I live in the U.S. and just started doing business with an entity in England. Small stuff -- $40 here, $40 there. I called my bank to find out what the exchange rate would be if I deposited a check in English pounds. They told me that there would be a $40 service fee for each check. Needless to say, that's out of the question due to the small amounts.

At the moment, the entity is crediting my credit card. As I had charged $200 to the credit card when I was in England recently at the entity's facility, that should not be a problem. But what will happen when the credits exceed $200? Will the credit card company keep accepting credits that exceed my initial charges?

I'm hesitant to contact the credit card company and would appreciate whatever advice could be offered here. Thanks.

Have the entity, assuming you trust them, set up some kind of a bank account in England in their name and send you an ATM card.

Then as the account accumulates money, you can withdraw the cash at American ATM's and will get the interbank rate + whatever fees British banks charge for ATM foreign transactions which I believe from my reading is 2.5%.

That's an interesting idea. I never would have thought of that. Thanks.

You might want to look into the currency exchange services of xe.com - - this particular service is new enough that they don't seem to have garnered any reports of actual personal experience here...

... but they have been around long enough (as an info website on currency exchange rates) that it seems they have been "reputation building"; perhaps any company talking that approach to growing their business (i.e., build a favorable reputation/ name recognition first) - - is hopefully providing a service of good quality and good value - - so as to not squander the good will they have been working to create.

Best wishes,

Rex

Have you looked into PayPal? I've bought a couple of things on ebay from the UK and the exchange rate wasn;t bad - and no fee at least for the buyer.

Hi luv,

>Will the credit card company keep accepting credits that exceed my initial charges?<

If the "entity" in the UK wants to credit your charge account, the CC company will not interfere.

You are permitted to have a positive balance on a CC.