Wire transfer (from Australia).. How?

[fruxo]

Hey.

Many of these diamond sellers only accept wire transfers from international customers (why???), and I have no idea how it is done. I'm also worried about what outrageous cut they take for exchanging the money (my visa card has no extra exchange rate fee besides what visa charges, which is incredibly low all things considered).

So how do I do this? Can I do this from my internet bank or do I need to actually call up the bank? Or do I have to even maybe go through someone else besides my bank?

I also have some money in an account in the states from selling some stock (work bonus thing), which would cover about half the cost of the ring, so if possible it would be great if I can transfer that money directly and then doing an international transfer for the other half (instead of doing a wire transfer to Australia with all the fees and shitty exchange rate, just to have to send it back and lose even more money).

I'm shocked there are businesses not taking credit cards in this day and age for whatever reason, but can't really do anything about that. Anyway, I'm basically very confused and would appreciate any help and advise.

 

[justginger]

I wire all my money from Australia to the States and it's very simple. www.ozforex.com.au - sign up for an account, book a deal with them using the bank details provided by the business from whom you are purchasing. Ozforex will call you for confirmation and provide all necessary details under your account in their website. You can Bpay all the money directly to Ozforex, and when they receive it all, they'll release the funds to your elected recipient. When I signed up for their service, they gave me my first 3 transactions fee-free, and their rates are heaps better than any of the banks anyway.

 

[fruxo]

I wire all my money from Australia to the States and it's very simple. www.ozforex.com.au - sign up for an account, book a deal with them using the bank details provided by the business from whom you are purchasing. Ozforex will call you for confirmation and provide all necessary details under your account in their website. You can Bpay all the money directly to Ozforex, and when they receive it all, they'll release the funds to your elected recipient. When I signed up for their service, they gave me my first 3 transactions fee-free, and their rates are heaps better than any of the banks anyway.

Cheers, I'll look into that.

The store in question is BGD btw (just in case someone has any inside information), and I was told they only accept wire transfers for international customers. I assume it has to do with not being able to match up the credit card with your address as that seems to be something they are big on over there, HOWEVER, I just noticed they also accept paypal. What could possibly be the reason for not accepting paypal from international customers? I'm happy to ship to my paypal registered address and it's not like any more info can be gathered from US paypal customers as far as I know.

PS waiting to hear about a diamond I enquired about, fingers crossed!

EDIT: actually, that's not true. I'd not be happy to send it to my paypal address as I would obviously need to send it to work to make it a surprise. I don't remember how the paypal address works exactly, I think it is somehow confirmed but maybe it can simply be changed to my work if I want.

EDIT: been trying to read about paypal, and sounds like they have buyer/seller protection with most countries (certainly aus) even with unconfirmed addresses etc. But maybe it's only up to a certain amount or something, I don't know. Anyway, doesn't really matter. They don't accept it so I'll just have to pay by wire transfer I guess, but I'm just curious now.

 

[justginger]

I've made all my large international purchases through Ozforex, but have of course purchased smaller things internationally using Paypal - both ways work easily for me. I will suggest that the 'protection' afforded by Paypal is a bit of a joke. I was the victim of international fraud (to the tune of about $900 AUD) and I practically had to work MIRACLES to get my refund through Paypal. In my case they were very accommodating with the seller, and the onus of collecting all information was on me, and in a very limited timeframe. I was shocked that instead of the seller being forced to provide proof of item authenticity, it was actually ME who had to provide proof of imitation. In many cases that's nearly impossible for a secondhand item. I was very lucky to have my money returned.

So, sorry to digress, but if you feel as if you're losing some degree of protection by not using Paypal, I wouldn't be too concerned. You're working with a very reputable vendor and I think the transaction carries minimal risk. Using a credit card internationally will often cause the vendor to incur fees, as well as yourself. Paypal exchange rates are not as good as Ozforex. I see no benefit for you to pay in any way other than bank wire.

 

[fruxo]

So, sorry to digress, but if you feel as if you're losing some degree of protection by not using Paypal, I wouldn't be too concerned. You're working with a very reputable vendor and I think the transaction carries minimal risk. Using a credit card internationally will often cause the vendor to incur fees, as well as yourself. Paypal exchange rates are not as good as Ozforex. I see no benefit for you to pay in any way other than bank wire.

