Transferring money from Australia?

[SaligoBay]

Background: Aussie friend (with family) coming over for 1 month work followed by 1 month holiday.  Gite here doesn't take credit cards, so she was going to bring cash to cover it all.  Now she's decided she doesn't want to carry all that cash, and has asked if she can transfer it to my account and she can draw it out when she gets here.

I do trust her, that's not the problem!  But she can't request the transfer until Fri 4th, and she arrives here Saturday 12th.   From your experience, do you think the money will be here by then?

Does anyone have any experience of Australia-France transfers?   Are the transfer charges different, anything hidden that I should know about?

Will I get myself into trouble by suddenly having a load of money arriving from abroad? 

Why is life in France so STRESSFUL??????? 

Thank you!

 

[peterw]

The Australian leg will happen instantly. The bank of france then get it, sit on it to collect interest and then pass it on -on average they have it for 4-5 days.

Your friend should have the money by the 12th assuming no holidays etc intervene. But it is cutting it fine.

Transfer charges should be a flat fee about $30-50 AUD. Where the bank will try to make money is in the exchange rate. This can cost quite a lot depending on the relationship with the bank. But it will still certainly be cheaper than travellers cheques for instance.

I assume they want to do it this way because the amount of money may justify trying to avoid travellers cheques

[Teamedup]

Can't she buy euro travellors cheques in Australia before she leaves. I would hope that main post offices would cash them in France for her.

 

[SaligoBay]

The Australian leg will happen instantly. The bank of france then get it, sit on it to collect interest and then pass it on -on average they have it for 4-5 days.

Why does this not surprise me!! 

I assume they want to do it this way because the amount of money may justify trying to avoid travellers cheques

Not sure, this transfer request came out of the blue!  She says her credit card isn't authorised for use abroad, so was going to bring it all in cash, then decided she wasn't comfortable carrying all that cash. 

I think Australia should join the Euro!

Thank you for your help.

[Miki]

SB,

Any Ockers we have had stay with us over the years and here, I must say what great company they have all been as well. In fact one wrote a book about his experiences in Europe and we and our place had a great mention, only one problem, we had moved by the time the book came out and so never had the benefit of any possible guests coming to see us at the old place !!)

Now where was I.......Oh yes.

We are paid either by Swift/Iban elctronic transfer and as previously stated, it can take the long route to ensure everyone has a slice of the dosh. And the initial cost was around 30 odd euros, so a little on the expensive side and always best to tell the clients to ensure that all costs are borne at the beginning and avoid any nasty costs at the receivers end, oh I say Matron, (haven't had that one lately )

The other way, is for the person to go in to their Ozzie bank and ask to change some of their dollars in their account in to a bankers euro cheque and then send that to you and you can then do the necessary, personally. We have had that done that both in Sterling or Euro cheques.

[SaligoBay]

Miki, sorry, I've just seen your reply, how remiss of me!

The transfer actually happened super-fast.  She did it on Friday, I had the confirmation in the post on Wednesday!

Then I phoned the bank to ask if I could withdraw 1000 euros....... and the short answer is no. 

My branch doesn't have a stock of cash of that immensity.  Huh??????  I need to request a different Carte Bleue and get the money out elsewhere.   I ask myself what's in the ATMs if not money, but who am I to question these things. 

Not that I can phone my branch directly anyway, you have to phone one of those central numbers.   Don't know where she was, but she had one of those mincey accents that children like to make fun of, you know when they do that girly voice "Bonjour-uh.  On fait la bise-uh?"