suburbanmum

We are moving in a few months & will need to buy a car fairly quickly after arrival. I'm reluctant to use a UK credit card given fees etc but we won't have our US bank account up and running and the money transferred by then. We'd be looking at something in the order of $20k so not something we could easily cover with travellers cheques. Is there an easy way of doing this without incuring cc fees (assuming we can get our credit limit raised to cover it anyway!)? IS this the kind of thing we could get one of these pre loaded credit cards for?

Grateful for any advice....

avanutria

If I were you I would arrange a rental for the first few weeks. If you use a UK rental website (ie budget.co.uk instead of budget.com) it will include insurance. You'll need to arrange insurance before buying your car anyway, so you won't be able to get one instantly. Give yourself a couple of weeks to get things in order and the money in place.

Also the reason I suggested budget is because when we rented from them we were able to return it early (when we bought our car) and get a refund for the amount of time that we didn't use it.

PS - you're likely to accrue more fee costs using a prepaid card than your regular one...those things are little more than legal scams in most cases.

Michael

It is unlikely that a car dealer will accept credit cards. The fee to a dealer on a $20,000 purchase will be likely very high.

meauxna

I tried to do that with my last Volvo and the dealer would only allow me to charge $5000 of it. I wanted the airline miles, they did not want the fee. Fair enough, they saw me coming.

Poppy girl

Can ask what state you are moving too.

Hawkini

What State you're moving to affects IF you can buy a car - we can't buy a car until we have a NC (North Carolina) driving license, and then you need insurance as well before you buy it.

Can't get a NC Driving License unless you have your SS# card... and we're currently waiting on that...

We went with readydrive.com - someone else recommended them on this site - excellent company, no probs, and a shed load cheaper than what I was expecting. Minimum term is a month though...

Hope this helps!

BritishGuy36

If you are in London you could set up a US-based bank account now with either Wells Fargo or Wachovia by going in person to their London HQ offices with the correct forms(s) of ID. Then you'd have a check(que)book so you could write a check(que) the second you land in the US.

You could transfer money from the UK to said bank account using UKForex.co.uk or one of the other specialist exchange agents.

Jools-Ann

We emigrated to GA in September. I brought £8000 cash for a car and then put it in my bank account here but had to wait 10 days for it to clear for some bizarre reason. You will need a bank account unless you have the cash. I paid the balance on my debit card, you can get the limit raised temporarily (well with Bank of America you can). However car dealers do prefer cash or a cheque prep'd by the bank as it is easy to cancel debit card transactions here. I was allowed to buy the car and take it away without a GA license but then the dealer told me I had to have a GA license to get the title (registration) so I had to go and do my test pretty quickly. The car had a temporary tag for 28 days. I had to produce evidences as well such as my green card, proof of living in GA (my rental agreement) and also my UK drivers license. Insurance was pretty easy to get through Progressive but it was expensive.

BritishGuy36

Cash doesn't need to 'clear'. Your bank must have just done something stupid.....then again it was BoA......

meauxna

If it was pound notes, I can imagine...

Jools-Ann

It was mainly £50 notes and I know cash doesn't have to clear!! I had a fit at the customer service rep but it fell on deaf ears! The teller didn't even know what UK currency was called, and she counted it wrong!

Cape Blue

Get a car loan for a chunk of it - important when trying to develop a credit history.

meauxna

So the foreign currency *did* have to clear.

lndn2nbca

I opened a Wells Fargo account in London based on my UK address (the guy even came to me to go through the paperwork, personally i think he just wanted an afternoon out of the office , but the net effect was that the account was usable a month before we came, I had the debit cards, check/cheque book etc.
I sold my car in the UK, transferred the money online and then just drew a cashiers check when I got here. No hassles at all.

Anne Morgan

I stand corrected .....
NJ does have a way around the SSN issue to register the vehicle with 6 points of ID. However good luck finding a dealer that is willing to register using this method! NJ DMV website has a disclaimer that other documents my apply. Here's a number for those that want to try and call NJ DMV for more accurate information: 888.486.3339.

Hope this helps.