Ebay Credit Tranfer payments? How is it done?

[wldnas]

Why is it that the Europeans (especially the GERMANS) allways insist on Bank or Credit transfers for their payments??? I know this has something to do with the Germans love of CASH and the fact that hardly any of them have Credit cards, but as I'm looking to buy stuff from German based Ebay auctions I have this problem, of how to send payments?

So far I've been getting by with Cash by Registered Post type payments, they are OK, but personally I don't like using them, cos they are slow, awkward to arrange and send, not to mention the obvious security risk of sending largish cash sums in envelopes :S but one day I went to my bank (Halifax) and asked them how I could send a Credit transfer, well they wern't very accommodating, and saw my request as a bit of an inconvenience but in the end they said that even for the smallest payments there was a minimum of at least a £20 Transaction fee!!! I'll be ******ed if I'm paying that [!]

there must be an easier, cheaper way of doing it, as the Germans seem to do this sort of thing all the time, maybe someone out there could tell me an easier way to send a Credit trasnfer? or if anyone else (especially in the UK) has sent one before, how is it done?

Any advise would be greatly appreciated, Thanks []

[professorslot]

Well 20 pounds sounds an awful lot, this might have been the times before swift and iban codes were invented. To begin with I had to pay 10 Eur for a transaction from Austria to Germany. These swift and Iban codes are international bank data, which make it possible to transfer money totally free of cost within the EC. The only problem being that England hasn't got the Eur as a currency, because all money transfers need to be made in Eur. So the worst that can happen

to you if you ask to do transfer from England - Germany, should be conversion fees from pounds sterling to Eur and that cetainly doesn't amount to 20 pounds. A friend of mine got some money transferred from England and the actual fee was someting like 14 Eur = 9 to 10 pounds.

That's one of my reasons that I don't accept paypal. because the money

is always in some virtual account, but never in your hands, and believe me you start paying fees big time if you want to transfer funds from your paypal account into your bank account. I know that sending cash in a registered letter is known to be a bit risky but I do it myself sometimes. I use tin foild to wrap the money in and then fix it to sheets of paper and put them in a padded envelope. There's only one golden rule , never put coins in the envelope it's a total giveaway, Also I've received tons of payment from England this way and not a single one got lost ever, altough I do have to say that some people are plainly careless, I mean sending 600 Eur in unregistered letter with no padding and coins.... is pretty stupid.

I mean you could actually see the money if you held the letter up into the sky.. . Also if your Ebay Germany transactions are not too costly I can transfer the money for you. and you can later transfer it into my bank account when a lump sum has accumlated. Just drop me line if you ever need any help, as I can transfer the money from

my online banking system

Franz

[netsmithUK]

Wldnas is right, I've tried most ways of transferring money to europe and any sort of bank transfer always comes with a hefty fee £20.00+ ON TOP of any currency conversion charges. Its so much of a pain that I now don't buy from anywhere outside of the UK if they can't take paypal.

Paypal has it faults I know but I've never had any trouble taking money from my paypal account to me current 'real' account. As far as I can see its a fixed fee for this of something like 25p - 50p regardless of the amount with drawn - that said they still take 4-5% of any payments into your paypal account, but this is still a lot less that the bank charges I'd get trying to do it any other way or Western Union money transfer charges.

I think i spoke to someone in germany about this and they told me internally they got no charges at all for doing this type of bank to bank transfer, thats one of the reasons its so popular.

If you find another cheaper way of doing it Wldnas - please let me know[]

Chris

[Bibbo]

In Germany it could be that it is similar to here in Belgium were you can transfer money between banks even at the "Hole in the wall" machines. You just need the persons account number to make the transfer, and it's free.

I normaly send cash by registered mail. It is easier here because we have the euro but it still cost about 4 euro for the registered letter fee so small cheaper items become exspensive unless you take the risk of sending it unregistered.

Probably the best way would be some kind of mobey order like Bidpay. These guys also charge but it's not so much.

I think in Germany they don't really appreciate the difficulty of foreign people making the payments, but then again many German auctions only say they send in Germany anyway.

[DJTheo]

quote:and believe me you start paying fees big time if you want to transfer funds from your paypal account into your bank account.

id="quote">id="quote">

Sorry but have to disagree, a couple of days ago I transfered around 300EUR I got from sales from my Paypal to my German bank account and the fee was only 1 lousy EUR. Maybe you didn't check the option of a "professional" paypal account? [?]

