MY CLIENTS ARE HAVING PROBLEM SENDING EURO CHEQUE WITH BOOKINGS _ Help please !!

[les Favets]

Good morning all!!  It would seem that several of my clients are finding it difficult to send a cheque for payment in euros.  I obviously; wrongly!!  assumed their banks could issue them.  What advise can I give future potential clients. 

Regards Les Favets

www.ruralfranceholidays.com

 

[Clair]

[quote user="les Favets"]

my clients are finding it difficult to send a cheque for payment in euros.  I obviously; wrongly!!  assumed their banks could issue them.  What advise can I give future potential clients. 

Regards Les Favets

www.ruralfranceholidays.com

[/quote]

Assuming you mean UK based clients...

I know it's taken sometimes up to 10 days for my some UK based clients to be able to obtain a € currency chq from their bank, but they've never been unable to get one.

I tend to point them to my moneybookers account in my emails, or if all else fails, paypal but , as I find paypal more expensive at my end, I tend to leave it as a last resort.

[BJSLIV]

The problem with paying deposits by Euro Cheque from the UK is that it typically costs the person requesting the cheque between £10 and £20 in fees, and you then suffer a similar charge when you pay the thing into your account in France.

[Clair]

[quote user="BJSLIV"]The problem with paying deposits by Euro Cheque from the UK is that it typically costs the person requesting the cheque between £10 and £20 in fees, and you then suffer a similar charge when you pay the thing into your account in France.[/quote]

I agree with the first part of that statement but I disagree with the second part.

I have never been charged for crediting a Euro chq sent by my UK based clients into my Crédit Agrcole account.

[BJSLIV]

The charges in France of course will depend on your bank. Each one gives you something free, then adds a little extra on another service.

We are with Soc Gen and I quote from their charge booklet

Performance Chèques Étrangers

Encaissement d’un chèque en euros ou en devises tiré sur l’étranger

                                                                  Euros

– Formule "Crédit accéléré"                16,50

– Formule "Crédit ferme"       1 % + TVA du montant

                                                            mini. 16,50

I seem to remember that this question came up last year, when someone with Cred Ag was surprised by the charges that had been imposed for paying in foreign euro cheques. You are obviously benefiting from the ongoing variations within the many tentacles of Cred Ag.

 

[Clair]

[quote user="BJSLIV"] 

I seem to remember that this question came up last year, when someone with Cred Ag was surprised by the charges that had been imposed for paying in foreign euro cheques. You are obviously benefiting from the ongoing variations within the many tentacles of Cred Ag.

 [/quote]

I remember that thread too.

The only thing I can add is that all the Euro chqs I've received from the UK were drawn from a FRENCH bank, but issued by the customer's UK bank.

That might make a difference to the fee/no fee question, as I see from your post that the SocGen fee applies to chqs drawn from foreign banks.

[Miki]

A bit of cross purposes here.

We are always paying in cheques of some kind or another and this is my take on it.

A Euro cheque, should be thought of, as a cheque made out by a bank in

another country and paid for by the sender. This kind in theory should

act like a cheque from within say, France and no charges made to the

person receiving said cheque. That is not to say some banks will still

want their take !

A Euro cheque sent from a client from a non French EC members Euro account,

will see us pesonally get hit with a minimum of charge 17,94€ and often

more, depending on the amount of the cheque sent. We  ask our

clients to pay by Swift but that means they will get hit with charges,

so we tell them to ask their bank how much a bankers cheque made out in

Euros will cost them and if it a reasonable amount, send it like that.

For UK deposits or payments, we ask them to pay by Nochex online with

their credit card (2.6% plus 20p per transaction, which we pay some

towards)

We have had more than one row with the bank but at the end of the day,

it is all in ones booklet setting out the charges for all ones

services at the bank.

What gets me more than anything, is that French banks in general (ours

!) charge for the privelege of looking at ones account on the internet,

WHY !!

[Quillan]

We get them to send their money by Euro Travellers Cheques, they pay for the service when they get the cheque and it costs nothing to bank.

[bobwils]

We ask for a direct bank transfer, it does cost the guest but not you, not with Credit Ag anyway. Alternatively if you have a UK account get them to pay by Sterling cheque.

Bob

[Miki]

Bob,

Most French banks will charge for an interbank transfer if it is the

Swift Iban interbank type. One must tell the client to ensure that they

pay ALL charges at their bank, for this service. Many of us have been

hit with charges by our own bank, if the client simply forgets to tell

the bank (deliberately or not !) then one has to ask the clients for

the charges to be repaid to you ! So to avoid that potentially

embarassing moment, do tell any clients wishing to pay by Swift / Iban method

to pay the bank charges at their end.

