bringing money to US part 2!!!
 

Okay, I found a solution to my particular dilemma.
I wasn't keen on the idea of bringing a large amount of cash on my person through the airports, so I asked Lloyds TSB what services they have abroad. They don't have any branches over there, but I'm going in tomorrow to open an account, and I can transfer up to £5,000 for a WHOPPING...................£13!!! Woo hoo!!!! Other than that, I was thinking of Western Union, but I didn't relish the idea of paying their extortionate charges.
Can anyone recommend a good bank in the States? (Fort Lauderdale). I've looked for a few sites, and my mind's boggled!!!!! I just need something fairly basic for now, but something that will let me have my (eventual) wages paid in, and can also let me pay the bills through it. (My fiance doesn't have an account, and refuses to get one for himself. Long story, don't ask!!!! LOL)
The people at Lloyds also said it's worth asking one of the US banks if they will open an account for me over the phone before I get there. Does anyone know if this is feasible, before I go spending loads of cash on wasted phonecalls?
Thanks for any info.
Kate. xxxx:D:D:D

My daugther's on the other side of Florida, in Naples, and she uses Bank of America. Won't touch the question about the fiancee who won't open a bank account. Where does he live by the way. I'll be in Ft. Lauderdale in January and will stop by to relieve him of that lumpy mattress.

Rete

Re: bringing money to US part 2!!!
 

------------------------------
As someone who moved from the UK to the US, take care to find a bank that has experience of handling wire transfers to and from abroad.

I moved to North Carolina so I can't comment on the banks in Florida but a lot of British live in that state so many of the banks there may be helpful and have experience of receiving foreign currency from the UK and sending money to the UK.

I didn't bring much in the way of money with me to the US when I moved Stateside.

Instead, after opening a joint account with a local (Statewide) bank, I simply transfered some funds from my Barclays Bank account to the newly opened US account. However, by doing a BACS transfer, I got hit by charges both from Barclays and the US bank. I'm afraid I can't remember how much it cost in total but the speed was only three days for the money to make it to the US bank so I was satisfied.




NC Penguin

Re: bringing money to US part 2!!!
 

If your in the UK why not send the money to yourself via a MoneyGram?
These are located at Thomas Cook shops.

You go in to the shop, tell them how much you want to send, then they take
2% commission, so get them to work it out for you before hand..bring some
ID, and then get them to send it..You might have to do 2 transactions though
for a £5000 amount.

They'll then ask you where you want to transfer it too...just say Fort
Lauderdale, then ask for the list of "pick up" locations around there. They
should give you a print out of the locations, a copy of the MoneyGram
transaction form and a receipt for the transaction. No bank needed! You can
even pick these up in Wal-Mart :)

I've used they method quite a few times so its say, as one Brit to another
    :)

Gavin

"katesuiter" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Okay, I found a solution to my particular dilemma.
    > I wasn't keen on the idea of bringing a large amount of cash on my
    > person through the airports, so I asked Lloyds TSB what services they
    > have abroad. They don't have any branches over there, but I'm going in
    > tomorrow to open an account, and I can transfer up to £5,000 for a
    > WHOPPING...................£13!!! Woo hoo!!!! Other than that, I was
    > thinking of Western Union, but I didn't relish the idea of paying their
    > extortionate charges.
    > Can anyone recommend a good bank in the States? (Fort Lauderdale). I've
    > looked for a few sites, and my mind's boggled!!!!! I just need something
    > fairly basic for now, but something that will let me have my (eventual)
    > wages paid in, and can also let me pay the bills through it. (My fiance
    > doesn't have an account, and refuses to get one for himself. Long story,
    > don't ask!!!! LOL)
    > The people at Lloyds also said it's worth asking one of the US banks if
    > they will open an account for me over the phone before I get there. Does
    > anyone know if this is feasible, before I go spending loads of cash on
    > wasted phonecalls?
    > Thanks for any info.
    > Kate. xxxx:D:D:D
    > --
    > Posted via http://britishexpats.com


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Re: bringing money to US part 2!!!
 

katesuiter wrote in news:561231.1037303577
@britishexpats.com:

    > Okay, I found a solution to my particular dilemma.
    > I wasn't keen on the idea of bringing a large amount of cash on my
    > person through the airports, so I asked Lloyds TSB what services they
    > have abroad. They don't have any branches over there, but I'm going in
    > tomorrow to open an account, and I can transfer up to £5,000 for a
    > WHOPPING...................£13!!!

I'm astonished they quoted you 13 pound (argh, no pound sign!) for that;
last time I enquired into money transfers at Lloyds, they were quoting 35
pound for any significant amount!

At the moment I'm using Paypal to transfer money in and out, it might be
slightly risky but it's cheaper for me to do it like that - they only
charge 1 pound per transaction to/from UK banks, and I need every pound I
can get!

--

Targaff

Re: bringing money to US part 2!!!
 

