Nogo

I recently made a number of transfers to Australia through HIFX. The transfers arrived less charges made during the process. My account was charged with the charges that HIFX are supposed to pay. The response from HIFX was that it was my banks fault, nothing to do with them and I should take it up with my receiving bank.

Also HIFX claim that this had never happened before. (I know this to be untrue because the same thing happened to me last year)

I have sent proof of charges and have been trying to recover the charges for 2 months now. Their attitude is that HIFX transfer instructions do not work it is not the fault of HIFX and blow you if you are only the customer in the middle.

The charges are small compared with the transfers but I thought others should be aware of their aggressive attitude, lack of customer service and refusal to honour their so-called policy of refunding any charges incurred by the customer.

Fortunately there are much better forex companies.

Nicky & Dave

Thanks for the feedback, Nogo. We signed up with HIFX at one of the expat shows earier this year, and are considering them, amongst others, to handle our money transfers. Will certainly bear this in mind before we make any final decisions.

Rgds,

Nicky

Ozceltic

Yes, thank you for the info as we are currnetly in the process of registering with HIFX to handle our financial needs.
We will look at other options in the meantime.
If you don't mind me asking what amount did the charges amount to?

lened

I've been using Hifx for months now and I've checked and I've never had any charges . Ive always found them very reliable. Perhaps it is your bank and not HIFX ?

samnrob2

Ditto, we found HIFX to be really reliable. Even though they did suggest holding off from exchanging at $2.44 because they thought it would rise to 2.5 (promptly fell to $2.3!).

Other than that, never been charged and always really responsive and friendly.

R

spalen

Here's what Ive learned through personal experience (Im in Aus)

Hifx are ok but some people have started to complain that they arent that helpful. They were ok for me b ut I know a bit about foreign exchange dealing so I was ok with them and understood what was going on. They are a proper broker . Also you have to register with them here in Aus an din UK seperately and all the trading is done on phone with faxed letters requiring signature etc.

The cheapest way to spend UK money in Aus if you are still in Uk is to get to the Nationwide and open an account and bring that visa card with you. They dont mind you moving abroad so long as you have a UK correspondence address (mum/friend/anything). Their rate on using Visa cards inAus is the interbank rate (brilliant) with no extra charges, nearly all banks charge an extra 2.75%

I use tranzfers.com to do my transfers, I used HIfX for my 100K$ bond but since then Ive used transfers for the rest of my money. They are totally online, 100% helpful, will ring you to help if you need it. You can track and trace the transaction fully online , you can put the money into Tranzfers and then elect to 'buy' the currency when you need it or the rate is good and 24hrs later it is in your aussie account , or you can just 'auto trnsfer' and it happens as soon as. They bank with Barclays in UK so think about a barclays account before you cmoe out that helps with speed of transfers. But Barclays online has a 2k limit per day for transfers

Most banks have transfer limits - so think about how youre going tomove your moeny after youve left because popping into the branch to sign a form becomes a 2000pound + 24hrs exercise ;-)

If you do register with Tranzfers please please pretty please use my referral ID which is
http://www.tranzfers.com/refer.asp?r=ijcollins

Or if you dont want to give me brownie points :-( then its www.tranzfers.com
they are the same company as ozforex.com

ohippy

I've just started looking into this and view the exchange rates on Tranzfers and Oz Forex but, if they are the same coy , why are the exchange rates different ?

spalen

Dunno about that ;-)

But dont trust the exchange rates you can see onthe websites - the only valid one is the one you see when you try to execute the trade or set the trade up , anything else is just a 'quote' . HIFX website rate is different to the rate thye quote when you ring up , depends on volume(amount of cash) etc .

linabey

[QUOTE=spalen] [The cheapest way to spend UK money in Aus if you are still in Uk is to get to the Natwest bank and open an account and bring that visa card with you. They dont mind you moving abroad so long as you have a UK correspondence address (mum/friend/anything). Their rate on using Visa cards inAus is the interbank rate (brilliant) with no extra charges, nearly all banks charge an extra 2.75% ]

I think you mean Nationwide rather than NatWest have no extra charges?

spottydog

[QUOTE=linabey] I was thinking that, we're set up a Nationwide Flexaccount to our parents can pay birthday/christmas money into it. Whilst it's probably about the cheapest way to move small amounts the rate used is the Visa rate which is not exactly interbank and on large amounts probably isn't the most competative.

I've just opened an account with Oxforex and they said for about £150k I would be looking at about 100 points off the forex rate and no extra charges which I thought wasn't too bad.

spalen

my mistake - edited to correc it - they all sound the same now

jumbo

I've got the same problem on transferring to HSBC in Australia. HIFX have been refusing to refund the charges since August saying its HSBCs fault. HSBC have now confirmed that it was HIFX's bank in Australia which deducted charges! So I am now waiting to see if theHIFX will now refund. If not I shall report back here and continue the fight until they do.

jumbo

After numerous exchanges HIFX refuse to admit that they have a problem. They say that it is impossible for me to have been charged despite the fact that it has happened on a number of occasions. This is also despite the fact that their arm of Barclays (ANZ) have admitted that THEY took the charges before transferring the cash within Australia. In the process they are blaming HSBC (Australia) for taking the charges. They have no respect whatsoever for the customer in this matter and have lost my further business for good.

CadburysFingers

HIFX tried to pull the same stunt with us, and failed, they said their bank (ANZ if I remember rightly) made a charge for transferring funds to a non ANZ account, I said fair enough, but if they do, whats that got to do with me, I dont even bank with ANZ, after much tooing and frowing my money was returned, and they didnt try it again, if people pay the charge without a challenge, they will continue to try and enforce it. If HIFX's bank make any charges to HIFX for any nbanking procedures then its up to HIFX to settle those charges, unless they agreed in the original contract that an additional charge would be made.

annqldau

We were advised by the HSBC here in Aus that if you were already an HSBC customer and opened an HSBC foriegn exchange account in UK you could then transfer your money to Aus still in sterling then convert it bit by bit your self online whenever you wanted if the exchange rate was what you wanted.