michellemck99

I'm hoping that someone wiser than I can help me with the following....

I have found a lovely Italian apartment for a summer trip. They have instructed me to wire them 200 Euros as deposit. Ok, fine.

The trouble is two-fold: first, my regular "bank" is a credit union that can't wire in Euros. I'm know I can tell them to wire $200 times X, in order to be the equivalent of 200 Euros at the current exchange rate (so, roughly $255). But, I'm concerned that everything will go smoothly with this approach - the bottom line is that their inability to wire in Euros has me suspicious about their ability to handle an international transaction of this sort.

The second reason I'm not keen on using them is that they asked for the rental agency's 9 digit ABA number, which I'm told is not generally used in European banks. Again, this fuels my suspicion that using my credit union is not the route to take.

So, I'm looking for ideas. Any online service I can use to wire money to an Italian bank online? Alternatively, I was thinking I could get travelers checks in Euros and mail them 200 Euros that way. Any relatively painless way to accomplish that?

Thanks for your help.

SFFlyman

I routinely wire Euros to banks in Europe. You can go to any major bank which has an international banking department and have them perform the wire transfer for you. You will probably be charged between $15-$30 for the cost of the wire. If possible, see if you can get the SWIFT code for the bank to which you are wiring funds. That will make the proecess much easier. If not, you will need all pertinent information for the receiving bank (bank name and address, beneficiary account number and name), and the intermediate bank name & account number, if necessary.

l etoile

I've rented many homes in Europe as well and have had to pay by wire transfer. I also found my credit union was not up to the job. (They said they were, tried and failed.)

A couple of options:

Through www.westernunion.com you can send wires to Italy. To send 200 euros, you'd need to send $270 and the fee is $29.

I opened an account at a bank with $100 just so I could use them for wire transfers. I find most banks charge $30-40 for the wire and then a conversion rate fee that isn't always that great. I assume the people on the other end will be paying the wire fee there. I once had a situation with wiring funds to Italy where the money went through a transfer bank in Germany, which also took out $40, and then the receiving bank took out about $40 so by the time it got to the party it was $80 short of what they were expecting. A rental management firm should expect this though and absorb the costs on their end, but you may want to check to be sure. Because of the fees involved, I find wiring money is best when you're sending a fairly large sum - at least $1000.

The other thing I've done for smaller purchases is to go to American Express and buy euros and send them Global Priority. This will also cost about $40, but there are not the receiving fees and potential intermediary fees. I write that I am sending documents and I have never had a problem.

You might want to check and see if paying by credit card is an option if you're willing to pay a fee for it. I just put a deposit on a place in Costa Rica and opted to pay a 4 percent fee to use a credit card rather than to wire the funds.

Lastly, if you chose to open a bank account to do the wire that way, you may want to find out from SFFlyman where he's found wire fees of $15. Every bank I've called is much higher.



[This message has been edited by letiole (edited Feb 09, 2004).]

jmscsc

I just had to wire 900 euros to Greece and I did it via Western Union without a problem.

michellemck99

Thanks a bunch to SFFlyman, letiole and jmscsc for your help on this. I think I will check out Western Union as a first step - if I can handle things from my computer then I'll be a happy girl.

And letiole, I was relieved to read your remark about how your credit union was not quite up to the task - I thought that maybe I was being paranoid when my credit union told me they could handle it, even though my gut told me they can't. Sounds like you gave it a try and it didn't work out, in spite of their claims. So thanks for, in a roundabout way, reassuring me that I should be ignoring my credit union assertions that they can get this done for me.

l etoile

It sounds like our credit unions are pretty similar. They do a great job on the basic stuff, but ask them to handle something they don't do everyday and fuggetaboutit. Mine has handled domestic wire pretty well so maybe there's hope ...
Good luck to you michellemck99 and enjoy the place in Italy.

USAFAN

I think Western Union is the best bet, unless you have an account with a larger bank with SWIFT service (Citi, Bank of America ....)

What about PayPal - would they, could they do it?

chalf

I think that PayPal and Yahoo PayDirect will send/receive foreign currency payments at rates similar to what one gets on a credit card. I've never tried it, but it may be worth investigating.

flamboyant 1

use paypal or e-mail me, maybe I can help you. You just wire me the paypal payment and I send the apartment owner the Euros directly from Europe. Such a wire transfer is normally not more than 10EUR in fee or even for free if you do it at your computer using iban and swift code.

kef0913

I used paypal to send funds to France. No problem at all and the fee was only $8. Exchange rate was good too.

michellemck99

A follow up question to all your helpful advice and comments....when I look around Western Union and PayPal, it appears to my addled brain that in both cases the payee will have to take some sort of action to get the money into the rental agency's bank account. With Western Union, they'll have to pick up the money transfer at the Western Union office and then deposit it at their bank; with PayPal, they'll have to request a check or an electronic deposit into their bank.

So is it fair to say that there is no opportunity with these services to have the money wired directly into the rental agency's bank account? I am in possession of their IBAN and BIC numbers, if that matters. I was hoping to keep it simple on their end and not ask them to do anything cumbersome (maybe I'm worrying too much about this aspect).

Alternatively, I could take flamboyant 1 up on his kind offer, or do an MR and make the payment in person myself....

l etoile

Could you maybe go with a friend to his bank and do the wire that way?

The other option, if you're comfortable with it, is sending cash or traveler's checks via Global Priority Mail. That's actually handled by DHL, is tracked and is locked down at every intermediate station. It also has to be signed for. Stay away from anything that uses the Italian postal service though. I once sent a check there and it arrived six months later.

michellemck99

Aha! I think this sounds like the winning solution. Sounds simple, and simple has appeal to me.

Your note on taking 6 months for a check to get to Italy via the regular mail would explain this comment I got back when I asked the rental agency if they were open to the possibility of getting a travelers check to seal the deal: "ok for the travelers
checks, but do you think are they sure in an enveloppe per mail??"

Thanks a bunch, letiole.

stimpy

Caution! Some receiving banks will have an fee for receiving the transer. I got ripped off by the French post office bank recently. I payed Wells Fargo $30 to do a transfer to France and the French Post Office charged another $30 to receive it!

Back when I lived in France I did what Wells Fargo calls "repetitive transfers" to BNP which seemed to work much better and only required a phone call to initiate.

l etoile

It's worse than that stimpy. Some wires go through an intermediary bank so you end up paying three times, as I mentioned above. There's the potential for a wire to cost $150. I think every bank charges to receive a wire so I really don't think you got ripped off there anymore than you would have anywhere else, I'm afraid. Fortunately, people renting houses to overseas clients know this and tend to pick up the fee for receiving.