WVDreamer

So I am living in the USA, but I still have my bank account (Halifax) in the UK. I basically only use this to pay my British credit card (Capital one UK). I am now out of funds in my Halifax account, is there a quick and easy way to simply put a small amount of money in there from over here in the USA?

I know I can do a bank transfer from my american bank but they wanted something like $70 to do the transfer. I only need to put in like $50 to begin with so I would rather not have to pay that.

Apparently it's impossible to pay a British capital one UK credit card from abroad, my wife tried using our american bank card to pay it but they will only accept a British payment method grrrrrrrrrrr.

I do have a paypal uk account and my wife has a paypal usa account. We thought we could simply transfer money to her paypal account, then to mine, then from that to my bank but even that didn't work. Apparently when you use a 'moneypak' card which we bought from Walmart to pay money into your paypal account it requires that you verify your address. That seems fine, however our address is some weird (HC ##, Box ###) type address and the damm website is going crazy saying it cannot accept a PO Box!

Does anyone have a decent and quick way of doing this without me swearing and getting very annoyed?

Are there any banks in the USA with some kind of link to the Halifax where I can go and just deposit money into that account?

Very annoyed at the moment that something this simple is causing me so much grief

Ash UK/US

Is there anyone in the UK who could put the money into the account for you? I loaned my sister a few hundred dollars a couple of months ago, I did a money transfer from Walmart (she had to take her ID to the local Post Office to collect). It cost $9 total for the transfer and she collected it the next day.

henryh

It's worth setting up xetrade.com or a similar service if you intend to do this more than once. A minor hassle to get set up (usually a couple of phone calls and you have to fax a form) but after that very straightforward to use, there's no lower limit on the amount sent, no fees and better exchange rates than any bank etc.

WVDreamer

Really? I didn't even know Walmart did that kind of thing, my wife actually works for Walmart as well

Do you remember what that service is called?

WVDreamer

That sounds very promising, if they don't charge any fee then what is it for them though?

Ash UK/US

I looked into that too but to be honest it was WAY more hassle than it was worth, maybe worth it is you plan on regular transfers.

Ash UK/US

http://www.walmart.com/cp/Online-Mon...nsfers/1089406.

WVDreamer

Your're a star! Thank you so much, I just did a quick check and the post office near where my parents live accept moneygram pickups

Thank you so much again.

EDIT: Quick update, I just saw that Walmart have a service called Xoom, that allows you to transfer money direct into a british bank account, AWESOME!!!!! All for less than $5!

MoshiMoshi

I really recommend Xoom! I used it after hearing about it here, and was really impressed at how fast and easy it was. I didn't know it was connected with Walmart, though.

henryh

They make money on the difference between buy and sell rates. Even so, the rates are better than you'll get almost anywhere else, especially with no minimum amount. The Xoom thing looks nice and easy though, if you don't mind the fees and worse rates.

e.g. to send 100 GBP over Xoom, their rate is 0.6056 GBP/USD with a $4.74 fee if you use a bank account (more if you use a credit card). That works out to a total of $169.86.

Xetrade has no fee and a better rate of 0.6101 GBP/USD, meaning your 100 GBP will cost only $163.91. I can spend the extra $5.95 on a sandwich. And because I have the system set up already, it only takes me 5 minutes to set up the transfer online. I'll grant that it's a bit of bother to set up in the first place though, so if this really is only a one-time thing then it's not worth the effort. I've used it probably 20-30 times over the past 5 years, so it's worth it to me.

tonrob

+1 for xe

Yes there is set up to do, but it's not that bad and then you always have the service to use after that whenever you need it. I will not voluntarily put my own hard earned money straight into a financial institution's profit margin if there's no need - it's simply throwing cash down the toilet - so I will always take the route that's most profitable to me.

Bob

xoom.com for pretty much instance transfer for $5.

For regular stuff, probably best to use xe.com but it does take a little while to initially set up.

cranston

+1 XE

robin1234

Low tech way, will take a few days, is simply mail a US dollar tellers check to your bank in the UK. No actual fees involved, just a not very favorable exchange rate. I did this a few years ago when I'd set up an account in the UK for a specific purpose, the funds were delayed in arriving, so the bloody bank started charging me fees for having a zero balance. So I sent a small check from here in the post, $150 dollars I think. It was credited to my UK account in pounds in less than a week..

Madelina

I have a paypal account from when i lived in the UK, and one i set up here in the usa (mostly because it was a hassle to change countries on my old account) but its proved very useful, because i pay myself $600 from funds in my uk bank account every month (child support) and its so quick with paypal - i just pay one account with the other, then do an immediate withdraw to my bank... it costs about $10 for that amount - obviously big transfers are a lot with paypal and so aren't worth it, but Lloyds TSb would charge me £10 a time for an international transfer so i find this way the quickest and cheapest for me.... is it ultimately the cheapest? probably not, but its very easy. I'm sure it would work just as well going from my usa paypal to uk, also.

maddy