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-   -   Transferring large amount from US bank to UK? (https://britishexpats.com/forum/usa-57/transferring-large-amount-us-bank-uk-763304/)

SadInStates Jun 29th 2012 11:38 am

Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 
We've been back in the UK almost a month now. Before we came back we spoke to someone at our bank in the USA who assured us that he would personally take care of transferring our money to the UK when the money from the sale of our house had gone through. He has now tried 3 times and nothing has left our account!

Is there any other way of transferring a large sum of money to the UK (over $100k), as we have bought a house here now and need that money pdq!! If all else fails we can write ourselves a cheque, but that would take too long to clear. We don't want to lose the house!

You'd think in the 17 years that we'd been in the States they would have moved on enough to be able to wire money further afield than Mexico, Puerto Rico and Cananda! :unsure:

Englishmum Jun 29th 2012 12:46 pm

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 

Originally Posted by SadInStates (Post 10145779)
We've been back in the UK almost a month now. Before we came back we spoke to someone at our bank in the USA who assured us that he would personally take care of transferring our money to the UK when the money from the sale of our house had gone through. He has now tried 3 times and nothing has left our account!

Is there any other way of transferring a large sum of money to the UK (over $100k), as we have bought a house here now and need that money pdq!! If all else fails we can write ourselves a cheque, but that would take too long to clear. We don't want to lose the house!

You'd think in the 17 years that we'd been in the States they would have moved on enough to be able to wire money further afield than Mexico, Puerto Rico and Cananda! :unsure:

Wow....how awful for you, but I'm not surprised at how incompetent your US bank official is.

The only thing I can think of is to try http://www.xetrade.com

However, to prevent international money laundering it does take a couple of days to set it up with them and they will phone you to check that it's all bona fide. We always do our money transfers with xe (it's cheaper than doing it via our bank, Chase) and they usually give a better rate than the banks do...definitely ask what rate they can give you for a large transfer.

Many posters on BE use xe for their international money transfers too, you can do a search and see the comments.

Hope this helps and you get that house! :fingerscrossed:

SadInStates Jun 29th 2012 1:40 pm

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 

Originally Posted by Englishmum (Post 10145864)
Wow....how awful for you, but I'm not surprised at how incompetent your US bank official is.

The only thing I can think of is to try http://www.xetrade.com

However, to prevent international money laundering it does take a couple of days to set it up with them and they will phone you to check that it's all bona fide. We always do our money transfers with xe (it's cheaper than doing it via our bank, Chase) and they usually give a better rate than the banks do...definitely ask what rate they can give you for a large transfer.

Many posters on BE use xe for their international money transfers too, you can do a search and see the comments.

Hope this helps and you get that house! :fingerscrossed:

We looked at xe but they wanted so much personal information, bank details, house transaction details, even our UK bank debit card number, we got leery and backed away. We've nothing to hide, but the sheer amount of info they wanted concerned us as it would make it too easy for identity theft.
Besides they wanted statements from our UK bank going back 3 months, and we've not even received one yet!! :blink:

Guess it'll involve yet another phonecall (and maybe the threat of a lawsuit ;)) to get them focussed!

Mummy in the foothills Jun 29th 2012 2:53 pm

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 
Have you looked at http://www.moneycorp.com/uk/ I think they need lots of info to make sure they follow laws and check you aren't money laundering, so need proof it's from a house sale. and follow where it's going.

englishguygoinghome Jun 29th 2012 2:57 pm

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 
What about sending it in multiple smaller segments 100k per day. HSBC let you do that via internet banking.
For forex specialists we've been very happy with TorFX but you've still got to get the money out of your foreign account and into their UK account.

SadInStates Jun 29th 2012 3:52 pm

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 
Thanks for those suggestions Mummy in the Foothills and Englishguygoinghome. I'll look into them. :)

J.JsOH Jun 29th 2012 3:59 pm

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 
Oh dear, that's real troublesome when you are needing the money being here for you now.

You don't say by what method your US person is attempting to send the $$. This may be a once in a lifetime event for someone in a bank to make such a transfer so they wouldn't necessarily know how to expedite.

I have used XE although I don't remember needing to provide all those docs you say they want. However it does take a while to set up an account. I seem to recall I had to sign paperwork and countersign by US bank and mail back to XE. Foreign exchange has justifiably more documentation controls than just within US.

But thats maybe by the by as you are in a rush because it still takes 5 or so days for XE to pull $$ from my US account and another 7 to arrive in my UK bank.

If it were me I would want to dig deeper into what is happening that end...... and I sure would want to know that the already attempted transfer wasn't already running in the background and end up overdrawn.

If I was desperate for the money as you say then I would write the check, it may be the quickest route since time is critical.

Western Union website claims immediate sign up and transfer.... but I have not used them.

