hazelandhoward
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Posts posted by hazelandhoward
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I use the China Town "under-the-table" money changers whenever I send money overseas - most operate discreetly from little offices in basements below gold and jellewry shops (easily recognisable if you know what to look for - nope I'm not reccomending any one dealer over another - go search it out, just ask discreetly in a few shops - one of them sooner or later will point you downstairs or through a back door) - they are 1000% reliable.
Speed: Same day - give them the cash (Thai Baht) any time p.m. Thai time, and its cleared funds (U$D) in my son's Bank of Santa Monica account in LA, a.m. West Coast time - same day.
Exchange rate: better than WU or MG rates, and around 10% or so better than over the counter retail bank rates in Thailand.
Transfer Cost? - about 2/3rds the over counter retail bank rates (......and always better than WU and MG rates)
Legality and Fallback: None - the Thai/Chinese business community have been at it now since the 1950's
Reliability: 1000% - have used the system since the 1980's - so that must mean something like 200 - 300 times. Only ever once had a dispute - and the guy setteled up in my favour. The dealers are scrupulously straight with their customers - they are running a competitive business after all - if folk aren't happy with them it will quickly get round the Chinese business comunity and they'll be out of business overnight - you have no worries on that score.
How does it work? - I'm not sure but my guess is something along the following lines: dealer this side sends a discreet email with the details to his "associate" Stateside, who then his "gofer" round to the nearest BoSM branch to stick the cash in the account (depositor users a Thai Chinese name - and its name the same every single month). Its a network - "associates" in all the major USA centres, European capitals ect ....... then the Bkk side sits back and waits for exchange rates to move in their favour, then sends a single large transfer to the respective satellite offices (hence profiteering on both exchange rates and in not having to pay for hundreds of seperate transfers - just like WU, MG and the banks do).
These guys are not fly by night operators - they are there to serve the business community, not to rip off tourists - which would attract attention they can ill afford: they're part of the business culture and are going no-where with your few hundred or few thousand dollars/euros or whatever.
thanks for the info, but i'm wanting to send money TO thailand, not from
i guess i'll just be doing a bank transfer. Does anyone know how long that normally takes? Natwest to Bangkok Bank. Also, how much do Bangkok Bank charge for the transfer (if at all)? I already have to pay £20 to Natwest bank in UK, however on their website it says the receiver's bank may charge a fee too.
I am with the Hsbc and they charged me £15 to send £100 to a friend in thailand whos account it with the bangkok bank and a few weeks later we had a letter from our bank for £20 charges from the bangkok bank so in total it cost us £35, as you can imagine we were not very happy.
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Have just been to Nationwide and got it all sorted, there is no charges if you have a cash card with the flex account but if you have the visa card with it there is a small charge of 0.84%, the visa card is better as i think all the atms take it but some dont take the cash card and you have to go to a bank to get cash which will be difficult if the card is in my name and i leave it with our friend to use. Please keep any more suggestions coming as there may be even better or easier ways out there. Many thanks to you that have answered already.
Hazel
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the easiest way is for you to open a nationwide flex account ( nothing else )
when you get it sorted and get the debit card ( probably two weeks ) you send the card to her in thailand with the pin number youve changed the card to on its first use ( that has to be done in england )
she can go into most thai banks give them the card , they swipe it , she puts her pin number in and she gets the money over the counter with no charges
there will be lots of people in here telling you you cant do this ....it doesnt work .... but you can and it does : )
i brought 7460 pound ( about 413 000 ish baht ) that way last week in 30 seconds with no charges .... and the year before .... and the year before that ..... it works !
enjoy : )
dave2
Dave2 is on the money, this is a simmilar thing to what i was trying (in vain) to explain. There are charges however but they are by far miminal in comparisson. (if she uses an ATM she doesnt have to let the teller see she is not the name on the card)
chok dee.
