheque being lodged into a UK bank account would take weeks to clear, plus would probably incur as many charges as the transfer. Cash in the post would be an option if it was only £100 or so, but anything more than that is dodgy.

January

Western Union?

pow wow

Sterling bank draft? Your dad can buy it in a bank at home, post it to you, and you lodge it. It clears way quicker than an Irish cheque.

I often shift money electronically between my UK and Irish accounts and the charges are pretty low, even for high value transactions. The American case is pretty extreme and I had a similar thing happen when I was living in the States and my parents put money in my account, but the ROI-UK charges are nowhere near as high.

Jet Black

Your dad could send the payment through his bank account to yours via SEPA. Its a kind of new(think just over a year) the money is sent fairly quick and I dont think the fees are large. The previous poster's idea might work too.

It would not be money laundering to go via pay pal unless the funds were illegaly gotten.

JTMan

I got charged 25 EUR by Halifax to wire USD to the states.

Wire charges for non EUR transfers are pretty standard unfortunately.