Pegontheroad

Pal: I don't know how much a registered letter will cost, but it will surely be less than $45.

Alec

You can pay direct into a German bank account for a handling charge of US$15. Exchange rate used is very close to interbank. Takes a few days.
https://transferwise.com/

NYCFoodSnob

Transferwise is fabulous but I believe the recipient has to be registered, sort of like PayPal. Not sure how you would arrange that with a government entity.

PalenQ

Why these government entities can't make paying easy by credit card beats me - it encourages law-abiding folks like pegontheroad to actually pay the tickets but the arcane cumbersome way of paying invites folks not returning ever to that country to just ignore the ticket.

penny wise and pound foolish. Bravo for France making it easy.

NYCFoodSnob

"Why these government entities can't make paying easy by credit card"

That's easy. They don't want to be in the business of handling credit card payments. It costs money to process each payment, and the numbers need to be accounted.

You can pay your taxes via credit card in the U.S., but you'll be going through a 3rd party business to make the actual transaction, and you'll pay a fee to the 3rd party. The government wants no part of handing credit card charges. It's difficult to find heath insurance companies who will permit payments by credit card as well. United Healthcare, one of the largest in the U.S., does not accept credit card payments for monthly premiums. If you can pay your health insurance by credit card, you can quickly accrue a lot of airline miles. It could be worth paying a small fee for this convenience.

Roald

Like others already mentioned, Transferwise would be the best in this occasion.

The recepient, in this case the German state, does not have to be registered with Transferwise for a successful international transfer of the money. Transferwise are by far the cheapest and to save you some extra money I can share my referral link which allows you to make a fee free transfer:

http://transferwise.evyy.net/c/88623/126664/985

Let me know if you have any questions, glad to help

Pegontheroad

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. As is typical of me, I ignored all your good advice and just decided I'd send the 30 euros cash and let it go at that.

BamaTee

Peg,
I got a letter from a town in Germany about 4 years ago after my husband and I got back home from vacation. It was a $25.00 speeding fine.

Didn't know what to do,so after about 3 weeks showed the letter to a German friend.
She had me write a check for $30.00 and she wrote a letter to go with it and mailed for me.
That cleared everything up.

Tee

Pegontheroad

That was probably a better idea than my sending 30 euros in cash.

Michael

She had me write a check for $30.00 and she wrote a letter to go with it and mailed for me.

Something does not compute. The German authorities would want money in euros,not dollars, and checks have disappeared from the banking system north of France (Benelux and Germany, at a minimum).

sparkchaser

Four years ago. That makes sense. It was four years ago that a coworker deposited a check drawn from a U.S. bank in US dollars into his German account. It took a few weeks but it was processed.

sparkchaser

I'm really sick of this whole thing. I don't want to spend $45 on a wire transfer, and I don't want to spend $30 on a foreign draft.

I decided to try an international money order from the post office. I went the h*ll and gone all over town to three different post offices to get an international money order, only to find out that I couldn't get one for Germany. Crazy!

I'm fed up, but I do want to pay this thing, so I've decided to write a cover letter and enclose the paperwork they sent me, then I'll send the 30 euros (I have some left over from my last trip) in cash in a registered letter. The recipient will have to sign for the letter. If the recipient steals it--not my problem.

But this is Germany, and I have great faith in the honesty of Germans. At any rate, I will have made a genuine attempt to pay the ticket, so it will be off my conscience.

Next time PayPal a friend in Germany the money and have them pay it on your behalf.


Hmmm, I should start offering this service.

Pegontheroad

Yeah! I just received an email fro AutoEurope saying that my obligation has been fulfilled and further saying that the way the traffic violation was handled was unacceptable and that "action has been taken to ensure no recurrence."

Although I've driven in Germany since 1965, this is the first speeding ticket I received. However, I will be extremely careful in the future to check the speed limit.

Oh, the 30 euro ($40) ticket ended up costing me about $145.

ribeirasacra

Sorry to read about all the problems and costs. But thank you for returning and posting the outcome. It will be useful to other members of Fodors.