I've been overpaid retirement benefit by the SSA. They have asked for repayment within 30 days, or they'll start recouping the overpayment by underpaying me in a few months time. The options for payment are by US cheque or international money order in USD. I've looked into getting a money order and no UK banks seem to do them anymore. Anyone done this and if so how?

I would let them start recouping what they owe by reducing your payments. Someone on another forum is going through something similar, and in his case they will be pulling what is owed from his benefits over a 10 month period. Since it is almost certainly their fault they won’t be charging penalties.

Yes that is an option. I wasn't sure if it would be frowned upon.

I doubt it will frowned upon, they have got to expect that non-residents are going to have difficulty paying.

Thanks

You may be searching for the wrong name. I took a quick look, via Google, and found that Barclay's, Lloyds, NatWest, RBS, and Bank of Ireland (at that point I stopped looking) all sell "bank drafts" in USD.

A bank draft is just a fancy name for a cheque drawn by a bank on an account in its own name. So where your personal cheques say "Mr Sparks", and "Barclay's Bank" for the bank where the account is held, a bank draft will say "Barclay's Bank PLC", and then the US bank where Barclay's holds its USD account, so something like "Citibank", or "Bank of America".

I'm afraid that information is out of date. Barclay's don't as of Jan 2024, NatWest don't and Halifax don't (so I assume Lloyds don't, being part of HBOS). I haven't tried every bank in the UK obviously but I haven't found one that does yet. And you generally have to bank with them anyway. Forgot to say, I realise they're called bank drafts here.

Hmm, OK. .... It's strange that none of them have updated their web site.

Indeed. In fact, I've contacted many banks on Twitter (X) and in some cases the first answer I received was "yes we do". And when I asked them to confirm they can provide a draft in USD, they say "ah, sorry, no". They all suggest I use an international bank transfer .... which is nice ... but useless.

Honestly, just let them take it out of future SS payments like they say, it will be a lot less hassle, and free of charge.

Yup.