Good Alternative to Transferwise?

[ChrisF]

As you may or may not know Transferwise has stopped converting payments for GoldSilver.BE.  Can anyone suggest a good alternative that has low rates and low if not free transfer costs to Belgium? 

[sixgun]

i also use Currencyfair.com

[ChrisF]

I used them as an alternative when Transferwise told me they were not sending anymore to GSBE and to be honest I didn't have a pleasant experience.  ?

[sixgun]

What happened? i have used them quite a lot recently. i had a problem once sending USD to Canada but that was a problem of my own making as i filled out the transfer incorrectly.

[*tada*]

I just had a horrible experience with TransferWise (USD -> GBP to a dealer's UK account). They promised transfer done in seconds via Fast payment System, and after more than 2 weeks finally it's completed. TW kept telling me my recipient has the fund even though we showed them the statement. Wasted hours and it's just not worth it.

The even worse transfer would be bank wire, as banks charge huge FX conversion spread + foreign transaction fee.

If you could, credit card usually gets the best in FX conversion rate (I can get close to spot on mastercard network), and many won't charge foreign transaction fees.

[ChrisF]

Just a pain in the hoop to set up.  Im too used to Transferwise who allow you to pay via debit card, don't ask you to bend over backwards to create an account, don't charge 3 euro a transaction which is killer if you want  to add 1 coin to your vault with GSBE, dont moan because you are using a VPN and threaten to stop your transaction, don't ask what you are buying, dont tell you that payments could be late because of a national holiday in Ireland there by forcing you to mail GSBE to tell them I may miss their 4 day payment window.  Other than that nowt. ?

[ChrisF]

4 minutes ago, *tada* said:

I just had a horrible experience with TransferWise (USD -> GBP to a dealer's UK account). They promised transfer done in seconds via Fast payment System, and after more than 2 weeks finally it's completed. TW kept telling me my recipient has the fund even though we showed them the statement. Wasted hours and it's just not worth it.

The even worse transfer would be bank wire, as banks charge huge FX conversion spread + foreign transaction fee.

If you could, credit card usually gets the best in FX conversion rate (I can get close to spot on mastercard network), and many won't charge foreign transaction fees.

Hmmm didnt consider credit cards, I thought banks charge crappy conversion rates

 

[caloundracats]

any reason why transferwise have stopped dealing with Goldsilver.be?

[*tada*]

8 minutes ago, ChrisF said:

Hmmm didnt consider credit cards, I thought banks charge crappy conversion rates

 

Basically you need to worry about 2 fees, first the premium on FX conversion, second the transaction fees.

Bank international wire charges crazy FX conversion spread (~3%) and often high transaction fees

TransferWise charge low transaction fee and low premium on FX conversion

VISA/mastercard network works a bit different than bank transactions, so you get extremely low premium on FX conversion, but be careful with some card which charge huge foreign transaction fees, only use those that has no forieng trasaction fees.

 

[knighthawk]

2 minutes ago, ChrisF said:

Hmmm didnt consider credit cards, I thought banks charge crappy conversion rates

 

They are abysmal on debit accounts, they are more reasonable on credit.

Compare all your locals including building societies, some of them have "accurate exchange rates" and "0%" commission. Whether they deliver on that will vary from transaction to transaction though.

[ChrisF]

2 minutes ago, caloundracats said:

any reason why transferwise have stopped dealing with Goldsilver.be?

 I got this back from Transferwise (copied verbatim) : Thank you for reaching out to us and I hope you are keeping well. Sadly, we no longer accept transfers to Electrum, the decision not to support this recipient remains the same. It is something which will not be reversed. I'm sorry for the inconvenience caused, this is for your own safety. In the meantime, if there is any other information you wish to know please let us know. We will be happy to help you anytime.

[knighthawk]

2 minutes ago, caloundracats said:

any reason why transferwise have stopped dealing with Goldsilver.be?

I don't think the problem is necessarily GSBE but the bank / payment processor they use.

[ChrisF]

7 minutes ago, knighthawk said:

I don't think the problem is necessarily GSBE but the bank / payment processor they use.

Clearly something fishy is going on if transferwise don't feel they can process payments for GSBE now.

[caloundracats]

I've never had a problem with them and made a payment a few days before everyone else seemed to experience problems.

I know they recently changed their bank details but as it's the one I always paid into all went smoothly.

[Martlet]

8 minutes ago, ChrisF said:

Clearly something fishy is going on if transferwise don't feel they can process payments for GSBE now.

The response says they aren't accepting transfers to Electrum, the bank/payment processor.  Looking them up i dont think they are a big operation.

An alternative, fringe theory might be Transferwise have mistaken them for Electrum the bitcoin wallet, because Transferwise wont deal with any exchanges.

An alternative payment provider is Revolt.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, ChrisF said:

Clearly something fishy is going on if transferwise don't feel they can process payments for GSBE now.

Goldsilver.be fishy? How dare you! Such nice people!

[brixtonh24]

Does anyone know if GSBE have offered an alternative provider on their website or are they still linking to transferwise ?

[knighthawk]

11 hours ago, brixtonh24 said:

Does anyone know if GSBE have offered an alternative provider on their website or are they still linking to transferwise ?

They are linking to currencyfair now.

https://goldsilver.be/en/content/5-pysec

[MHoppy]

I had two tranferwise accounts deactivated last week when trying to pay gold silver.be

[caloundracats]

I contacted Transfer Wise yesterday and the reply I received is below:

Hello,

I hope you are having a good day!

Further to our phone conversation I checked the details with the team.

Unfortunately TransferWise is now unable to support payments for Bitcoin or other Cryptocurrency Services.

If you initiate another payment to ELECTRUM it will be automatically rejected and returned back to you.

Please, do not hesitate to get back to us if you have any further queries or concerns.

Best wishes,

Olga

 

What can I say?!

[ChrisF]

Hmmm I'll contact GSBE see what they have to say.

[Martlet]

1 hour ago, caloundracats said:

I contacted Transfer Wise yesterday and the reply I received is below:

Hello,

I hope you are having a good day!

Further to our phone conversation I checked the details with the team.

Unfortunately TransferWise is now unable to support payments for Bitcoin or other Cryptocurrency Services.

If you initiate another payment to ELECTRUM it will be automatically rejected and returned back to you.

Please, do not hesitate to get back to us if you have any further queries or concerns.

Best wishes,

Olga

 

What can I say?!

As i suspected... what you can say is they need to do some proper research and recognise this payment processor is nothing to do with Electrum the Bitcoin wallet.   I'll be writing a letter too.  

It would be worth noting that Electrum the Bitcoin wallet as a open source project receives no money, though that may go over their head. 

[caloundracats]

Yes, @Martlet , I did reply to their email and pointed that out to them yesterday. Being Friday afternoon, they probably won't get around to reading it till Monday.

I advised that they are missing out on a lot of business due to this issue. I'll advise if I hear further from them.

[ChrisF]

I got a message back from GSBE when I asked them about this:

Dear Olga (this was the name of the person from transferwise who I quoted.)

Transferwise is currently down.  Please use currencyfair.com

Very shortly GOLDSILVER.BE will accept payments in pounds on a British bank account.

Best Regards,

David.

 

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Added 0 minutes later...

3 hours ago, caloundracats said:

Yes, @Martlet , I did reply to their email and pointed that out to them yesterday. Being Friday afternoon, they probably won't get around to reading it till Monday.

I advised that they are missing out on a lot of business due to this issue. I'll advise if I hear further from them.

Keep us informed @caloundracats

[caloundracats]

Will do @ChrisF Would be good if they start to use a British bank account, so much easier for the majority of us.