Xoom seems to have the lowest rates at present, but they are a PayPal company, so there’s a certain amount of baggage there.
I’m especially interested in your experience regarding reliability and consistency of service for any company or process you have used.
I’ve only used Zelle, which interfaces with my bank and credit union. Idk if it does overseas transfers.
This is a popular topic among expats in Thailand.
Transferwise seems to be the very inexpensive and most popular service. (One disadvantage is that its transfers to Thailand accounts sometimes appear as ‘domestic’ rather than the ‘foreign’ source required as financial evidence for visa renewals.)
International postal money orders seemed to be a good way to transfer smallish sums between Thailand and Japan. Unfortunately, the world seems to be divided into a few disjoint blocs of postal money order cooperation. The U.S.A. is not in the bloc which includes Thailand and Japan. :smack:
Since I can make free transfers U.S.A. to U.S.A. there’s a trick I use which you might be able to use also. I can do a free “domestic wire transfer” from the U.S. to a Thailand bank account by entering the ABA code of Bangkok Bank’s New York branch!
Edit timed out before I could mention Do-Not-Use-Theses:
Western Union may be simple and reliable but gives a VERY bad exchange rate.
The one and only time I attempted to use Moneygram, the moneygram was CANCELED without informing either the sender, or the recipient, or the institutions serving Moneygram! (Apparently something about the transaction raised a red flag.) The sender had to initiate a dialog with Moneygram before they even made restitution.
How much money are we talking about? I send cash overseas in envelopes all the time and have never had one loss. Over a few hundred dollars I would use other methods. And over a certain amount would use yet again other methods.
Preach it. When I was in Europe and short of Euros in my pocket, I stopped in at a WU in a train station. When I left I felt like I’d been washed, rinsed and hung out to dry. Lesson learned.
It’s more than that, and will be on a regular monthly basis.
A bank to bank transfer can be set up and will take between two days and one week to clear. Both the receiving and sending bank will charge about 50-100 dollars per transaction. Be warned that Japanese banks have been instructed recently by the police to ask questions about all overseas transfers done by foreigners. My fucking home-loan bank sent me a letter asking me to explain all my banking activities. No one with Japanese names got that treatment.
The overall cheapest safe way is to put your american money into a USA bank account, get a cirrus ATM debit card with a PIN for that account and send that to the person in Japan. That person will then be able to take cash out at almost any ATM in Japan, up the the amount existing in the account and no more, at the current exchange rate and without significant transfer fees (only about 1 or two dollars).
Not to mention “double dipping”: nasty fees plus an unfavorable exchange rate. This is why people use TransferWise (highly recommended).
This sounds like an excellent idea, thanks. A Cirrus card can be used at any bank’s ATM? I remember when I was in Japan I could only use my ATM card at the post office, and it is not a Cirrus card, so that makes sense. Just want to make sure that a Cirrus card should work anywhere.
Not to Japan, but from Japan to Canada, I’ve used TransferWise a couple times. No problems whatsoever. Very competitive rates, fast transaction (two days for me), and thoroughly transparent with total cost. No hidden or tricky fees whatsoever.
I know someone in the U.S. who used XE Money Transfer and they said they were very happy with their service. I checked it out and apparently they don’t charge any service fees and make their money on exchange rate margins. But I haven’t personally used them so I can’t say what their experience is like.
I wouldn’t say any, but most ATMs at major banks, all convenience stores and post offices accept cards on the Cirrus and Plus networks. You may find some smaller regional bank ATMs won’t accept them.
Thanks for these posts. The immediate need seems now suddenly to have receded into the indefinite future, but I’d like to hear any other recommendations for when the time does come.
Yes, as SD says, so long as the ATM card has the “Plus” logo then it can be used at any ATM that also has the plus logo (which is most machines).
Xoom are assholes. I once tried to use them to send money to Colombia, and they got all suspicious and did an investigation. They concluded that I must’ve been engaged in some kind of criminal act and closed the account, though they gave no evidence to support that claim.
So I just do what Isamu suggested. In fact, with Citibank they can go to a Citibank ATM and with draw cash at a good exchange rate with no fee.
ETA: Boycott Xoom!