Sending money from the US Internet to England

[RAc]

10 hours ago, Don Taylor said:

 

It is also worth pointing out that your government already has ready access to your banking records and all of your activities on the web should they want to access it.

 

True, but it's also worth pointing out a few other things:

 

1. Governmental access requires permission of the disclosure by a judge (at least in all western democracies), so there is control over who gets access and who doesn't.

 

2. There is a significant difference between the interest of the government in the data and the interest of private companies (such as escrow companies).

 

3. The government normally doesn't resell the data for profit once they were able to gather it

 

4. (at least in Europe) a government is not allowed to reassemble unrelated data. For example, the social security services may get access to your health records, and police may get access to your financial transaction records, but the two may not exchange or merge the data belonging to the same person. Private companies (unless forbidden by law, but even then there are grey data paths) don't have sruples in putting together as many data about individuals from all sources as they can possibly get.

 

So unless you believe that the government by definition is the enemy of the individual (as I understand some people do, especially in the US), I don't really see a point in your above statement.

 

[Don Taylor]

5 hours ago, RAc said:

Governmental access requires permission of the disclosure by a judge (at least in all western democracies), so there is control over who gets access and who doesn't

Well, that has not been my personal experience here in Canada, which, I believe, is one of the more benigh western countries.

 

I was importing a boat from the US to Canada and pulled into the customs dock to make my declaration and pay taxes and duties.  I had two notarized statements declaring what I had paid for the boat (one from the New York State where I bought the boat and one from Connecticut where the seller lived).  I had a receipt from my bank for the money transfer.   When my wife and I presented at the customs house the officer simpy refused to beleive that we had paid so little for the boat.  We were interrogated separately and together for two hours, and I mean interrogated which included the customs officer lying to my wife about what I had said in my interrogation.  Finally, he made a phone call and I heard him reading out my bank details to another officer.  A few minutes later he gets a returned call and then abruptly lets us go.  I doubt that they had time to get a judge to get access to my bank records.

 

 

[RAc]

Be as it may, does that vindicate the practice of data mining by private companies or make it any less opposable? I still don't see why you brought governmental privacy issues into the discussion.

 

[Ken_Coles]

The content here related to concertinas has been about ways to transfer funds internationally, and some of the pitfalls we should all be aware of on the internet. Assuming we have covered that it may be time to recess the rest of the discussion to another forum. Back to your concertinas, thanks.

 

Ken

[StephenTx]

On 3/3/2021 at 10:40 AM, StephenTx said:

Sending money from the US Internet to England

I ordered some parts from Steve Dickinson and need to send payment from him he has requested it to be in pounds £ 15.91.  I’ve never done this before although I said a lot of money Internet wise here in the US. What would be the easiest way to send money in pounds to England. Thank you

I ended up sending it directly online from my US Bank account Bank of America.   Proved in the end to be very easy.  Wise became complex.

[Paul_Hardy]

Good to hear that worked well - I suspect you were lucky in that Bank of America is one of the half dozen big banks that has a substantial international presence, and hence is used to such transfers. USA is odd compared with Europe in having a large number of small banks (over 5000 I think), compared with 400 or so for the UK or Germany. Many of the smaller ones would struggle to do such a transfer - I speak from experience in using a Californian bank!

 

Out of interest what did BoA charge for a £16 transfer?

[StephenTx]

2 minutes ago, Paul_Hardy said:

Good to hear that worked well - I suspect you were lucky in that Bank of America is one of the half dozen big banks that has a substantial international presence, and hence is used to such transfers. USA is odd compared with Europe in having a large number of small banks (over 5000 I think), compared with 400 or so for the UK or Germany. Many of the smaller ones would struggle to do such a transfer - I speak from experience in using a Californian bank!

 

Out of interest what did BoA charge for a £16 transfer?

$9.00

[StephenTx]

1 minute ago, StephenTx said:

$9.00

Correctly 3.00

[Paul_Hardy]

Hmmm. It's probably not a problem this time, but $9 as a 40% surcharge is not trivial - If you had persisted with Wise, it would probably have been substantially less.

 

Ah, I've just seen your amendment to $3 - so 13% is more reasonable.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Paul_Hardy
amend figures