Part 31 : Dinner with Sissel and Iax

After a big weekend out drinking with Duncan and Iax a pub along the canal around Notting Hill and a night out at Fabric I soon came to the age old problem us Aussie travellers have and that is how the hell do I easily get money from my Aussie account (St George FYI). Now it is really easy to get money out of your account as long as you have a valid visa debit card / credit card and then you can simply go to any old ATM and get money out. This of course is quite costly because you pay the worst exchange rate and you also get fined on top of your fee and most likely from both banks.

There were a few that were suggested to me (1st contact, Paypal, western Union) the first I tried was Paypal because hey I already had a paypal account. So I checked to see that my HCBC account was active which it was, then I tried to send money to myself from my Paypal account, ie move money from my Aussie account to Paypal then move it to my English HSBC account.

Im sure as I interrupt myself that you must be thinking why in bloody hell doesn't he just net xfer his own money to himself. This would be possible if I had pre setup my account to be allowed to xfer to foreign bank accounts but I didn't, and then to change it all I need is to get the site to sms/txt me a code to my secure mobile phone number I have stored in my account settings. This is the same number of the same phone I lost in a taxi in Saigon on my first day in Vietnam. See previous blog entry :) and then to change my own account details to my new UK number I need to get a sms/txt me a code to my secure mobile phone number :( starting to not be a happy chappy at this point.

Fine ok back to Paypal. The upload/xfer to Paypal worked a treat, almost instantly my money was online. The problem here was getting that money to my account in the UK. You cannot add a UK bank account to a Australian Paypal account. So I setup a new Paypal acount, then I transferred money from my Aussie Payal account to my UK Paypal account. Hmm sounds simple right, this took 4 days. Then I wasnted to send it to my Uk account. What Paypal does is pre sends you 2 small amounts, something like 0.13c and 0.07c which you use to verify your account and that your a human and that money can arrive and all that. I do all that and it takes 7 days for the 2 transactions to work and another day to verify then once I had actually been able to send it took the standard 4 days for my money to arrive. This is a long time without cash.

Enter option 2. Western Union. Hmm do not believe the spin of advertisements because its all a load of crap. First thing is I try to send myself money online. Its easy they say, yeah its easy to sign up and hand over registration and personal details but there are a couple of things that they don't tell you.

1. you cannot easily go online and send money to someone instantly, you actually need to go into a office and see someone to verify that your not doing anything illegal like sending money to someone. This is a lie and it will not let you do it until you do see someone.

2. You cannot send money to yourself, I could actually send money to my cousin, she could then pick it up and then give me my own money but you cannot send money to yourself. :( what a fing stupid idea. Is this not a world without borders now. Whats the point of having online money xfer internationally if you cant send money to yourself!.

3. If you call Western Union from the Uk, say because your travelling and to send money to yourself, and you have a mobile but dont wanna fork out a million quid on phone calls calling Western Union because you know that the shitty ass answering machine is set to the slowest speed highest call cost mode, and decide to use something like Skype to call, as any modern day traveller with a computer does, they will not accept your request. Actually you cant even call from a mobile phone, To use the Western Union phone support service you need to have a registered phone line and then need to call on that phone line. WTF?

Ok so maybe im doing it the hard way. Why haven't I done something really simple like just go into Western Union here in the Uk and see a rep, because thats what they said I need to do on the phone but back in Aus. Hell that surely would be easier right. Wrong! If you go into a Western Union reputable agent here in the Uk they can do nothing for you. It seems like the agents are all 3rd party businesses that have and agreement with Western Union but are not actual agents. One place I went into was a carpet shop. You can hand over your money to these people quite easily. Funny that the whole giving money to Western Union is quite easy but the receiving is a bit harder. You cannot go to a WU agent in the Uk and send money from Aust, at all. I do feel a little hesitant to give money to a shop simple because they have a WU sticker on their window.

theres something else I'm forgetting about why WU are so sh!te but I cant remember right now

Enter the last option. 1st Contact. These guys have a website that seems extremely dodgy, and the system sounds really dodgy too. I simply !!! send money from my account (st george) to their account (ANZ) then they send money to me and only charge me $5. They offer a better exchange rate then the banks do and they also offer special deals where you can lock in a rate for x time if you like it. ??? I get that they make money because they trade the money at a better rate and hence make a certain profit off every transaction but in the end they were quite good. It sounds dodge to dump money in their account because then your just kinda hoping they actually send it, but eventually it took 3 days from me to them, and then 1 day from them to me(UK) and walla. I have money in my account.

So after going through 2 weeks with no cash and bumming it a little, the last couple of days were quite nice. Sissel who I met in Nha Trang Vietnam and also caught up with in Don Det (4000 islands) was stopping through to London on her way back home to Copenhagen. We had a nice day grabbing a coffee in Earling and picking up some groceries. I cooked some nice hearty Filo chicken and vegies soup, one of my favs that my mum always cooked for me (also very good if you are sick). We then proceeded to have a great night when Iax joined us after work and together we finished off a bottle of Vodka, the one I got from Istabul. Unfortunately Sissel had a early flight on RyanAir which left at 7am so she had to spend the night at the airport. Thanks Sissel for the great day. I will def have to come visit you in Copenhagen. Maybe before it gets too cold, -20 something for me just seems ridiculous. I've never been below 0. :)
peace

cheshmonkey