Yes, Germans are somehow afraid of credit cards and love their (free) bank transfers, since nowadays with online banking they are also pretty easy, but also are a bit stuck with their methods and not very flexible []

[Stefan(2)]

I was forced to a "pro" account for paypal [xx(] ,

somebody payed for a car "u have to upgrade now ..... ect "..

anyway, receaving US$ 65 cost me about € 3,- .. mmm,

well. the price was already agreed on, so i don't "***" ,

but the funny thing is. I als have to pay to tranfer it to my account.( € 1) , no wonder ebay is doing so good

Considering this was not a real problem, keeping it on my account for a mini-z monster lol

And, ofcourse the germans are a case all diffrent. But, usually when u email them "could u send to the netherlands" , they will.

they can sometimes be a bit stubbern for the language..

You email in english , they reply in german.. ect..

Where does this story go to ? I forgot

Stefan

[Twmaster]

While as pointed out earlier PayPal has it's issues there really isno simpler way to move money worldwide IMHO. I still shake my head at those folks whom complain about the fees involved or try to collect the fees from buyers. My point has always been if you want convenience then you have to pay something for it. Get over it. Add the fees to the base price of your item. From my perspective it makes a seller look like a crybaby and a chisler to do otherwise.

While on the subject, one thing that I have an issue with is a recent purchase from Europe that the seller would not take paypal which forced me to send payment in cash via registered mail. The fee for registered mail here in the USA is $7.00. Later the same seller bought an eBay item of mine and paid me via PAYPAL! Humph.

I have decided that I no longer will buy anything that I cannot pay for with PayPal or pick up locally and pay cash.

[netsmithUK]

I'm with Mike.

Basically I don't think ebay and in turn the collecting scene wouldn't be anywhere the size it is now without it (or the similar systems)

So they take 5% of what I take - i'd rather that than the alternatives of not selling or having to chase around banks etc organizinf transfers and different currencies. The real kick in the teeth for UK buyers is that even if you cough up the extorsionate £20.00 bank transfer fee - it still takes 3 - 5 days to process to the sellers account! With paypal I can sell something and the money can be in my paypal account instantly (and spent on something else even quicker [])

Chris

[Stefan(2)]

i have to get back on my "*****ing" on the paypal fee,

u guys are right!

Stefan

[wldnas]

Here is another thought [?]

more recently Paypal has become a lot more ameanable to forieners by there expension of the number of currencys they can now handle, it used to be just Pounds Sterling and US Dollars? but now they also tale Euros and Japanese Yen []

Also as well as the more normal Visa and MasterCard credit card, Paypal (in the UK market I think mostly?) now take payments from Debit cards as well like Switch and Solo cards, this means that you don't have to pay by credit instead the money is draw direct from yout bank without the need to have your Paypal and Bank account indexed.

Since I've added my Switch card to my account I've used it almost all the time and My credit card only gets used for occational purchases when my account gets a little drained.

I'm sure the Germans at least have Cashcards or Debit cards like Switch or Solo, so why don't they use them to get paypal accounts instead, when paying for things there is nothing easier and as for the fees, they are for the most part fairly innocuous but as was said why don't they alloy for fees by hiding them in the shipping fees, everybody else does?

[DJTheo]

Must completely agree with Mike and Chris, find it really smallish when ebay sellers get the highest offer in the world (because actually that is what you get in ebay) and then still try to pass over or complain about Ebay or Paypal fees, this greed doesnt bring them anything, makes them only loose potential customers...

[Guest team_toshi]

well, it all depends what you want to do. For large amounts (from Europe to USA) I don't like to use paypal to make payments. Besides all the charges the seller has to pay (especially if he has a premium account) paypal always takes a few cents on the current exchange value. I don't like that. My "friend" sold his SS for $1600 and receiving the $1600 cost him about $50 just for having the premium account (I agree with people who do not want to receive money from credit cards, I always transfer from my bank account to my paypal account, great option, if I can do that, you can do that too). And then he wants to transfer it to his bank account. The single Euro charge is not the problem. The fact that the exchange value is about 2,5% (2-3 cents) less then the "real" exchange value makes him loose about $40. When a on-line bank transfer would have been done (cost €4,50 from ABN AMRO with all charges for me) it would only have cost the €4,50. That sound different then $91 now doesn't it? In such a case it is worth trying a different way. Don't get me wrong, I use paypal for 95% of my purchases and it is MUCH better then sending "real" money or sending a money order (lost quite a few) but it is not the holy grail. It is sad that in the UK you pay 20 pounds for a transfer,... totally free within the euro countries and €4,50 to the IBAN-countries (on-line that is...). But again, this is looking with a view of paying the least amount of charges. Paypal has a lot more (different) advantages.