Transferring money from UK to Finland

Dan · Post by **Dan** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 3:14 pm

PayPal skim off the top if you transfer in Europe.

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luoto · Post by **luoto** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 4:16 pm

Plus they are very quick to freeze accounts on a whim and very slow to reinstate them, apparently. I use Paypal but for money I can afford to lose (and still be angry!) and withdraw money p.d.q. when it is there.

njcronin · Post by **njcronin** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 6:37 pm

I managed to do it today with HSBC using Paypal. It costs £9 per transaction which i didn't think was too bad

Rosamunda · Post by **Rosamunda** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:18 pm

njcronin wrote:I managed to do it today with HSBC using Paypal. It costs £9 per transaction which i didn't think was too bad

Does that include the bank's margin on the exchange rate? What £ to € rate did they give you?

DAL · Post by **DAL** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:43 pm

luoto wrote:Plus they are very quick to freeze accounts on a whim and very slow to reinstate them, apparently. I use Paypal but for money I can afford to lose (and still be angry!) and withdraw money p.d.q. when it is there.

Very good point there, Paypal is not a Financial Institution and therefore is not regulated by any US or European banking regulatory organ. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal about 6-8 months ago before they were bought out by eBay. I would be very wary about using them to transfer money as one of the internal signs they use to be watchful of fraud is foreign transactions to or from the account.

As has been pointed out some people can use Paypal for two or more years with no issues; I would only caution against using a firm that handles the amount of money it does with no outside regulation.

luoto · Post by **luoto** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:36 am

Paypal has some regulation in the UK (EU) now but I 've not checked it, but certainly things are risky for U.S: people if they freeze the account. But then, even with regulation, if they freeze your account and investigate (!) and it takes time, how urgently do you need your money.

Nothing in my comments should be taken to suggest Paypal is guilty of financial improprietary or fraud, but merely it highlights an established image and customer service problem.

njcronin · Post by **njcronin** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 3:26 pm

I think the exchange rate was 1.46. I sent it as euros so hopefully it won't cost anything at the other end. They said it will take 4 days as well which i thought was pretty good.

Cod · Post by **Cod** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 3:30 pm

..looking into this...seems like banks aren't the best way to transfer money, even the bloke from Smile Internet bank confessed that he uses http://www.moneycorp.com/..idea being that the transfer charge is higher but the rate is better..

see also..
http://www.expat.telegraph.co.uk/global ... /home.html

David

DAL · Post by **DAL** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 12:07 am

luoto wrote:Paypal has some regulation in the UK (EU) now but I 've not checked it, but certainly things are risky for U.S: people if they freeze the account.

Usually the only time reputable financial institutions freeze an account is due to being presented with a court order to do so. Paypal has been known in the past to arbitrarily freeze accounts for months to years and if they feel you owe them money they can and will go back on the actual bank accounts you gave them to draft money from it. Read the terms of agreement and see if that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling.

I can not find any information regarding them being regulated in the UK, not that they aren’t, I just can’t find it. They are not a bank and they do handle monetary assets (liabilities to them) that exceed some regional banks. I guess I am saying be careful and don’t link your Paypal account to your main bank account.

luoto · Post by **luoto** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 11:25 am

https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/websc ... sa-outside is the link you need ..

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