Payment by International Bank Wire Advice

[Mike Stannard (toyrific)]

Hi Guys

Over the past few years many of the payments sent to me by International Bank Wire have been deducted additional wire fees by intermediate banks ranging from $20.00 to $45.00. Intermediate Banks are those that handle the wire between the sending bank and receiving bank, not all intermediate banks charge a fee. As the receiving bank I cannot find out what these fees are until I receive the payment, so I am not able to add these fees to the payment. Until now I have been taking a loss on these payment in most cases, as the cost to the customer of sending this extra fee would be to high.

One extreme example is a wire of $85.00 had a intermediate fee of $20.00 so I actually only got $65.00.

Advice on using International Bank Wires.

Paypal is usually the cheapest way to send money internationally for payments of $1500.00 or less. To find out the paypal fee that I will charge, multiply the payment amount by .05. A $1500.00 by paypal will be $75.00. The paypal fee is always listed in my invoices.

To figure out your fees for bank wires, find out what your bank charges to send a wire payment, every bank has different fees. Also ask your bank if they can tell you if there will be any intermediate bank wire fees, they may or may not be able to tell you.

My fee for receiving the wire is $15.00. Add these fees together to get you cost of sending the wire. Check this cost against the Paypal fee to see which is the best price for you.

Note:
A $3000.00 payment by Paypal will be $147.00, by bank wire this could be anywhere from $45.00 to $90.00 depending on intermediate bank fees.

I have had a meeting with my international banking service and found out there is no way to avoid these extra fees, however these additional fees can be charged back to the sending bank. To do this you need to enter in the instructions on your bank wire form. "ALL FEES TO BE CHARGED TO THE SENDING BANK", this way any additional fees will be charged to your bank and I will get the full payment you sent.

In the future any payments I receive by bank wire that have intermediate fees will be invoiced to the customer.

Regards
Mike