Best (cheapest) way to send money to individual in UK?

[KEW]

I bought a Monolith 5 in the AH classifieds from Andrein.
Our agreement was partial payment up front then final payment after established all in order (no shipping damage, etc.).
I made the first payment via PayPal. I paid extra to cover the 3% PayPal fee. However, he got hit with about a 4-5% sir-charge on the conversion rate!
Andrein suggested using an app/service called Revolut. I read an UK article about it and it looked like a good option with no exchange sir-charge. However, it turns out it is not available to people in the US.
My bank said $35 to wire funds, but they were a little uncertain about whether the exchange was going to cost additionally.

Does anyone know about other alternatives?

Andrein mentioned transferring money directly to his credit card, but I have never heard of such and wonder if that is the basis of how Revolut works and the reason it is not in the US.

I thought I'd throw it to the AH "Hive Mind" to figure out!

 

[lovinthehd]

For single small transactions such as this doubt there's a whole lot of relief. In my old business we paid many foreign vendors in their currency via a foreign exchange service we negotiated with and would buy essentially a cashier's check/draft in their currency and send it to them. I've been out of the business for a few years, too. No one does it for free that I'm aware of even when you do it regularly, altho you may be able to negotiate a better exchange rate and get the banking services at minimal cost.

 

[rojo]

You could do the exchange in Bitcoin. There's probably a brokerage surcharge, but no international bs anyway. I've never used bitcoin myself but I can help you research it if you're interested.

 

[KEW]

You could do the exchange in Bitcoin. There's probably a brokerage surcharge, but no international bs anyway. I've never used bitcoin myself but I can help you research it if you're interested.

That is crazy! Bitcoin is totally virtual money, right!
Lets see what else shakes out before doing that, but congratulations, you made me think WTF harder than anyone else this week! For your reward, I am sending large sums of conceptual money your way!

 

[speakerman39]

MONEYGRAM!


Cheers,

Phil

 

[rojo]

That is crazy! Bitcoin is totally virtual money, right!
Lets see what else shakes out before doing that, but congratulations, you made me think WTF harder than anyone else this week! For your reward, I am sending large sums of conceptual money your way!

FWIW, Coinbase is well-reputed and seems like a pretty easy way to get into Bitcoin. It provides an online wallet, very similar to PayPal. You link it to your bank account, and when you buy bitcoin they do a bank draft. You transfer the bitcoin to Andrein's address (assuming he's willing to go the Bitcoin route). Andrein has Coinbase convert his received Bitcoin into GBP via a bank deposit, and Coinbase charges a 1% transaction fee. I think that's how it works, anyway. Even if they also charge to convert USD to BTC, you're still avoiding the 4-5% international conversion surcharge. BTC -> bank deposits are limited to $2500 per day and take about 5 days to transfer. Credit / debit card transactions carry a 3.75% fee and a limit of $60 per day, but transactions are nearly instant. Or if either you or Andrein favors a different wallet service, you don't both have to use Coinbase for the transaction to succeed. Once the BTC is in his wallet, Andrein can have the money transferred to his bank account by any broker he chooses.

 

[TLS Guy]

Really the only safe and secure way to send small sums to the UK from the US is PayPal. There are no International Cashiers checks any more.

Wiring money is very insecure and not recommended. I would not use Bitcoin personally.

You can only do bank transfers for large sums now, and not all US banks offer the service.

Strange as it may seem PayPal is now the only credible game in town now. I have had the issue of transferring small and large sums to and from the UK for forty years. Despite this interconnected world, this issue has become much more difficult than before everything was on line.

In addition the US government is paranoid about foreign assets and money transfers. They make the US writ of law invade foreign jurisdictions were it actually has no business doing so. The US threatens foreign jurisdiction with draconian penalties for not towing the line.

When my eldest son had to live in the UK for three years for his job, he had to open a bank account in the Isle of Mann! The Isle of Mann is a self governing Crown Protectorate. The Queen is Lord of Manx and not Queen of Manx. Their parliament is the ancient House of Keys in Douglas the capital.
The other name for the Isle of Mann, is the Isle of Sodor. If any of you have had children enthusiastic over Thomas the Tank engine, the isle of Sodor will be familiar to you. It was the railways of the Isle of Mann that inspired to good reverend to write the books. The tank engines and assorted steam locomotives still run around the island daily and are a principal means of transportation.

 

[highfigh]

That is crazy! Bitcoin is totally virtual money, right!
Lets see what else shakes out before doing that, but congratulations, you made me think WTF harder than anyone else this week! For your reward, I am sending large sums of conceptual money your way!

And yet....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_ATM

 

[highfigh]

In addition the US government is paranoid about foreign assets and money transfers. They make the US writ of law invade foreign jurisdictions were it actually has no business doing so. The US threatens foreign jurisdiction with draconian penalties for not towing the line.

That's because people from other countries send roughly $120B to friends and family, annually. Many of the people are the center of the illegal immigration issue and are said to be "good for the economy" and "willing to do jobs Americans won't".

Most of the money sent out will never return, so it hasn't been good for our economy but some like to kick political footballs.

That being the case, Western Union is used by many to send money out of the US.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

That being the case, Western Union is used by many to send money out of the US.

My previous au pairs used Moneygram as cheaper alternative to Western Union which is quite expensive for regular cash transaction.
One more option possibly worth checking out is Dwolla. I used them before to pay for cheap Voip service

 

[rojo]

My previous au pairs used Moneygram as cheaper alternative to Western Union which is quite expensive for regular cash transaction.
One more option possibly worth checking out is Dwolla. I used them before to pay for cheap Voip service

Dwolla is U.S. only.

I've used Popmoney in the past, which is sort of like PayPal but requires the bank to be a participant. You might check whether your bank participates, and whether Andrein's bank participates. If so, that might be the cheapest option. Unknown whether there any fees for currency conversion, but the transfer itself only costs $1 -- or at least it did the last time I used it, IIRC. Unknown whether it's U.S. only, but BB&T participates I think.

 

[speakerman39]

I have used MoneyGram to send money to my sweetheart in the Philippines. Never had a problem and the fees are very reasonable. Not sure what their limit is as I don't send that much money at a time. There are ways to send in US dollars or whatever other currency you choose. Highly recommend!


Cheers,

Phil

 

[jinjuku]

Could you send a prepaid Visa/MC?

 

[Johnny2Bad]

If you are in the USA, ask them to send you a PayPal invoice in $USD. Note that they will pay a fee to convert to GBPound, or they can alternately leave the amount in $USD in their PayPal account (all international PayPal accounts default to $USD in the PayPal balance) which can be handy if they purchase items elsewhere on the web.

If they agree allow an extra 3% or so for their cost to convert from $USD in their PayPal Account to GBP. Get them to determine what the currency conversion rate is (PayPal will let them know what it is) and build that into the $USD invoice.

That is by far the least expensive way to send money from the US into a different currency for a commercial or person-to-person transaction.

 

[KEW]

Thanks everyone for the information.
I investigated a couple of options, but at best, they required both the buyer and seller to register. That is not a big deal, except I thought it was rather shifty of Revolut to collect my phone number and email address before they said they did not offer accounts in the US. My info is all over the internet, but I still don't like it being further spread around.
In the end, I got impatient and just went with a Friends and Family transfer which avoids the 3% fee and only left the exchange fee which is pretty close to the 3% I was originally willing to pay to use PayPal.