I have found that most US banks charge "account management fees" plus our
previous bank also charged for using an ATM at another bank. So I found a
great credit union that doesnt make any of these charges.

just my 2 pennth (cents)
Jan :o)
"katesuiter" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Okay, I found a solution to my particular dilemma.
    > I wasn't keen on the idea of bringing a large amount of cash on my
    > person through the airports, so I asked Lloyds TSB what services they
    > have abroad. They don't have any branches over there, but I'm going in
    > tomorrow to open an account, and I can transfer up to £5,000 for a
    > WHOPPING...................£13!!! Woo hoo!!!! Other than that, I was
    > thinking of Western Union, but I didn't relish the idea of paying their
    > extortionate charges.
    > Can anyone recommend a good bank in the States? (Fort Lauderdale). I've
    > looked for a few sites, and my mind's boggled!!!!! I just need something
    > fairly basic for now, but something that will let me have my (eventual)
    > wages paid in, and can also let me pay the bills through it. (My fiance
    > doesn't have an account, and refuses to get one for himself. Long story,
    > don't ask!!!! LOL)
    > The people at Lloyds also said it's worth asking one of the US banks if
    > they will open an account for me over the phone before I get there. Does
    > anyone know if this is feasible, before I go spending loads of cash on
    > wasted phonecalls?
    > Thanks for any info.
    > Kate. xxxx:D:D:D
    > --
    > Posted via http://britishexpats.com

Re: bringing money to US part 2!!!
 

jan wrote:
    >
    > I have found that most US banks charge "account management fees" plus our
    > previous bank also charged for using an ATM at another bank. So I found a
    > great credit union that doesnt make any of these charges.

US banks have always had these sorts of crap charges for everything (as
far as I can remember). They take your money and offer few services in
return.

Re: bringing money to US part 2!!!
 

Yes, I agree. It is all about Credit Unions. I have always been able to bank at one since I arrived in the States, and it has been awsome. At first, it doesn't look like there is much difference between a bank and a Credit Union but as it goes, I realized that there is a much bigger difference than I thought at first. Among other, they have much better interest rates for savings accounts than "commercial banks" [the one I found is 3 times the rate of the big names around here for a much smaller amount of required money in the account to get that rate (tiered system)]. They also have lower fees in general but they always charge something when you use somebody else's ATM except when you use an ATM from their nationwide Credit Union network.

Caroline

Re: bringing money to US part 2!!!
 

But I thought that I should add that some of them do charge you something to receive a wire from abroad, which I think is pretty standard. My Credit Union in Michigan kept telling me that they did not charge anything, but the wire (that was the system) was going through another bank that charged something ($15, if I remember well).

Caroline

Re: bringing money to US part 2!!!
 

I don't have any advice about the banking situation, but I CAN tell you Stateside Brits who are missing your good ol' pound sign, there IS a way!!

If you use a PC, use the following command to get it:

ALT-0163

If you use a Mac, do this:

Option-3

Hold down the Alt/Option key while you type the numbers. When you release the Alt/Option key, look at what you get:

£££££

Wooohooo!! :D Try it, it's fun!!

~ Jenney :)

p.s. If you want to do other special characters like this (½ ® • ¿ ç etc), check out this site: http://www.typeart.com/special_characters.asp

off shore?
 

I know we have looked into sending money TO the UK, and my branch of Bank of America wants 40 bucks to do it!!! My husband plans to open an offshore account-dollar and sterling in order to handle bills in the UK and to transfer money here. I find it ironic that whenever I go over to the UK to visit him, I can use my ATM card and only pay the 1.50 charge and yet if I use it here and it's a non network bank, I pay MY banl's 1.50 charge PLUS the other banks 1.50 charge......

Re: bringing money to US part 2!!!
 

In article , Jenney &
writes
    >I don't have any advice about the banking situation, but I CAN tell
    >you Stateside Brits who are missing your good ol' pound sign, there
    >IS a way!!
    >If you use a PC, use the following command to get it:
    >ALT-0163
    >p.s. If you want to do other special characters like this (½ ® • ¿ ç

What you suggest enables the writer to display special characters on
*their* screen. It does nothing to ensure that the reader sees the
characters that you wrote. Neither does it do anything to ensure that
the thousands of news servers around the world which transport your
message to the recipients recognise such characters. Hint : news servers
use many and varied computers and operating systems and just about the
only common denominator is the first 127 characters of US ASCII (the
first 31 of which often contain printer control codes).

Of the special characters you quote -

½ - displays OK
® - displays OK
• - displays as a black rectangular blob
¿ - displays OK
ç - displays OK

When I instruct my software to post this message it will warn me that it
contains characters that are not guaranteed to pass correctly through
all the transports it may encounter on its path through usenet.

Many therefore regard it as clearer and safer to use abbreviations per
ISO standard 4217 e.g.-

GBP - pound sterling
CAD - Canadian dollar

--
squire
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. (Groucho)

Re: off shore?
 

Cindy,
I'm still paying off debts in England, and the first time we did it through our bank here and it was the same crap..$45 to send less than $500! Now we use c2it (www.c2it.com). You stock your c2it acct up by transferring money to it from your US bank (free), and then transfer money from the c2it acct to the UK acct, and that only costs $10. It's really been a lifesaver, it's saved us 100's of bucks already and I've only been here 6 months.

-Harry

THANKS
 

Harry,
Thanks for the info. I must admit that the UK is ahead of the US in their banking practices...

Re: bringing money to US part 2!!!
 

Jenney & Mark wrote in
news:[email protected]:

    > If you use a PC, use the following command to get it:
    >
    > ALT-0163

Heh, I knew there'd be one somewhere - I've had to learn all the accented
ones for my là ngüâgé work - but I've never had need of that one before...
must make a note of it somewhere *looks for notepad*

--

Targaff