Ah, the security was from their perspective, not for my sake. The reason for me to pay with paypal is because it is easy and instant and it lets me use my linked my credit card. It's also something I'm used to and know how it works. I never use paypals exchange rates of course as they are bad, you can choose whether to let paypal exchange the money for you or to charge in original currency (and let your card/bank handle exchange). Anyway, I'll look into ozforex as I assume that's what I'll have to use, but for the record I doubt the exchange rate would come anywhere near the visa rate, and it adds up very quickly when we're talking diamond amounts
EDIT: to clarify, some credit cards charge a fixed fee + 1-2% on amount for paying in non-native currency, but my card has none of that. But yeah, thanks again for the help, I'll have a look at it tomorrow and set up my account etc.

 

[fruxo]

Just thought I'd update in case someone else searches for the same topic and ends up here.

I used ozforex. They service was great and after calling them a few times (they have 24/7 support on weekdays), I never had to wait in line for more than 30sec tops and always English speaking people helping me. Called after hours and ended up talking to the UK support, which is one way to handle the after hours support I guess Still just the cost of a local call though.

Some points to take into consideration:

*After creating your account online you need to call them to activate your account.
*You need to then upload ID and bill/bank statement to prove your address.
*You need to then still wait for an address verification code to come by mail (supposedly sent express, yet took 3 business days to reach me).
*I THINK you need to then call them again to actually set up the wire transfer, but maybe you can do it online somehow (I couldn't see how).
*The funds has to come from an account in your name. As I was planning on paying by credit card, and my only credit card is on a joint account with my girlfriend, I had transferred money from my savings account to a relatives account so I could use their card. Since I could not use a credit card for payment, I was planning on then doing a BPAY payment from the account the money was sitting in for the wire transfer, but ozforex did not allow this and I had to transfer them back to my savings account.
*My savings account does not have BPAY for some reason, but you can also just do a normal bank transfer. They had accounts in 4 major banks so you could simply pick your own bank so that the transfer was quick as could be.
*The exchange rate I got was not very good (used XE.com as a reference, as I always do), and I would have saved several hundred dollars if I could have put it on my fee free credit card.
*The transfer was however FAST. They stated 3-5 business days on their website, yet the wire transfer was pushed through on a Friday and reached the account on the same Friday (the US is about a day behind Australia, so technically it took 1 day I suppose).
*Good service and when I emailed them I always got a call back within an hour or so (and if I didn't answer, I got a reply to my email at the same time). They actually went out of their way to get my transaction pushed through earlier than what they technically should have due to me leaving things too late and stressing majorly about the vendor receiving the money in time to get my ring sorted before my deadline.

All in all I would definitely recommend them if you must do a wire transfer (as many of the recommended vendors on PS requires), assuming you remember to set up your account in plenty of time to avoid stress. Not sure how the exchange rate compares to transferring directly from your bank, but I assume the bank would be even worse (and with much worse service).

 

[justginger]

I'm surprised you found the exchange rate to be "not very good" - it is better than any I've ever found. XE cannot be used for comparison, because those listed rates are their 'official' ones - their spot quotes don't match those either, always a few points lower. You can see comparison rates from all of the big banks at the bottom of the Ozforex screen when you book a deal (which yes, you can do online very easily, so long as the amount is above $1500 AUD). I know my credit card/bank exchange rate is always .02 or so below the rate Ozforex provides.

When I first registered with them some years ago, the registration process wasn't so stringent. I did upload ID, did speak to someone on the phone, but I did not have to wait for a mailed verification code. I still speak to someone every time I make a deal, and they always provide excellent customer service. I can understand the high level of security - people's life savings could be gone with a few mouse clicks!

 

[fruxo]

I'm surprised you found the exchange rate to be "not very good" - it is better than any I've ever found.

I'm sure it's very competitive - compared to other banks etc. I would definitely use ozforex again if I had to do another wire transfer.

It seems logical though that nothing can compete with visa/mastercard due to sheer volume of trading though. I looked it up once (after much effort), which would have been something like 10 years ago by now (yikes), and at that time the VISA exchange rate addition was 1% (info found on their official site). Might be different now of course, although I've not seen anything to suggest it.

The reason I mentioned XE was simply because I've known about that site for a very long time and used those as a reference for official rates when checking how well my given exchange rate has been. And from what I have observed, my credit card rate has followed the XE rates very closely. Most banks add another 1.5% or so (at least over here) on top of VISAs fees though (and they sometimes add fixed fees too), but not all banks. And that's just for using the credit card I mean, if doing an actual bank to bank transfer the rate is usually even worse.

May seem like small sums, but it adds up very quickly. Maybe several hundred was a slight exaggeration, but I punched the numbers just now and I'd estimate I would have saved about $150-200 by putting it on my credit card.

 

[tank]

I just completed my first wire transfer with OzForex. It was painless, quick and easy.
All up it took about 2-3 days for the money to land in the US bank account.
Would use them again without a second thought.