XE vs Paypal

I have heard that paypal does not charge any fees?

I am curious as to how long the transfers take and how much do they cost?

I have heard that paypal has a limit on how much you can send a month?

Which one do you think is better?   Do they have any hidden fees? Just don't want any surprises.  My bank is killing me in fees.

XE charges no fees but will pass on charges of other banks involved.  If you are sending from UK to US you can use BACS in UK and EFT in US to avoid all fees.  XE makes their money on the "spread" they collect, the difference between the true exchange rate and what they actually give you, last I checked this was 1.2% of the amount transferred.  Therefore for every £100 you send, XE will make £1.20.  In my experience spreads collected by banks are typically worse plus they charge fees.

From recollection transfer takes about 4 business days.

Never used Paypal

Paypal have notoriously bad customer service, in fact if you ever have a complaint chances are you will not be able to speak to an actual person. I would not be happy trusting them to do any non-vanilla transactions with large sums.

XEtrade are pleasant, well informed and treat their customers well, and their business is handling currency trades and transfers - something they do very well.

Plus, Paypal takes SUCH a long time to get everything set up, and just when you think you have been verified, they have another hurdle for you to jump. They posted a letter out to us (from the UK) that had some secret code we had to input to verify our address before limits could be lifted, and we got it today. It was posted on March 28th. Hello?

If you plan ahead with Paypal and have a lot of time to spare...otherwise go with somewhere else.

Thank you for your help one last question do you find that XE gives better rates than banks?  I know the exchange rate was 1.97 dollars to the pound and I got a rate of 1.93 with my bank and a fee of 28 pounds for transfers.  Sounds like I will be better off using XE.

XE charges no fees but will pass on charges of other banks involved.  If you are sending from UK to US you can use BACS in UK and EFT in US to avoid all fees.  XE makes their money on the "spread" they collect, the difference between the true exchange rate and what they actually give you, last I checked this was 1.2% of the amount transferred.  Therefore for every £100 you send, XE will make £1.20.  In my experience spreads collected by banks are typically worse plus they charge fees.

From recollection transfer takes about 4 business days.

Never used Paypal

Thank you for your help one last question do you find that XE gives better rates than banks?  I know the exchange rate was 1.97 dollars to the pound and I got a rate of 1.93 with my bank and a fee of 28 pounds for transfers.  Sounds like I will be better off using XE.

Just did a quick check:  the true exchange rate is 2.006 and XE is giving 1.982 so it confirms what I said above, they take 1.2%.

As a comparison:
XETrade:  £0 fixed fee plus 1.2%
Your bank:  £28 fixed fee plus 2.0%

Again, you need to use EFT and BACS to avoid any fees with XE.  The first time you use it you will have to spend some time setting it up, but after that everything can be done while sitting at your computer, 24-7.  I've done 27 trades, many involving large amounts and have never been disappointed.

However, they've been creeping up their profit, it used to be 0.4%.  Next time I transfer cash I will be doing a shop around.  More on-line exchanges have been opening up recently.

Thank you finally some answers!

I use Paypal and have never (knocks on wood) had any problems with it.

But, I don't transfer large sums of money, so if you are planning on more than $500 per month, Paypal isn't probably for you.

I love XE. 

We transfer £500-1000 a month.  They have great customer service and all our trades go through in about 4 days.

Forgive my ignorance, I'm not sure where to begin.
My parents are going to be transferring a large some from the US to my UK bank account.  From reading these threads it sounds like I need to do some research on XE and/or EFT to save on fees and get a better rate of exchange...??

They were going to transfer straight from their bank to mine originally, but now it doesn't sound like that's the wisest option.

when i had a large sum to transfer from the US to the UK i first used my BofAmerica & Natwest... the charges were high and it took 2 weeks. 

for my next lot i used custom house exchange.  if you go to their website, you can check them out: http://www.customhouse.com/
http://www.customhouse.com/solutions/personal/privateClient.htm

you do have to set up an account with them that takes a few steps- faxing a copy of your passport, filling out their form.  however, now that it's done- viola.

i transferred US dollars to THEIR US dollar account
they then transferred that to their UK pound account
they then transferred that to my UK pound account.

took about 2 days and didn't incur any fees (using US EFT transfer system & UK BACS system).  the spread i got was much better than my bank quoted.  good customer service.

Thanks for that meggles

But, is that to say, I have to not only sign up for an account with custom house, but also EFT, AND/or BACS???

the BACS & EFT are the way in which the money is transferred.  they're like the money highways....

a currency exchange company will advise you about the ins/outs in detail. 

 
Got it!

Thanks very much.