- This topic has 14 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 17 years ago by
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Blue:
If you lodge it into your current € account. The Spanish Bank will rip you off for it. They call it commission just to present a cheque to go through the clearing system.If you place into a British Bank account, which will be a £ account. You pay exchange conversion and bank charges of say around £25.
I suggest you get in touch with HIFX, you will save on charges and get a much better rates.
Before u or anybody else jumps to a conclusion. I do not work or have ever worked for them.
As the £ is taking a bettering this is a good time next year this time it could be £1=€1.45
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It will not be a € account. The bank will have to sell the € to buy £ and there is a margin between selling and buying of currency.
Different financial institutions apply different rates and these rates are moving per second. So what is a valid rate now/today may not be in the next hour irrespective of Banks/building society.
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For what it’s worth, this was my experience when wanting to transfer sterling from UK to Greece where I have a euro account and a sterling account.
I did the transfer through HIFX, as it was my first time – ended up having lots of e-mails and ‘phone calls with them re. what rate I was going to get (I told them I was happy to wait until a certain rate hit, and they would call me on the day when that happened). So transferred my sterling to them and waited.
About a week later this chap from HIFX rang me and said now is the moment, so I told him to go ahead and do it. The euros arrived ‘later’ into my Greek account.
The next day I was at the Greek bank chatting to the lady who dealt with my accounts. She asked me why did I go to all the trouble of going through HIFX, that the rate they ended up giving me (albeit the one I asked for) hadn’t been that ‘bad’ the whole day! – and that I should have simply transferred the sterling from UK into my Greek sterling account and they would have given me a better rate to change it over to my euro account, all for a total charge of 7 euros.
It seems the rate HIFX gave me was below the bank’s exchange rate-of-the-day the whole day so no excuses there, and in total I was several hundred euros out of pocket over it. A rip off, plus all the paperwork/phone-calls/faxes – personally, I will never bother with them again. Just my experience.
But as Steve6 says, at least the rates in general at the moment are fantastic as against last Summer. -
Charlie:
While I am not doubting your postings.1) The rates move every second, 7 days is a long time.
2) As you had fixed a rate with HIFX, they contacted you when the rate was achieved.
3) Some banks in small towns etc, has a policy to encourage in flow of foreign currency to boost their foreign currency reserve.
4) They may be making money from you in other areas of operations.
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Hi Shakeel
Re your “The rates move every second, 7 days is a long time”, am not sure of the relevance of this but admit I’m no expert.
The chap from HIFX telephoned me a week after our agreement on the rate I wanted and said “at this particular moment, as we speak, I can give you the rate you want”. Let’s say for arguments sake we had agreed on 1.45. I said ok, do it as that was the rate I was wanting.
My point is that the Greek bank told me that the day this happened, the rate hadn’t in fact fallen below 1.463 or something like that (because the rate had done an incredible climb the night before (during USA trading?). For some of the day it was a lot higher than 1.463. So instead of HIFX ringing me and offering me the true rate-of-the-moment, they got away with offering me the minimum rate we had agreed on. To say “at this particular moment as we speak I can give you the rate you want of 1.45, looking at the screen” was rubbish, he should have said “as we speak, since the start of trading in UK today, the rate is even higher than you want”. Lack of honesty. With hindsight, it’s my fault for not checking the rates that day myself on the Reuter’s website because I would have told him “rubbish, it’s not 1.45 as we speak, it is 1.463″….or more depending on the moment.
The rate was probably well over 1.46 at the time, but they knew I would be ‘happy’ with just offering me the 1.45. It was the lack of honesty/bullshit that angered me. But hey, loads of commission for them on that transaction.My bank making money from me in other areas? Actually Shakeel I have to admit I’ve been pleasantly surprised. In my experience so far (instigating Bank Drafts etc., sending/receiving monies) all their charges seem low, especially compared to UK banks.
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Claire : whether honest or dishonest I cannot comment on it. But all I can say that you don’t seam to realise that the market is moving every second and the dealers are covering their back & its customers against the market
fluctuations.If, I make a deal from you at say 14.00,00 and the rate is say 1.45. As I put the phone down and there is a attack on twin towers, Iran etc, etc. the rate will change.
When you buy currencies you either buy spot or future. Yours it seams was a future.
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Hi Shakeel (the name’s Charlie by the way, not Claire…. 😉 )
Re. me not seeming to realise the market moves every second – I do I do, honest (one of my many jobs in the past was working in the Middle East for a Chinese commodities company, trading in gold futures. If you want to see ‘a rush’ you should have been watching a Reuter’s screen at the moment when the Pope got shot…(or was it Pres. Reagan, can’t remember now) but you’ve never seen figures scramble so high so quickly!).
Anyway, without this turning into a long saga, my simple point is this chap made out on the’phone to me that he was looking at 1.45 on the screen when he obviously wasn’t. He was looking at 1.463 or above. It was a ‘spot’ arrangement, hence the agreement that HIFX would call me when it reached my agreed level for me then to decide if I wanted to go ahead or not. The dishonesty lay in the guy telling me it was ‘currently’ at 1.45 when it obviously wasn’t.
I have seen HIFX recommended by many on the forum, and my experience was only one after all. Just thought it was worth posting even if it just helps anyone else be a little wary, that’s all. Maybe I was just unlucky with the trader I got and he’s since been fired….or possibly promoted!! 😈 -
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Charlie 😉
For the life of me I dont know what yer on about gal 😉
POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK ?
Whoever the others you are talking about may at least have been the same person and not a puppet. 😯 is that the we that you are talking about.Anyway back to the thread or we will be in trouble. 😉
Frank 8)
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