How to send money to Cambodia?

[christianpfc]

One of my regulars in Pattaya is back in Cambodia and needs money. I would send him 1000 THB or 30 USD, but he has no bank account in Thailand (that would be the easiest way for me) and suggests I use Western Union.

I have read/heard many bad things about their pricing structure and never used it myself, but had a look on their website: for him to receive 30 USD, I would have to pay 2.90 EUR fees which is something I would consider, but the exchange rate (my account is in Euro) is 1 EUR = 1.01 USD on WU whereas xe.com gives 1 EUR = 1.12 USD. This is where I draw the line.

Transferwise does not offer to send money to Cambodia and says that 97% of population does not have a bank account anyway.

I was forced to used paypal for some business on ebay 10 or 15 years with no other option to send or receive money. For that reason, I blacklisted paypal.

What to do? I.e. how to send money to Cambodia without paying high fees.

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[gerefan2]

If you just want to send the occasional 1000 baht then it’s a no brainier. Use western Union and accept their extra charge.
Surely you can afford it on such a small amount you are sending?

[goji]

The amount proposed is perfectly reasonable as a donation for an occasional acquaintance & it's also not very polite to question that either.

Also, with money transfers it's partly about the principle of not losing 20% of your money when transferring from one place to another.
And it's partly about learning how to optimise transactions for future. If I didn't bother trying to minimize overseas transaction costs, I'd be several thousand pounds poorer at this stage in life.

Anyhow, at risk of breaking the mould with a reply that's trying to be helpful, reading through the banking forum at Khmer440 might be worthwhile (no promises): https://khmer440.com/chat_forum/viewforum.php?f=39

[a447]

Does the guy have a mailing address? If so, why not just pop it in an envelope and send it to him?

(Presuming you remember how to use a post office! Lol)

[Moses]

Guys from Cambodia gave me tip:

WU , Money gram and Ria are accepting here

[christianpfc]

Surely you can afford it on such a small amount you are sending?

It's a matter of principle.

The boy sent me a Thai bank account (of a friend of him) to which I transferred the money from my Thai bank account (no charges).

My experiences with international mail (letters and parcels; postcards are fine) are rather negative. About 2012 I sent my SIM card and some money (to top up my SIM card) to a Farang friend in Thailand, the letter disappeared. Four weeks ago I sent a parcel to a friend in Portugal, it arrived a week ago.

[gerefan2]

Sometimes, especially in Thailand, it is easier to overlook principles for a small amount of money if it makes life easier! Ask any policeman

Transfer rates are little over 10% with WU....Not 20%.

[goji]

Transfer rates are little over 10% with WU....Not 20%.

If that's the TOTAL charge from money leaving my account to it landing in his hands in Cambodia, I suspect it's not unreasonable for a modest transfer to Cambodia.

Assuming there are no charges on the receiving side.


I made a Paypal transfer to the Philippines earlier in the year. There was a slightly unreasonable charge declared when I sent the money. Then Paypal took another undeclared cut on the receiving side. I had no idea about the latter figure when I sent the money. Not happy.
[Disclosure: I hold Paypal stock, so should encourage you all to use their expensive forex services. I just cannot bring myself to do that]

[speedoo1]

Sign up for Xoom (a Paypal subsidiary so very easy to log-in with your PP account) or WorldRemit. Currently the latter has a promo with no fees for the 3 first transfers if you enter a code. Both have the option of the recipient collecting the money at bank or similar (no local bank account needed). Both are cheaper than WU (in particular for larger amounts where the poor exchange rate applied by WU really hits you). Admittedly, I havn't checked if working for Cambodia but it works very well to Colombia.

MoneyGram should also be an option (I have never used it though).

[goji]

Some helpful ideas by Speedoo1.

I compared WorldRemit v Xoom, see table.

Xoom appears better, however:
1 WorldRemit explicitly say in their T&C that there is NO CHARGE for receiving the money as cash. I cannot find any similar statement for Xoom & am a little suspicious, as Xoom is owned by Paypal.
With a Paypal branded transfers, they are rather greedy & triple dip. Charging the sender, making a margin on the conversion AND charging the receiver.

2 One converts to KHR and the other converts to USD. As any regular visitor to Cambodia will know, the 2 currencies are interchangeable and the ATMs in Cambodia even dish out USDs by default. I haven't adjusted for this, as I don't know the local conversion loss and believe it's fairly small anyway, from past experience.

Both seem to be credible US and UK owned companies. Mind you, some would have once thought former DAX constituent Wirecard would have been another trustworthy developed country money transfer business.

If it were me, I would be tempted to try Xoom. Or at least register and go through the process, to see if any surprise charges crop up. Has anyone here used this ?