{"id":4693,"date":"2010-01-19T02:20:54","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T09:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/?p=4693"},"modified":"2016-06-13T08:56:38","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T15:56:38","slug":"wells-fargo-international-wire-transfer-still-stinks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/wells-fargo-international-wire-transfer-still-stinks\/","title":{"rendered":"Wells Fargo International Wire Transfer still stinks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before coming to Japan I mentioned<\/a> how unsatisfied I was with my Foreign Wire Transfer through Wells Fargo Bank. I sent yen to Japan from my U.S. account which had dollars in it. <\/p>\n

After that unfortunate transaction I received a feedback survey from Wells Fargo asking how I enjoyed their service. I gave them my honest opinion. More than one employee of Wells Fargo then called me to apologize and get more information about why I was unhappy and how they can improve. They both seemed rather shocked that their rates were so poor and that someone in the know could get a better rate simply by asking.<\/p>\n

Fast forward more than seven months to my next need to wire money from my US$ Wells Fargo account to a Japanese account in yen. I was hoping things would be better this go around. They weren’t.<\/p>\n

On a day when the yen traded between .01108 and .01095 (when I called the bid was .01097 and the ask was .01098) Wells Fargo quoted me a rate of .01134. Plus they would charge me a wire transfer fee of $25 on the transaction. The lady on the phone tried to get me to agree to the transaction immediately. I asked if she could give me a better rate. She responded that she would call exchange services and check. Exchange services offered a slightly better rate of .011323. I declined.<\/p>\n

I can pull money (yen) out of ATMs in Japan for the market rate. This is the exact same money I was trying to wire. Wells Fargo charges me $5 per transaction (or 1%) on a $500 withdrawal. So instead of wiring money and paying $25 + 3-5% I will just withdraw $500 a day in yen. How much will I save compared to using Wells Fargo “exchange services” in so doing? I will save almost $400, even after considering the $5 per transaction I will have to pay over 20 times, to get the amount I need. <\/p>\n

Again, you will not get the best foreign wire transfer rate if you go with the first one they give you. They will not give you a good rate even after you talk them down. Foreign wire transfers cost not $25 but $25 + several percent of the amount transfered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before coming to Japan I mentioned how unsatisfied I was with my Foreign Wire Transfer through Wells Fargo Bank. I sent yen to Japan from my U.S. account which had dollars in it. After that unfortunate transaction I received a feedback survey from Wells Fargo asking how I enjoyed their service. I gave them my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[193],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4693"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4696,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693\/revisions\/4696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}