Bank wire transfers...

M

mcbob

Veteran
...freak me out, but just because I don't know a damn thing about them.

I have an international client (not Nigerian) that wants to pay via this method. Am I about to be scammed for a relatively small amount of money, a relatively large amount of money, or am I probably OK? What minimum info do they need to send the shekels?
 
Usually pretty safe except for the part about sharing your bank info with a stranger.

We keep a special wire transfer checking account open with $50 in it to accept funds. Once the funds arrive, we move them out into our normal checking account.

We have had fake checks created using our wire transfer account information in the past that someone attempted to cash.
 
That sounds like a smart advice Terry. Otherwise direct bank transfers from the EU are generally safe, checks are not. good luck :)
 
If you are going to receve and not send, Terry's option is the best. I have two accounts, one for savings one to move money. The one to move money is usually empty and the money is stored in the saving account. It has worked pretty well so far, no problems.
 
Why are people in the US so afraid of this? Is there a fundamental difference in how the banking systems work in the US and Europe?
 
The problem is that fraud attempts (check, credit card, identity theft, shipping) are frequent and pervasive.

Law Enforcement is ineffective and disinterested.

Credit Card companies will suck the funds out of your merchant account upon any misuse of a credit card.

Both UPS and Fedex permit re-routing by default which assist the thieves steal gear.

You learn the hard way what not to do. Unfortunately, these are very expensive lessons.





dmitrizigany said:
Why are people in the US so afraid of this? Is there a fundamental difference in how the banking systems work in the US and Europe?
Click to expand...
 
One firsthand horror story on international checks that doesn't include a scammer (unless you call Chase one):

I have major clients in Canada and Japan, one month two of my Canadian clients paid by check. I deposit the checks, they show up in my account, everything's fine. About a week later I'm suddenly $5,000 short in my account. Call the bank. They have no idea. Call the bank's HQ. No clue. Call them again, and finally find out that Chase Bank reserves the right to send back any international check for "verification" for any reason. The reason this time? No idea, maybe because there were two international checks? The Canadian bank gets the check back and their reaction is "WTF?", and they have no idea what they're supposed to do with it so it sits there for weeks. After getting no answers from Chase, the Canadian bank just cancels it and returns the funds to my client. Client takes some time to figure this out. Chase then charges me $109 for their time in sending back a completely legitimate check and forcing me to have to chase down the client to get paid again. Cash flow impacted, time wasted, fees paid, total PITA. …and of course I took all my business away from Chase and moved it to a Credit Union as I should have done years ago since Chase is essentially evil and the credit union pays me interest instead of charging me tons of fees for everything.

TL;DR: International checks can be sent back by your bank even if they're legit and the payer has the funds to cover them.
Paypal charges too much in fees, and PayPal looks amateur to major companies.
Wire transfers are the way most big companies prefer to pay these days, especially international ones. Get a bank that doesn't charge incoming wire fees and you're good. Terry's advice about keeping a low amount available in the checking portion of that special account is a good one. I'm going to do that with our new wire account.
 
As far as I know, nobody can really do anything if they have your account info over here. Giving someone your bank account number for transfers is pretty much the norm. Or at least one of several "norms". Paying by check seems to have disappeared here in the 90s ;)
 
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