Foreign bank payments! Charges ?

Ian Raleigh · Feb 24, 2014

Hi guys,

I've just got my hands on a nice bike but its in Germany and the seller
wants to do a direct bank transfer, so off I went to the bank with his
full details only to be told the transfer will cost me £35! Pretty shocked
and was wondering if there is anyway around this so there are no charges.

I've sent the seller a message asking if he has a paypal account and do it the PP route.

Thanks.
Ian.

JeRkY · Feb 24, 2014

The Germans seem not to use Paypal as much as we do and bank transfers are much more common. However it doesn't work well from the UK as you have just found out. As far as I know the only way around is to convince the seller to use PP- which could be difficult, fork out the iBan transfer fee or alternatively see if there is a friendly retrobiker in Germany who DOES use paypal to act as a middle man- accepting that your paypal protection probably wont be valid.

Ian Raleigh · Feb 24, 2014

He has told me he sells on ebay so all I can assume that he does use PP, await a reply from the seller.

JeRkY · Feb 24, 2014

Ian Raleigh":2rfocim7 said:
He has told me he sells on ebay so all I can assume that he does use PP, await a reply from the seller.

That is by no means a guarantee in Germany.

drøn · Feb 24, 2014

you can do a special shared expenses bank transfer within europe. that would cost both of you around 2.5 gbp. I use that when sending money to germans. I believe it's called a SHA in bank lingo. and the amount has to be in euros.

lumos2000 · Feb 24, 2014

I keep getting transferwise pop up on my facebook, ive not looked into it yet but, it says it from paypal and Skype people

Loxy · Feb 24, 2014

I applied for a refund for a triathlon from a German company recently and they replied that it would take upto 3 months to transfer the money back!!! I could have walked over and collected in cash quicker than that....
How I laughed when it turned up within 2 months :shock:

Ian Raleigh · Feb 24, 2014

Something which I've just found out! I have a friend who went to Germany today!
So he might have been able to have picked up the bike and paid for it.

Email received from the seller and he uses paypal so going to go the PP route.

mattr · Feb 24, 2014

It's a UK thing.
Transferring from my UK bank account to my Swedish one costs £28.50 for amounts over £1000.
Going the other way costs a fiver. Any amount. What's more annoying is the fiver is a fee charged by my UK bank!!!!!

Needless to say, I've only ever transferred money here once.

xerxes · Feb 24, 2014

Teach a man to rob a bank and he can steal thousands.

Teach a man to run a bank and he can steal millions.

Foreign bank payments! Charges ?

Ian Raleigh

JeRkY

Ian Raleigh

JeRkY

drøn

Devout Dirtbag

lumos2000

Loxy

Devout Dirtbag

Ian Raleigh

mattr

Old School Grand Master

xerxes

Old School Grand Master

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