Obligatory "But what if you just used Bitcoin!"
TransferWise announces $280M investment
131–140 of 176 posts
Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment
#132I recently had a client ask me to pay them with Transferwise. It was a horrible experience. After weeks of trying to get it to work, even with the help of support, we eventually gave up and used bitcoin instead.
The Transferwise website was horrible. It gave error messages and kept telling me to fill out some field that didn't exist. After sending screenshots to their support team, they just sent me back links that didn't work.
After several back-and-forths with support they eventually fixed that issue, but then on a later step the website told me to upload "the documents" and gave an upload control. I carefully read every piece of text on the website, and nowhere did it explain what documents it was asking me to upload. It wouldn't let me proceed until I uploaded "the documents". I sent screenshots of all this to the support team and they didn't know what documents I was supposed to upload either.
Eventually support helped me fix that, and I got to a later step, where it asked me for the username and password I use to log into my bank. I am not comfortable providing this to anyone, so I refused. This was the last straw that finally led to me giving up at using Transferwise.
Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment
#133I recently had a client ask me to pay them with Transferwise. It was a horrible experience. After weeks of trying to get it to work, even with the help of support, we eventually gave up and used bitcoin instead. The Transferwise website was horrible. It gave error messages and kept telling me to fill out some field that didn't exist. After sending screenshots to their support team, they just sent me back links that d…
Wow, that sounds awful.
I wonder if many people have had problems with TransferWise or think it's a bad product. I've never used it.
Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's insane, borderline criminal. I knew someone who wanted to convert ~1m AUD -> USD -- and the banks were still trying to offer to do at 2-3% ! At that amount, you can open a brokerage account and trade through EBS or CNX directly and pay basis points.
Of course they would. Most people don't understand how the fee structure works, so will comply. You can open up a brokerage account at Interactive Brokers with a few thousand and use it to exchange FX. It's pretty accessible.
Is this relevant?
http://news.forexlive.com/!/interactive-brokers-to-cut-off-u...
Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Charles Schwab checking/debit: no foreign transaction fee, uses the exchange rate, and refunds all ATM fees internationally.
Charles Schwab checking is only available to US residents though -- if you're in a foreign country, you're out of luck.
Which is why we're suggesting different cards that are available in different countries.
Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sad but true. :( That said, people do pay for convenience, which I assume is the main function of those cash machines. If I end up in a foreign country that I haven't visited before, I'll likely withdraw some cash (not much) from one of those machines just to be safe. You never know when your credit cards might stop working.. (I've had my main card blocked randomly while travelling and it frankly was a pain)
Just withdraw cash on a credit card from a regular ATM. Most "normal" credit cards charge on the order of 3% over spot on the FX, some cards further charge a flat fee, but this is still better than those markups. It's even possible to get cards that doesn't charge a fee and gives you spot FX, even for cash withdrawal (Halifax Clarity in the UK is one). That leaves any fee the ATM might charge you, but if you can find…
Credit card ATM withdrawal incurs punitive cash advance interest rates. I guess you can pay it off within the day though if you can calculate how much it is.
Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment
#137I used to study remittance flows for a living. This was a problem that was (is?) begging to be solved. Incumbents like Western Union have always been very expensive and borderline evil. There are well known “corridors” of remittance flows that are still yet to be captured - like Kerala (India) Saudi Arabia (Middle-east more generally); Mexico US; US LatAm etc. My guess is TransferWise captured the UK Poland corridor…
I have zero experience in remittances, so I could be wrong but the whole model seems very capital intensive. It needed ~ 1 billion dollars worth of transactions to turn a profit. [1] [2] Isn't that supposed to be a bad idea, specially for software based companies. [1] Transferwise model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransferWise#/media/File:Trans... [2] The company started back in 2011. And select quotes from the ar…
It's not their capital.
Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's insane, borderline criminal. I knew someone who wanted to convert ~1m AUD -> USD -- and the banks were still trying to offer to do at 2-3% ! At that amount, you can open a brokerage account and trade through EBS or CNX directly and pay basis points.
Of course they would. Most people don't understand how the fee structure works, so will comply. You can open up a brokerage account at Interactive Brokers with a few thousand and use it to exchange FX. It's pretty accessible.
I don't think it's just lack of information. There are probably structural differences having to do with who is taking the fraud risk that account for the different rates.
Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment
#139I recently had a client ask me to pay them with Transferwise. It was a horrible experience. After weeks of trying to get it to work, even with the help of support, we eventually gave up and used bitcoin instead. The Transferwise website was horrible. It gave error messages and kept telling me to fill out some field that didn't exist. After sending screenshots to their support team, they just sent me back links that d…
I use transferwise and didn't give them my bank credentials. Question: which country are you in and which country were you sending to? I imagine this sorry of thing is both country specific and possibly bank specific.
The pain was figuring out the exact recipient bank account name in Japan but that's mainly Japan's fault.
Re: TransferWise announces $280M investment
#140I don't understand what TransferWise offers beyond what PayPal does. Why not just send yourself money using 2 PayPal accounts? Are they cheaper or faster?
From my experience (sent to me in US via Transferwise from Australia) I didn't pay any fees to receive, and per the person in Australia, the exchange rate was favorable over Paypal's.