Sorry just me being thick i get there eventually,
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the easiest way is for you to open a nationwide flex account ( nothing else )
when you get it sorted and get the debit card ( probably two weeks ) you send the card to her in thailand with the pin number youve changed the card to on its first use ( that has to be done in england )
she can go into most thai banks give them the card , they swipe it , she puts her pin number in and she gets the money over the counter with no charges
there will be lots of people in here telling you you cant do this ....it doesnt work .... but you can and it does : )
i brought 7460 pound ( about 413 000 ish baht ) that way last week in 30 seconds with no charges .... and the year before .... and the year before that ..... it works !
enjoy : )
dave2
Got told about this a while ago so went to the nationwide to see if i could do this and for some reason it wasent possible but think i may nip into town now and have another go,
Wish me luck
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Hi can anyone tell me the cheapest way to transfer money to thailand, i only want to send small amounts up to £100 british pounds at a time to help a friend out, i bank with the HSBC and i recently sent her £100 and they charged me £15 to do this then a few weeks later i get a letter telling me i have been charged another £20 exchange rate, so £35 to send £100 seems a lot of money to me surley there is a cheaper way of doing this, i was going to send her a moneygram but that way i cant send it to her bank account she would have to go to another bank and take some id with her which sounds simple enough but to try and explain this to her as she knows very little english and i know no thai i dont want to risk it,
Open to any suggestions
Hazel
Paypal!
online. I use it quite a bit. (you can also buy imaginary goods from the person you want to send to on ebay using your credit card. Have your friend sell something etheral like 'imaginary friend' on ebay. works quite well. even a pen or greeting card or something equally small and useless. as long as you let ebay know you received the goods)
Always interested in better ways so I hope we get some responses to this thread.
Hi did have a quick look at paypal but wasent sure if she has to have a paypal account as well to do this but will look into it further, i would worry sending her a cheque as we have sent her letters etc before and she has never received it, we tried to open a bank account once but was told that we had to be a resident of Thailand to do this, as i said the language barrier makes us doing most things from here quite difficult but as we are going out there for a month at the end of october if we have some ideas we will have more time to sort something out with her.
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Hi can anyone tell me the cheapest way to transfer money to thailand, i only want to send small amounts up to £100 british pounds at a time to help a friend out, i bank with the HSBC and i recently sent her £100 and they charged me £15 to do this then a few weeks later i get a letter telling me i have been charged another £20 exchange rate, so £35 to send £100 seems a lot of money to me surley there is a cheaper way of doing this, i was going to send her a moneygram but that way i cant send it to her bank account she would have to go to another bank and take some id with her which sounds simple enough but to try and explain this to her as she knows very little english and i know no thai i dont want to risk it,
Open to any suggestions
Hazel
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Hi all i can say is while i was on holiday in pattaya last november i had a servere tooth ache and although i dont have a phobia about dentists i had the same problem a few years earlier in the uk and it was extremly painfull but i needent have worried as they were brilliant,it dident hurt at all, i had first class care and although at the time the treatment i had came to 180 english pounds and i thought this was quite expensive till we got home and a few months later my husband had exactly the same problem and it cost him 800 english pounds back here in the uk i realised how cheap it had been in thailand, so dont worry i think whoever you have you will be ok.
Hazel
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Quite simple really, go to Malaysia instead......or Viet Nam.......or Cambodia .........or Sri Lanka.
Take it you no longer like thailand then.
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Hi, as quite a regular tourist visitors to Thailand we are getting quite concerned about all these various scams that we keep reading about going on at the airport, just because we have never seen anything going on we are not daft enough to think it doesent happen so what are the best tips to avoid any of them ?
Hazel and Howard
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Hi can anyone tell me the where abouts of some decent seafood restaurants in Pattaya or Jomtien, my husband and i have been coming to pattaya for a number of years now and have always been disapointed with the seafood restaurants that we have been in for example the lobster pot etc. we are coming for a month in november so would like to know where they are or any new restaurants that have opened recently.
Sending Money
in General Topics
Posted
Dident realise you could share the charges, i will look into this thanks,