Sending Money To Family Overseas

[Perry]

What's the various ways forumites have found work best?
And with a minimum of deductions / charges? Not house-
buying-sized sums, but for birthdays, emergencies, and so
on.

Seems Paypal has most everyone beat on fees. Of course,
both the sender and the receiver need a PayPal account.
Then there's the Visa Express pre-paid credit card, which
costs $20 and lasts three years, I'm told.

Other options . . . .

[Maccachic]

www.XE.com I found brillant for sending to New Zealand (UK and Germany) they dont charge anything they make their money trading currencys. I assume they are just as good going the other way.

[Perry]

Care to expand on your experiences?

The web sites says allow 10 minutes
for the sign up process and have two
forms of ID handy . . .

Easier than Paypal? Maybe? Maybe not.

[Maccachic]

I was working overseas and would send to my accounts back in NZ. Sign up did take a bit to arrange with some faxing of documents Germany was a bit more complicated from memory due to extra reg in regards to bank fraud etc (This was back in 2008 or 2009). Once set up $$ would be in my NZ account pretty quickly I think a week max but more like 3 days.


Does paypal charge or do they make there $ on the spread?

You didnt need a recriprical XE account just bank accounts - however would pay to check if you can transfer into a bank account that isnt in your name? Mine were all in my name.

Def the cheapest I found at the time and never gave me any problems.

[Perry]

However would pay to check if you
can transfer into a bank account
that isn't in your name?

A very good point to keep in mind.
That's a non-issue with PayPal.

[Tan]

I have signed up for currencyonline which sounds similar. Any comments on that one?

[Blind Egg]

Has anyone else used XE before, heard it asks for a lot of ID etc? and how does it work?
Can some one say a family member/friend send money from overs seas with it to myself for example as a x-mas gift?
Do both parties need to sign up to XE for the transfer?
Or can they transfer through their bank to XE then XE to me?

Thanks in advance

[Jette]

I have never heard of XE. I think paypal is the best way to go, as long as both parties have an account. It is really easy, and inexpensive to use.

[Maccachic]

The good thing with XE is its free its a currency trading site so they make there money from buying and selling cash. Whereas Paypal charges you fees. It also pays to check out the exchange rates I found XE good altho not sure at the time (2007) how much I chacked out everything else. I use Paypal for ebay purchases which is fine.

XE did require a lot of ID etc think it had to do with money laundering and fraud laws overseas, I know when I moved to Germany I had to provide additional peices of paper as there laws are tougher.