How to send money to Cambodia?

[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 ?

[speedoo1]

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 ?

As stated above I have used Xoom a few times for transfers to Colombia. There were no fee or charge to be paid by the recipient (I think I would have been told by the Colombianos that benefitted from transfers) and there was no information on the webpage when completing the transfers that the recipient had to pay something for collection procedure.

[Keith]

I decided to send some money to a gay guide I have used in Siem Reap, no sex, as he was suffering. He was selling some organic beauty products, so showing initiative. In the end, I said forget the products, I will send money. He gave me his Bank Account, I sent £150, and was charged £17 by my Bank, Lloyds. He only received £100, the Cambodian Bank took the rest!

[Zebedee]

I decided to send some money to a gay guide I have used in Siem Reap, no sex, as he was suffering. He was selling some organic beauty products, so showing initiative. In the end, I said forget the products, I will send money. He gave me his Bank Account, I sent £150, and was charged £17 by my Bank, Lloyds. He only received £100, the Cambodian Bank took the rest!

That was a large amount to lose even by Cambodian Bank standards. Would it be possible your bank gave you a poor exchange rate in addition to their fee? Thats how my Australian Bank "operates", they then emphasise their "low" fee in the hope the customer doesn't notice their robbing exchange rates! I hate to think of the amount of money both Cambodian and Australian banks gouged from me over the years.
And the sad thing is that loss is big money to your friend in Cambodia especially these days.

If you are sending the money online from your bank, it is usually cheaper to send your currency and allow the receiving bank convert it to Dollars...that is if your bank gives you that option. My bank does not give me that option when sending to Cambodia, but does allow me the option when sending to Thailand.

[goji]

That was a large amount to lose even by Cambodian Bank standards. Would it be possible your bank gave you a poor exchange rate in addition to their fee? Thats how my Australian Bank "operates", they then emphasise their "low" fee in the hope the customer doesn't notice their robbing exchange rates! I

Some customers have a blind spot to such charges.
In the past, I've even seen people triumphantly post about their exchange with no fees, whilst totally ignoring the dismal exchange rate. It's almost like they try to forget about it as fast as possible, which is an expensive attitude.
I prefer to make a note of when I'm screwed on a transaction and try to avoid it in future. e.g. The examples where Paypal have screwed me, as already posted here.


It's quite a pleasure to see the likes of yourself and Keith being equally open about such things.

I also see people being in denial over stockbrokers fees. They bitch and moan about a broker charging an extra £5 for overseas share trading, yet the same people haven't even checked the spread on the foreign exchange element of this. For UK brokers that's typically 1.5%, which is obscene and if you spend just $10,000 on a stock purchase, that's $150 in forex charges, when it really should be under $50.