[Coco]

Don't know how Bobwils or Clair have managed it with Credit Agricole but we have been charged for both bank transfers from the UK and eurocheques.  My biggest shock was the eurocheque one.  It was a client from Germany, who just wrote out a cheque for his stay which I paid in and was subsequently charged 25€ to cash!!!

[Clair]

[quote user="St Amour"]... a client from Germany, who just wrote out a cheque for his stay which I paid in and was subsequently charged 25€ to cash!!![/quote]

St Amour (lovely name!)

In your shoes, I would immediately check the bank's T&Cs with regards to "Opérations avec l'étranger".

My CA (Nord Midi-Pyrénées) states in its "Extraits des conditions générales de banque"...:

Règlements en provenance de l'étranger:

Règlements en €, Union Européenne......................................... gratuit

If your bank charges, it should be shown there. If not shown, contest the charge.

I recently paid in a chq from a Belgian client and no charge relating to it is showing on the statement.

[Miki]

[quote user="Clair"][quote user="St Amour"]... a client

from Germany, who just wrote out a cheque for his stay which I paid in

and was subsequently charged 25€ to cash!!![/quote]

St Amour (lovely name!)

In your shoes, I would immediately check the bank's T&Cs with regards to "Opérations avec l'étranger".

My CA (Nord Midi-Pyrénées) states in its "Extraits des conditions générales de banque"...:

Règlements en provenance de l'étranger:

Règlements en €, Union Européenne......................................... gratuit

If your bank charges, it should be shown there. If not shown, contest the charge.

I recently paid in a chq from a Belgian client and no charge relating to it is showing on the statement.

[/quote]

Clair,

Is there another mix up here.

With BPO for instance, we can be charged for receiving Swift /

Iban  if the client has not paid the charges at their end. If we

were sending by Swift / Iban  it would be 15,55€ up to 382,00€ and

over that 31,10€ !11 rip off but that's banks for you.

Règlement may not mean a cheque in this mode. It can be by other methods but, NOT cheques.

BPO here charge thus : Virement Européen reçu or émis (en mode frais

partagés) in the 25 pays is free under 12,500€ . This is not for

cheques though.

This is the charge made by our bank for paying in Euro cheques from another country within the EU.

Chèques payable à l'étranger ......comission d'encaissement 0,10% with minimum 17,94€ charge and maximum 89,70€ charge.

I doubt the banks will vary too greatly as to the amount of the charge (or not). As you can

see St Amor paid more than the minimum shown here but the fact is, she

was charged and looking at two other banks we have details from, they

also make similar charges, are we at cross purposes again ?

Don't forget, you said previously, that you are not charged by your

bank for a cheque sent from a clients BANK, by way of a Euro bank

cheque, this is different and is seen in the most cases, as a French

euro cheque and not as a clients foreign EU euros account cheque, which is where the charges occur.

[Clair]

Miki, I agre with waht you say regarding the generalised use of the word "règlements".

The point is that there is no "règlement par chèque" specified in my list of fees. If I were to be charged for a Euro currency chq, issued from within the Eurozone, I would heavily rely on the T&C issued by my bank to get them to refund.

They show charges for transfers in or out of the account, with or without IBAN etc..., paid at source or shared... but they do not specifically say cheque and do not show a fee.

[BJSLIV]

The Cred Ag N-MP website shows that the free inpayments with are transfers with full IBAN details; by their nature cheques don't show IBAN details.

Other including Cheque inpayments    start at 20 euros.

Réglements en provenance de l’Etranger

Réglements en e, Union Européenne, ≤ à 50 000 E avec IBAN et BIC complets ..... gratuit

Autres réglements ................................................................................. 20,00

Commission de négociation de chèques sauf bonne fin ........................................ 0,10 %

Mini / maxi ........................................................................................................ 22,00/87,00

Commission d’encaissement de chèques crédit après encaissement......... 0,10 %

Mini / maxi .................................................................................................. 41,00/100,00

Commission de change perçue sur toutes opérations de change ................ 0,10 %

Mini / maxi .................................................................................................. 16/105,00

[Miki]

Clair,

That does seem rather open ended, so to speak.

I have looked at our 3 accounts (tip of the day, always seperate banks

for private accounts and business,  which I am sure you know

anyway) and all state the same'ish charges for Chèques payable à

l'étranger, in other words it also means personal Euros cheques from

EU countries.

I am shocked that CA, not exactly known in the banking world as "generous",

would not make a charge. As I said before, a cheque from a foreign bank

made out to Euros, does not entail a charge at our bank but a personal

Euro cheque from outside France but within the EU zone does.

Edit :

After seeing BJ's post, it would appear that CA minimum charges for paying in Euros cheques from a non French Euros account, are

even dearer than our bank, no surprise there then ! I thought CA being "generous"  might have been a bit of wishful thinking !!