Foreign Exchange.....rip off!!!

poter

poter

Well-Known Member
Joined
4 Feb 2002
Messages
2,127
Location
Still going south currently in Corsica for winter
www.fairhead.com
I am purchasing a small bateu in france, so I have to pay in Eurosss.
No problem....hmmm!!

OK now concentrate: /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

Bank (Large high street bank) eu exchange rate for £19k ish.... at 1.3665 (erm befor you ask this was thru their foriegn exchange desk) = eu 25,963 . Good hey?....nah.

On line exchage house (probably .00000001% size of very large high street bank)
£19k....at 1.445 = eu 27,455 ...duh! ( around £1100 difference )

Erm, high street bank not trying to rip off loyal customer.. are they? /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

poter
 
Had a similar experience with a high street bank a week or two ago. Buying zloty, exchange rates were generally over 5.7 to the pound with no commission - except UK bank, which was offering only 5.3. And taking a commission too. Nearly a 10% difference!
 
I've long held the view that as far as personal finance goes, large high street banks do little more than exploit the financially unsophisticated and gullible with poor products and services. Don't you just love 'em.
 
Suggest open a french bank account. No guarantees but it's worked for some I know cos you xfer the money via interbank rate not holiday exchange rates. Got to go to France to do it though. . .
 
HOO,
As I understand it you get the 'Holiday' exchange rate. I may not have gone into it too deep with the bank but after three phone calls I was so pissed that I just gave up & bought the EU thru an exchange dealer.

Oh by the by, did you know our banks look after us.... they will not allow you to transfer more than £10k in a day (so its your dosh they have it & they are keeping it!!!) because their on line security is so weak, good hey!!!


poter
 
Possibly too late but the way to do a transfer like that is 'swift international transfer'or similar - banks have different names for international telegraphic transfer. costs around £30 but the good news is that the exchange rate is the Bank of England - Euro exchange rate of the day - i.e they make no profit from the exchange just take the dosh for making the transfer.

Another way to do it is to open a euro account with cheque book at your branch (the Royal Bank of Scotland are best) and draw a euro cheque for the amount - cheque costs nothing and the French/Italian/spanish bank witll charge around 17 euros - again the exchange rate is the national bank rate of the day.
 
Quite agree - I've long been of the opinion that all these 'one stop shops' in all industries generally offer very poor products and service. Use a bank for banking, a foreign exchange house for foreign exchange, an investment house for investments etc etc.
 
Re: Foreign Exchange rates converter

Take Sterling because it's stronger than Turkish Lira and won't devalue furing your visit
 
Re: No rip-of if you shop on the High Street

Open a Euro currency account with Barclays (takes a High Street visit with a passport in hand).

On the day of the deal, visit http://www.x-rates.com

Phone up Barclays and ask for an indication rate, if the transfer is > £25k you can commit to that exchange rate on the spot but for lesser amounts the rate might vary a fraction from the indication rate to the point you say do-it.

The dealing margin is < 1% I recall but you then get hit for another £25 on the final Barclays to foreign account transfer that can be done days or months after the initial currency swap.
 
Caveat - whatever

You've got to be so savvy nowadays. It's not that Fagin's are lurking around every corner waiting to pick yer pockets at every oportunity (sorry, DL and Pasco at the weekend), it's more that the poor *expletives* at the front end don't really know what's going on - so they live with it as do the customers who don't continually surf the web (like this lot 'ere).

In the end everybody has to be market savvy to survive, no individual (well, not many) are there to openly rip-you-off in the financial services sector, it's just the system works on the "send three and fourpence" syndrome.

Just chuck the paranoia (after all everybody hates everybody), be grateful that Fora like these can "expose" the wrinkles, and for peeps who are prepared to buck the system - some dosh can be saved.

Oh dear, I've lost my way again; Nurse, Nurse.

(Days are getting longer, Boating soon - so shan't need to get wound up here)
 
Turkish Lira

1) don't get confused wit the new money. They dropped 6 nougts from the old bills since 1/1/2005, but the old stuff is still circulating. Still, nobody is going to believe that someone is willing to part with 250.000 new lira (which was the smallest denomination in the old currency).

2) Take pounds or euro. The pounds will need to exchanged, the euro is used on the street as much as the lira.

3) Open a euro/sterling account with (for instance) HBSC in Turkey. So if you stay for a longer period, you always get the latest rate.
 
They would have loved you to just say yes to their "tourist" rate - thankfully, you didn't.

There are professional exchange houses out there that cater for you and me, and the one I used was HIFX, as I am getting an apartment in SOF soon (hopefully). I forward bought all the required Euros on a 3 month lock in so that fluctuations couldn't knacker the purchase price for me. XE is another reputable outfit.

I too saved £000's
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top