PayPal, if you don't mind giving your business to reactionary Americans. Otherwise you could try giving a cc authorisation for that amount. Car hire places seem to regard that as okay for security. On 18/03/2014 5:40 PM, "Roger Clarke" <roger.cla...@xamax.com.au> wrote:
> What are linkers' experiences with making payments overseas? > > I paid 50% of a 10-day rental in France recently. > > Suncorp took AUD 20 off me for starters. > Then it arrived EUR 38 short. > > That mirrors the experience with a payment to an Austrian bank last year. > > Despite the invention of SWIFT 40 years ago, it appears that > Australian banks aren't big enough or organised enough to be able to > pay directly to mainstream banks overseas. > > Instead, unnecessary intermediaries are used. Suncorp, and I gather > banks generally, protect themslelves by saying 'there may be fees'. > But you can't know in advance what they are. I'm looking for someone > to threaten litigation, in order to force basic consumer rights to be > reinstated. > > In this case, Suncorp wrote an unapologetic letter back to me, > pointed to their Terms, and offered to send the missing EUR 38 on to > the French bank as a one-time-only favour. > > I agreed, partly to get the EUR 38 back, partly to solve the > immediate problem of the short-payment, but mainly to establish that > they can indeed achieve payment of a nominated amount to a distant > account. Precisely EUR 38 arrived. So they're bare-faced liars for > saying that they can't do it! > > > In the meantime, I need to make a further 50% payment to the French bank. > > Does anyone know of a way to transfer funds that costs less than AUD > 80 per transaction??!! > > (With the largely-automated systems that are in place, somewhere > closer to AUD 0.80 seems like a fair price. Currency conversion is a > separate transaction of course, with its own 'spread', i.e. fees, > plus commission). > > > [I'll claim this isn't Off-Topic, on the basis that, like SCADA, some > part of the international transfer system probably now uses the > Internet - one hopes, using a VPN ...] > > > -- > Roger Clarke http://www.rogerclarke.com/ > > Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA > Tel: +61 2 6288 6916 http://about.me/roger.clarke > mailto:roger.cla...@xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/ > > Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law University of N.S.W. > Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University > _______________________________________________ > Link mailing list > Link@mailman.anu.edu.au > http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link > _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
