General Chat

If I pay a cheque to,my friend in USA how can I be sure that will be an accurate or maybe a bit more exchange rate to the £ please?

You cant as the $--against the £ or Euro varies day to day,hour by hour.

Why not use a transfer account such as Paypal.?

Thanks Kay I shall look into that.

Your friend will probably have to pay a fee to his/her bank to process this as it's a foreign cheque. You can do a 'wire' transfer between banks, if you get her account details, again this may incur a charge.

The Post Office runs a service which doesn't charge a fee and is quite competitive. I think it is only for sums over £250 though.
If you have the other person's account details you could ask your bank to cable the money - I have used this service before

Thank you everyone for your help, it won't be for that much ErrolSHeep but I don't mind paying more so she isn't losing out. :-)

If she uses Amazon, would she be willing to accept a Gift Certificate? You can buy those in USD via the Amazon.com site rather than the .co.uk one.

Although you would be charged the exchange fees on your CC or DC, she won't.

I don't think that USA banks will cash a UK Cheque .

Travellers Cheque's are your best bet ... That's how .my sister pays for her holiday Accommodation in USA ......not sure how much is the minimum is though !

I don't think it is considered wise sending a cheque from a security point of view

I go to the post office & buy dollars on a money transfer to son,,, He collects at Walmart. Small fee for you. None for recipient. You fill in a form ...They will explain fully to you the options

A few years ago before I retired, the company I worked for, used to receive a lot of cheques in various currencies from foreign banks and we had to complete a form for our bank here in the UK to negotiate payment of any cheque in a foreign currency, and they charged a fee for that service, so it probably the same method that foreign banks use for cheques from the UK.

I am sure the safest and best way to do this would be for you to go into your bank and get them to transfer the money.

Western Union can be dodgy, if the money goes to the wrong person, no redress, its gone and that is it :-(

Sending funds through the Banking System:-

When you send funds from your bank account to your cousin's bank account in Histown, a paper trail is established. If your cousin calls you on Tuesday to find out where the money is that you sent last Thursday, your bank can track the path of the money through the banking system to see what went wrong. A record of transfer is generated each and every time the amount moves from one bank's ledger to the next.

Sending funds through Western Union:-

That's not the case at all when you use Western Union. The only record kept by Western Union is of your funds being transferred from one of their accounts to another. For instance, if you are in Los Angeles and you send funds to somebody in London, all that Western Union can tell you is that the funds were picked up in London, and at which office.

Western Union takes your money and gives you a receipt. Your funds are then placed in the Los Angeles central Western Union account along with all the other monies they have received during the day from all over Los Angeles. Each transfer request is logged electronically such that your specific amount is then sent off to the central Western Union account in London.

Once the funds are in a central account, the actual money can be picked up at any office covered by that account. Just because you were told to send money to such-and-such a fellow at such-and-such a Western Union office does not mean he'll actually pick it up there. He can pick it up at an office clear across the city.
Western Union can verify that the fellow who picked up the money carried the specified identification.

They might even be able to tell you what he looked like. This doesn't really do you much good. His identification can be phoney as the day is long. All you know when you sent the funds is what you were told. Once your scammer walks out of that office, there is absolutely nothing to bring him back, unlike your cousin in Histown who has an open bank account. There is no way to trace him. He's gone. And in the case of a scam, so is your money :-(

Best to ask your Bank. They may have a far simpler way to transfer money and also be able to give advice

Safest is to go to your bank and wire it (international money transfer) via your bank account to theirs. I always do that with my sis, and she to me.
There will be a charge,
But if you sent a cheque providing they have facilities to bank it their end there will also be a charge probably more!

Someone already said £ against the $ changes literally by the minute. ..just got to catch it right !!

May be slightly off topic, but all the main banks in this country have systems in place for international transfers to be done, on line, to the majority of banks any place in the world.

I used to issue up to 75 payments a day to our contractors who were scattered around the globe. It really annoys me that they do not make these online systems available to personal account holders :-(

I wired money to someone in Australia. Needed their bank details. You can do it yourself if you have internet banking. The sender gets charged not the receipient.
Exchange rate is usually at the time of transfer.

Vera

Thank you once again everyone, I think I will send it through my bank :-)

ZZzzz~~

My nephew got married last year, his nan told my BIL she was going to send £1k in cash as their wedding 'gift' !
My sis promptly e.mailed me to see if I could somehow stop her doing it !
Cash in the post !!!! Not a good idea !!
Sis and nephew live in US ,.... nephews Nan and I live just a few miles away from each other ,
I had to be tactful, and sneaky :-D
But I managed it , she gave me the £1K cash (via her son in law ) and I sent that plus was I was sending from my bank to sis bank via international transfer.
I had the £1K in my hand to deposit in my bank..and thought OMG ,imagine sending that thro the post !..and it getting lost..how stupid !

I'm sure you will find bank transaction a safer way of transferring money. :)

From long personal experience ................ grandparents and others sending money to grandchildren here in Canada.

Our banking system is very similar to the US


Cheques have to deposited in a bank account, and then there is a wait period before the money can be accessed or withdrawn.

There is also a charge for "conversion".

The time period can be as short as 3 or 5 business days if it is a "local" account, or in the "local" currency ............... or as long as 6 weeks


In other words, the banks wait until they actually have the money in their hot little hands before you can get a'hold of it!