So, does anyone know what is the cheapest way to send money back to the USA? I’m tired of paying all these bank fees. Services like Skrill and USForex have pretty lousy exchange rates. Does anyone know a better way?
If time is not of the essence, you can buy a USD check from a bank (票匯) and just mail it via registered mail to whomever you want the money to go to in the US. It’s not as fast as wire transfer (電匯) obviously, but it’s a lot cheaper. Just make sure you write “for deposit only” on the back of the check just in case it gets into the wrong hands.
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Thanks for the idea. I think if I plan ahead I could try something like that. Usually it’s not so urgent for me to send money home because I can predict how much I need and when I need it. I could get a family member to take care of the deposit for me.
However, the big question is, even if I do write “for deposit only” on the check and if it does end up in the wrong hands, lost, mishandled, or whatever, is there any way to recover the money?
The point of writing “for deposit only” on the back is so that the check can only be deposited into the account of the person the check is made out to. So even if someone other than the recipient comes into possession of the check, they won’t be able to cash it. If you think the check is lost (you should give it at least a week), just go back to the bank and place a stop payment on the check. To be extra safe, you can write “for deposit only to account #” followed by the recipient’s account number on the back of the check.
If it’s lost and I place a stop payment on the check, can I still get the money back?
Of course. The question is when. Better ask the bank about it before you go ahead with this.
Stop payment likely only works before it has been deposited. Like when it’s missing. If it’s been cashed before you requested stop payment then it’s too late for that option. There might be means to recover the funds in a different way though.
But to make your plan one step easier you can mail the check directly to your US bank which should reduce the opportunities for somebody to steal the check in the first place and not require your family to do something. Of course then you incur the cost of postage.
However I am most interested in how much cheaper this option is. What exchange rate do you get? What is the fee for making the USD check in Taiwan? Any other fees (like postage)? I continue to read about ways to exchange money cheaper or transfer money cheaper but they never post the actual costs. Perhaps it’s different for me because I usually don’t send money home until I have 50+K NT and the fees are not very large at that point but I have never understood the complicated and slightly non secure transfer preference to save a few 100NT.
My friend told me that you can just link a Taiwanese bank account to your PayPal account, deposit money there and then put it into your US account via PayPal. Gonna give this a shot and report back if it works.
Paypal scalp a lot with unfair exchange rates, but they’re easy. I would do the math carefully for anything over 200usd.
that is what I have also read before. Somebody was excited because they had lower fixed costs vs the 300-400NT that banks charge but then they posted an awful exchange rate. But I am interested in what the numbers work out to.
I keep getting screwed every time I send money home. I have to pay 3 bank fees 1. the bank here 2. the intermediary bank because my bank can’t accept money directly from Taiwan or something like that 3. the incoming wire transfer fee from my bank It ends up being around $60 USD just to send the money home, but the exchange rate is decent.
I’m actually looking at USForex now and they seem to be offering a rate very close to spot and only a $5 transfer fee. Not sure what the deal with that is, because before they had a pretty awful rate, but now it’s nearly spot. Had a look at Skrill and they still have an awful rate.
Checked out PayPal and was playing around with the currency thing on there, they have NTD but I could only calculate rates from USD to NTD and not the other way around. I’m going to have to play around with it further and see what the deal is or give them a call and see if the Filipino or Indian person on the other end can offer me any type of help. Their rate from USD to NTD was pretty lousy though, about 30.7 NTD for every USD, around 0.8 NT off from spot rate. If it’s about the same for the inverse, I’d have to send around 75,000 NTD or more at one time before the better exchange rate at the bank with the fees becomes worth while. For 75,000 NTD or less the worse exchange rate would be worth while for the lack of fees. I think when I go home next I’m probably just going to open a new bank account that either doesn’t charge wire transfer fees or doesn’t need an intermediary bank.
The intermediary fee seems to be hit and miss with the different banks. I have not had any intermediary fees with Bank of Taiwan to Schwab Bank (US) but intermediary fees would suck.
I would be interested in the USForex info if it works.
Ah shit! I am looking more closely at the USForex website and what they have on their main page is the market rate. Once I put the mouse over this tiny type it says that I have to log in to get the USForex customer rate. The last time I checked this site, several months ago at least, they had their customer rates on the main page, not market rates. If you’re interested in checking them out, www.usforex.com
As for intermediary banks, it probably mostly depends on the size of your bank back home. Not sure how big Schawb is, but it always seems that it has been Wells Fargo that acts as the intermediary bank for me. I’ll probably just open an account with them the next time I go home.
I also went to some of those remittance places for the Filipino, Indonesian, Vietnamese, etc workers. They only send money to those countries basically, and it’s actually quite cheap. I guess they just deal with a lot of volume and specialized. The only one that could send money to the US was Western Union and their fees were quite high and they charge more for sending more money. It seems quite absurd that they can send money to the Philippines for just a few dollars, but their fees to send money to the US are up to ten times as much. Any special Western Unions that give good rates to Americans out there in Taiwan?
Schwab is a modern bank (alternative bank or whatever term you want to use) with almost no brick and mortar branches (for checking). Mostly they are a brokerage but they have generous checking account perks to encourage people to consolidate their accounts with them. I wouldn’t consider them to be a major banker but I would consider them to be a major corporation so that is why they probably handle their own int’l cash transfers. Wells Fargo was actually my old bank since I’m from the midwest and they bought the bank I had used before.
Does forex work from NTD to USD?
On their main page, there’s a currency converter, but while I’m signing up, they ask me what currency I’d like to exchange to and there’s no option for NTD to USD. There is an option for USD to NTD.
Transferwise looks good. Brillliant, kick yourself idea. They don’t “transfer” money, they just match up a send account with a receive account. Good press. Branson invested.
[quote=“HenHaoChi”]Transferwise looks good. Brillliant, kick yourself idea. They don’t “transfer” money, they just match up a send account with a receive account. Good press. Branson invested.
https://transferwise.com/[/quote]
I don’t see an option for sending or receiving NTD
If we send them enough emails they might implement one. I will need this soon. I don’t want Paypal taxing 8 percent of my business.
If you belong to a bank that doesn’t require an intermediary bank to process the transaction it should only cost 3-4% and probably less if you are sending larger amounts. transferwise looks brilliant as long it doesn’t take them a week+ to match up your transaction with another person.
They have NTD (TWD) on there. Go to the currencies option box and go to the bottom and click “other.”