Hi all,

We just sent 100€ as a deposit to hold our apartment rental in Vienna. We paid $30 USD to send the transfer, as it was an international wire transfer. This will later be refunded to us as platinum credit union members, but as it stands now, we paid the $30 transfer fee. The apartment owners just notified us that they only got 82€, as the Bank of Austria hit them with the transfer fee (18&euro.

Is it normal that the transferor (us) pays a fee ($30), and the recipient also gets stuck with a fee (18&euro? Since we sent the transfer in Euros, I don't understand why there would have been a fee for them to receive the transfer? I suppose there is a possibility our bank messed up and sent them US dollars in which case I can see why the Bank of Austria charged a fee, but I don't know how I can tell if that is indeed what happened. Our transfer slip says Euros.

Ultimately it is only 18€ and the apartment owners said we can pay this upon arrival... but they were a bit unhappy and I feel like we lost a little goodwill since they explicitly told us four time that they required a full 100€. I just don't understand how we could have guaranteed that since we thought we paid the transfer fee here in the US...?

Hi TA,

>Is it normal that the transferor (us) pays a fee ($30), and the recipient also gets stuck with a fee (18&euro?<

Yup.

"Are these charges unusual?" - not really. Some banks charge less - but bank transfers can be really expensive.

was posting the same time as ira . . . . .

You have the option when do an international transfer of who pays the fees. You can choose to pay all the fees, share the fees or the recipient pays. You must have chosen shared.
Someone in the UK recently wanted to purchase something from a friends webshop - cost of the items €16, cost of the money transfer - 30 pounds! Needless to say he ended up not buying from her.
Within the Eurozone money transfers are free if in Euros.

Thanks everyone. Nothing about accepting all fees or sharing the fees was mentioned when I set up the transfer. Definitely good to know in the future!

It's not just a Euro issue. If I wire-transferred $100 to myself here in the US (from one account to another), I'd get $40, after a $30 charge to send it and a $30 charge to receive it. If I did an next day ACH electronic transfer, I'd probably pay less than a dollar (if I had the software to do it, or I could do same thru my bank).

>>You can choose to pay all the fees, share the fees or the recipient pays.<<

I know this is the case in Europe, but I don't think it's an option that is offered when initiating a bank transfer from a North American bank to a European bank.

Didn't someone on this forum mention that it was possible to transfer money overseas (at a reasonable rate) using XE.com ?

Yes, that's completely normal, though you could have chosen to pay all the fees, and so could the recipient.

Whenever I wire money to my French bank account I pay $15.00 for the transfer on this end and 15 euro for my French bank to receive the deposit on the other end.

Last year we sent a bank transfer to Spain to pay for my son's summer Spanish courses . I think the amount in Euros was around 400 Euros. We were charged by our bank in the US a $25 fee for the wire transfer. However, if the university in Spain was charged a transfer fee by their local bank, they never came back and told me I owed them any more money.

Whenever we get wire payments from our foreign clients, they are short by $15-25, depends on the country.

http://www.xe.com/fx/ claims to be cheaper.

<i>I know this is the case in Europe, but I don't think it's an option that is offered when initiating a bank transfer from a North American bank to a European bank.</i>

Yes, it is.

Thanks for all the insight everyone. Since the $30 fee will be refunded to us at the end of the month, it appears we probably did get a good deal in only getting charged 18&euro; for the transfer. I just feel bad that we messed up with the deposit to the apartment owners after their instructions were so explicit about the requirement for a full 100&euro;. This is our first apartment rental so I'm probably sweating it too much. The owners don't seem too annoyed though, and will let us just pay the extra 18&euro; upon arrival... so in the end, I guess it's a pretty small deal.