J.JsOH Jun 29th 2012 4:02 pm

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 
[QUOTE=Englishmum;10145864]...... but I'm not surprised at how incompetent your US bank official is.
/QUOTE]

....compared to UK bankers who are demonstrating just how smart they really are given this weeks expose of LIBOR rate manipulation.:blink:

dunroving Jun 29th 2012 4:55 pm

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 

Originally Posted by J.JsOH (Post 10146257)
....compared to UK bankers who are demonstrating just how smart they really are given this weeks expose of LIBOR rate manipulation.:blink:

Bankers were getting ripped a new one on Question Time last night. I just don't understand why the government doesn't give the banking sector a right royal kicking. Let them leave the country (that's the usual threat to any sort of restriction of salaries, bonuses, etc.) if they want. In most other sectors, incompetence results in being fired, not given a huge bonus.

SadInStates Jun 29th 2012 7:33 pm

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 

Originally Posted by dunroving (Post 10146354)
Bankers were getting ripped a new one on Question Time last night. I just don't understand why the government doesn't give the banking sector a right royal kicking. Let them leave the country (that's the usual threat to any sort of restriction of salaries, bonuses, etc.) if they want. In most other sectors, incompetence results in being fired, not given a huge bonus.

I saw that, and quite agree with you. On the programme about London's streets (Portland Road) this week, a banker said in as many words that thier bailout bonuses paid for their expensive houses on streets like that. :frown:


Originally Posted by J.JsOH
If it were me I would want to dig deeper into what is happening that end...... and I sure would want to know that the already attempted transfer wasn't already running in the background and end up overdrawn.
We called again and finally got to the bottom of it, and hopefully the money should be in our UK acount by the morning. :thumbsup:
Ony the plonker dealing with it went and transferred more than we'd asked for (presumably thinking it was his order to close the account completely), which means we now don't have any money in the account to pay a couple of late bills that have just come in!!!!! :thumbdown:

Mummy in the foothills Jun 29th 2012 7:57 pm

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 

Originally Posted by SadInStates (Post 10146601)
I saw that, and quite agree with you. On the programme about London's streets (Portland Road) this week, a banker said in as many words that thier bailout bonuses paid for their expensive houses on streets like that. :frown:



We called again and finally got to the bottom of it, and hopefully the money should be in our UK acount by the morning. :thumbsup:
Ony the plonker dealing with it went and transferred more than we'd asked for (presumably thinking it was his order to close the account completely), which means we now don't have any money in the account to pay a couple of late bills that have just come in!!!!! :thumbdown:

If you have a couple of bills left you can get a check from a UK bank made out in $ and send that to whoever you owe. I had to do that a few times to finish off some bills after we moved last time.

SadInStates Jun 29th 2012 9:17 pm

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 

Originally Posted by Mummy in the foothills (Post 10146632)
If you have a couple of bills left you can get a check from a UK bank made out in $ and send that to whoever you owe. I had to do that a few times to finish off some bills after we moved last time.

Oh thanks MITF! :thumbsup: I'll look into that asap. Gotta figure in snail mail time too for that!

J.JsOH Jun 30th 2012 9:14 am

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 

Originally Posted by SadInStates (Post 10146601)
We called again and finally got to the bottom of it, and hopefully the money should be in our UK acount by the morning. :thumbsup:

thats good news


Originally Posted by SadInStates (Post 10146601)
Ony the plonker dealing with it went and transferred more than we'd asked for (presumably thinking it was his order to close the account completely), which means we now don't have any money in the account to pay a couple of late bills that have just come in!!!!! :thumbdown:

Plonkers are everywhere, have to watch the buggers all the time.
Recently;
We had cancelled a UK HSBC account, face to face and signed forms in bank, yet still kept getting statements. Went back in, it wasn't closed, did it all again to eventually get it closed.
Also, US tax man lost my updated tax return. I had mailed it from UK, received a letter of confirmation of receipt, but then the expected result didn't come. I phoned and it had gone missing from their files. They had my follow-up letter asking for status and they had that in file but hadn't been prompted by it to look for my return. Had to send it all again.

J.JsOH Jun 30th 2012 9:27 am

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 

Originally Posted by Mummy in the foothills (Post 10146632)
If you have a couple of bills left you can get a check from a UK bank made out in $ and send that to whoever you owe. I had to do that a few times to finish off some bills after we moved last time.

The great thing about this forum and it's members is that good info is shared. I never knew that UK banks would write $ checks. Thanks. I will store that thought for future use.

SadInStates Jun 30th 2012 5:56 pm

Re: Transferring large amount from US bank to UK?
 

Originally Posted by SadInStates (Post 10146601)
We called again and finally got to the bottom of it, and hopefully the money should be in our UK acount by the morning. :thumbsup:

Of course we find it's not in our account today! *sigh*
Finger's crossed for Monday!:unsure:


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