Relative transferring $10k to me from USA to Thailand-Best option?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

11 hours ago, CarolinaJames said:

Thanks all. Unfortunately, someone passed away and left a small amount in their will for me. He is not that tech savvy so PayPal might not be an option.
 

 

It's a BAD option, so it's probably best you not even consider it.

 

It might help if you could add, what country would the funds be being sent from?  Some sending methods are available or work better from certain countries.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

7 hours ago, billmichael said:

I do this all the time.  I have never sent that much at once but it is very easy as long as your relative in Thailand has a PayPal account.  A PayPal account is very easy to set up.  Just need an account with a local Thai bank and then connect it to a PayPal account.  Once the money is sent by you it is available to them in very short order.  PayPal is pretty cool AND it is "cheap" to send.  I think the fee depends on how much you send. It has never cost me over five dollars on my end.

 

I think you don't really understand what's going on...  With Paypal, not only are you paying a fee for the transfer, but they're also giving you a much lower exchange rate than you'd get with even a traditional wire transfer or ACH transfer.  Paypal is anything but cheap for sending funds internationally.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, ukrules said:

Either wire (SWIFT) the money direct from the home bank to any Thai bank or use something like 'Transferwise'.

 

 

Pib and others here have done analysis of this topic in the past and posted results in the banking threads.

 

Generally, Transferwise is a very economical means of sending funds internationally, especially up to amounts of a few thousand. Once it goes beyond that, their flat rate fee begins to eat into your net funds. And their fees do vary some depending on the sending country.

 

But once you get into larger amounts, it really depends on what kind of banking arrangements the sending party has available to them, and what their wire transfer expenses would be, if doing a traditional wire transfer.

 

Of course, a traditional wire transfer CAN be sent into basically any Thai bank account from abroad without any special considerations, and the fees on the receiving end are pretty much standardized, tending to be 0.25%, minimum 200 and maximum 500 baht. And you'd get the full current exchange rate, as opposed to PayPal's artificially low exchange rate.

 

Edited November 9, 2018 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[quandow]

22 hours ago, thailand49 said:

Transferwise, the fee is higher but comes out in the wash still more baht. Today rate is 32.99  guarantee for 24 hours.

Doesn't Transferwise have a $5,000 daily limit necessitating two transfers?

[thailand49]

1 hour ago, quandow said:

Doesn't Transferwise have a $5,000 daily limit necessitating two transfers?

I don't the exact rules of Transferwise. I just started a few months back but prior to that I researched a number of top companies and the end I went with Transferwise.

In my case, I was here in Thailand my banks due to restrictions and the use of Xoom didn't list Bahts as Transfer and Zeller from Wells Fargo had a limit which restricted transfers needed within my time period.

Even with Transferwise, I had limitations but in the end, I got clearance from my bank at home and was able to do two large transfers using a Debit ACH method it required an additional fee for each of the $15,000.00 transfer.

When I finally got home I transferred another $30,000.00 and wired the money to Transferwise office and account in New York and once they received the money they deposited the Baht into Thai account.

[Peter Denis]

23 hours ago, sharktooth said:

You need to check, but I’m sure transferwise only works from YOUR named account, to YOUR named account. I don’t think third parties can transfer to your account. 

That's not correct.  With TransferWise you can send money to any account worldwide.

You don't need to be tech-savvy too.  Their website is super-simple, service is very fast (money in account next day or day after) and completely transparent.  They use the official mid-market rate (mid-rate between bying/selling) and charge only a modest fee for their service.  Additional advantage: if you have time to wait, you can 'play' the exchange rates and send when the rate - which fluctuates constantly - is advantageous (you can also have this automated to receive daily rate-updates or be notified when the rate is above the target you did set).

[Pib]

2 hours ago, quandow said:

Doesn't Transferwise have a $5,000 daily limit necessitating two transfers?

Nope.  $50,000 per day.

 

https://transferwise.com/help/article/1667423/us-dollar-transfers/usd-transfers

[Pib]

On 11/9/2018 at 9:36 AM, sharktooth said:

You need to check, but I’m sure transferwise only works from YOUR named account, to YOUR named account. I don’t think third parties can transfer to your account. 

The money is indeed transferred from your account, however, you can send to a bank account in someone else's name or you own name.

 

Correct that third parties can not transfer to your Transferwise account "to fund the transfer".....the name on the account funding the transfer must match the person's name on their Transferwise account.  See below from the Transferwise website talking the funding of a transfer. 

 

This restriction is not to confused with people paying into your Transferwise Borderless Account because one of the purposes of a borderless account is to receive payments from folks....like they are paying for a product/service you sold them.

 

https://transferwise.com/help/article/1662886/paying-by-bank-transfer/paying-by-bank-transfer

 

 

[Peter Denis]

8 hours ago, Pib said:

The money is indeed transferred from your account, however, you can send to a bank account in someone else's name or you own name.

 

Correct that third parties can not transfer to your Transferwise account "to fund the transfer".....the name on the account funding the transfer must match the person's name on their Transferwise account.  See below from the Transferwise website talking the funding of a transfer. 

 

This restriction is not to confused with people paying into your Transferwise Borderless Account because one of the purposes of a borderless account is to receive payments from folks....like they are paying for a product/service you sold them.

 

https://transferwise.com/help/article/1662886/paying-by-bank-transfer/paying-by-bank-transfer

 

 

To avoid any misunderstandings > In order to use TransferWise you need to open a TransferWise-account (done in a minute).  When doing so you have to make sure that the name for your TransferWise account matches the name on your bank-account (if your bank account is on the name John Smith your TransferWise account should also be on the name of John Smith).

If that's the case, you can then use your TransferWise account to send money from your bank account to any bank account worldwide. It's the most transparant, fastest and almost always also the cheapest option to transfer money since TransferWise uses the mid exchange rate.

[sencelebi]

On ‎11‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 9:44 AM, Jeffrey346 said:

Why not save $40. and transfer to BKK Bank NY You get the TT rate and pay only $5.00

I did search about that too. It's more expensive than wire transfer to BKK bank in Thailand.

Wells Fargo charges more for domestic wire transfer depend on amount, BKK NY charges for incoming and outgoing wire transfers when the amount is large and I can't wire 100K every 30 calendar day. But maybe NY BKK will work better for the smaller amounts.