Everybody seems to do Paypal or (International) Bank Transfers.

Paypal

3% + $0.30 per sale + 2.5% for currency conversion + 1.5% fee if international transaction fee if the charge is being billed from another country.



(International) Bank Transfers

Fees vary bank to bank but you get charged a transaction fee as well as for currency conversion too (not sure how much, but my gut says its more than 2.5% (It's noticeable).



The latter is usually what trusting fellow forum members do between each other, and Paypal has some mechanisms that protect transactions with Joe-Soap.

Why don't more of you folk use either Transferwise or Revolut?

Transferwise (https://transferwise.com)

They take 0.5% cut (https://transferwise.com/pricing). Money is not internationally transferred...and they use Reuters mid-market rate (they claim).

Revolut (https://revolut.com)

Peer to peer, you can do everything electronically on your phone (via their App). Its instant.
They even give you a card free of charge (ok, you pay for postage) with an IBAN (UK based) linked to that. You can use your card all over the place.

(https://revolut.com/faq) Instant transfers (Revolut to Revolut) are free. Bank transfers are free.
Currency exchange transactions (Currency exchange and cross-currency card purchases, withdrawals, and bank transfers) you get live market rate with no fees, up to £5,000/ €6,000/ Fr6,000/ 20,000zl (or currency equivalent) per month. A 0.5% fee applies thereafter.
Withdrawal charges : Free up to £200/ €200/ Fr200/ 800zl (or currency equivalent) per month. A 2% fee applies thereafter.

Seeing as this is in the context of forumite to forumite, the currency exchange peer to peer transfers are most interesting imho (as are the same-currency transfers) : €6,000 per month free transfer (provided you exchange currency, same currency should be unlimited) with interbank exchange rates is pretty decent I would say.

What do you say? Why don't you use any of these? Any other good alternatives worth mentioning?

Edit : I am in no way affiliated with any of these.

 

I heard about revolut from my friend too. He seems happy using it but I have not personally tried it. I should.

 

Never heard of Revolut, but am going to try it out, just downloaded the App.

 

Comes down to trust. People don't like giving bank info to services they have not heard of.

Ask me how I know...

 

I hear you.

Dunno about Transferwise but with Revolut you simply attach your bank account number (IBAN here) to your profile, if you want to transfer out. People can only pay money into that account with that info. They were super strict about me validating who I was when doing it...a good thing.

Also, both are on Wikipedia...no fly-by-nighters...

 

I used TransferWise for the last instalment payment on a recent watch purchase. The process was fast and seamless, and the bonus in Australia was that I could use a trusted Australian third-party service they are affiliated with to move the money almost instantly from my bank account to TansferWise. My only regret is that I didn’t know about TransferWise when I paid the earlier instalments. I estimate I would have saved around another AU$200.

 

I almost always use TransferWise for international payments - including payments for watches bought here..

 

Are all these methods safe? Only reason why i still use Paypal is because its safe. Protects me as a buyer/seller.

 

Not in the sense that they have buyer/seller protection, but with sellers demanding wire transfer more often, this at least let’s you do the deal at a lower cost.

 

So, i should only be using this method of payment with established sellers, like kringly etc?

 

Well, that depends on how important the watch is to you and your level of risk acceptance.

 

Was kindof my implication. Ie any of the established forum members (or those whose names I recognize) I wouldn’t hesitate to do direct bank transfers to (or these).

 

Interesting, thanks for the info @eugeneandresson atm I have used all except Revolut. Will give a try. Transferwise is AAA.

I personally have no issues at all to communicate my IBAN to a service that will transfer money to my account. Can you please elaborate on issues you have with that?

 

Not me

Perceived issues of an unknown service for many people.

For many people it's hard to determine if something is legit, so they stick with what they know.

 

Giving your IBAN or account number is for me like giving your phone number. @Foo2rama That number doesn’t allow the service to get any money of it...

Sounds like if you were anxious to give your phone number to anybody unknown by fear of having your photos and contacts stolen. (Ok can happen to Androïd users, bad example )

 

Funny thing about this mentality of people is that at one point 'what they know' was something unknown to them ...

 

If you're a seller, at least in the UK it's completely safe - once money is in your account, it is extremely difficult for it to be taken back, and of course you don't send the watch until the funds have cleared. If you're a buyer, well it depends on how much you trust the seller-but then you should be buying the seller as much as the watch....

It also depends on how much you object to PayPal's charges...

 

If Someone has your phone number and email adress and you use two way authentication on a service, it's possible to simulate you phone provider and emulate your sim card and voila, they have access to your account.this method is called social engineering.
Strange that we think 2 way authentication is safer when in some instances it's not. I read up on all this when I thought about getting into bitcoin and crypto.

That said, transferwise seems legit. Have not tried Revolut yet.

 

I like what i'm hearing and will try some of these new money transfer models.

 

Not sure it can be (other than any way that funds can be retracted legally from your normal bank account i.e. you are a member of the Cali Cartel)...

...which is immediate...

From my brief experience with Revolut, the authentication is not two way per se. I have an iPhone, so use the fingerprint reader to log in (which happens every time you come back to the app, even when you leave it open). Then, when setting up the account, they want a whole list of things (via photos you upload directly) i.e. proof of ID, proof of residence, proof of address etc ... you gotto prove who you are, and they know it. Same when I added a bank account to get funds out (I was a bit taken a-back that they wanted more proof, but in retrospect I feel its good). Just FYI...

As mentioned, have only used it once, and would like to continue using it Transferwise I will sign up for when the time/need arises...

Edit : One last thing worth mentioning re the Revolut app which was also impressive : its all done via the customer support channel within the app (uploading, verification etc)...and their support is superb (well, it was for me)...