It is so painful to pay abroad without credit card and PayPal.
Part I: Wire Transfer Nightmare
It was time to pay a deposit to our accommodations in Provence.
Armed with French account info I'm supposed to use to wire money into, I headed straight to my local bank teller. As soon as she saw the account slips, she raised her eyebrows and gave me a look like "What the....???"
"It's French", I explained.
"You're going to have to go to customer service."
I was thinking, what's the problem? I've seen movies from the 90's where bad guys make people wire funds from the laptop from some remote barn. Surely this should be routine work after 20 years of technological advances.
So I handed the bank info to customer service and asked for wire transfer.
"Do you have an appointment?" Huh? An appointment for a routine transfer?
"Did you fill out this form yet?" Fill out a paper form? You mean I need to use a pen? You mean this form that's been photocopied since the 90's? Where's the one button click?
Hmm. None of the fields on the form match the French account info. IBAN? BIC? How does that map to SWIFT, Routing Number etc? And why would you need their bank address, which I conveniently don't have?
"Could you help me fill out this form? All I have is this account info," I asked.
"Wow, it's in French. Sorry, I have no idea what this is."
"Um, can you at least tell me what information is missing so I know what to ask for?"
"Sorry, it's in French. Can't help you. Maybe you want to consider using bank drafts or head over to Western Union. Wire transfers cost $30 and if you fill any small detail wrong, it bounces and you lose your $30, then you need to pay another $30 to try again." Great, $30 per TRY.
Apparently in Europe, everyone uses wire transfers as it is fast, secure, traceable, and standardized. European Union countries benefit from low controlled service fees that are guaranteed to be no higher when crossing borders. In North America, it's rarely used... can you see why?
"OK, I'll try bank draft."
Part II: Bank Draft Nightmare
So I ordered a bank draft. No big deal -- send it and if it gets lost in the mail, I can always cancel it.
"Is this the receipt I use to cancel the draft if it gets lost in the mail?" I asked.
"Hmm, I think so. Let me double check with my manager," the teller said.
"Sorry, we cannot cancel a non-Canadian dollar draft," the manager said.
"What?? What if it gets lost in the mail?"
"Then you lose your $1000, just like cash. You can check with the post office to see whether there is a guaranteed delivery service."
So I went to the post office and asked.
"You can guarantee delivery by putting a tracking number so you know if it's lost. If it's lost, cancel your draft."
"I can't cancel the draft."
"What?? Really? Sorry we only insure up to $100. Try UPS"
Grrr. UPS is next door so I might as well ask, though I was pretty sure what the answer was. Their answer was: "A bank draft is considered a document and we do not insure documents. If you get your $1000 draft lost, you would get $17.50 refund for UPS service." Awesome.
I am not tossing $1000 cash into the mail. OK, it's only been a half hour, so maybe I can put this bank draft back in my account.
"I'm sorry, we cannot cancel this order once it is made. The only thing we can do is buy it back at a lower exchange rate." OK, can't be that bad, I thought. Maybe lose $10.
Make that lose $60. Now I know about their crappy exchange rates for drafts.
"I just bought this half hour ago! Can't you do something about it?" The teller was really nice and felt bad for me.
" I can give you $8 more using my staff discount!"
After some escalation to the assistant manager, then manager, I managed to recover most of what was lost and learned some valuable lessons.
Don't mail your bank drafts.
Part III: Wire Transfer Again
Luckily, I found a bank manager at our local branch who has been doing wire transfers for 30 years. She explained that the same wire transfer system in Canada has been around for about 50 years. She knows all the tricks around the system, like getting around the 24-character limit in the address field by using lower case letters, or taking out some spaces. When sending, they make you sign a 2-page form with legal jargon that makes you take the responsibility if the money bounces.
Well, there's no turning back. Wire payment's been send. I'm crossing my fingers.
