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CThomas
Joined: 21 Oct 2009
Posts: 380
Location: HCMC, Vietnam
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 Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 5:52 am Post subject: Best bank to get a debit/credit card so I can do paypal, etc |
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I'm researching the banks -- HSBC, ANZ, Vietcombank (where I have an account). I'm trying to get a real credit/debit card the account of which can do everything online: buy stuff, take payments, etc., etc.
My Wells Fargo account back home is closed and I'm trying to figure out how to re-open that to do this, but I'd like to do it here. I mean, it's hard even getting money to Wells Fargo to re-open an account :S
I've visited all the above banks and am not exactly sure if I can do *everything* I need w/ the cards they offer -- even the Visa/Mastercard. I don't want to open an account then not be able to use it to both pay and receive payments online.
Any suggestions? |
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hot_rock
Joined: 16 Apr 2010
Posts: 107
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| Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2010 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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Don't know if they're the best but a colleague of mine has TWO debit cards with Vietcom bank. One is visa, the other MasterCard. He gave one to a family member back home, on his last visit. Now , when he wants to "send" money to his British account (or to anyone in the UK), he just asks her to go to the British ATM, withdraw the cash and take it to the British bank, or whatever.
Bit of topic, but just thought I'd put it out there whilst on subject of debit cards, because its a means of money-sending that I've never sen mentioned on this board before.
How you doing anyway, C-thomas? Played any poker recently??! I lost my phone the night i saw you that day btw, and lost your number. Wasted_ace |
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CThomas
Joined: 21 Oct 2009
Posts: 380
Location: HCMC, Vietnam
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| Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 12:30 am Post subject: |
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Doing well, man! No, I haven't played any poker in a long while.  I'm engaged, working hard, and hoping to start get some online business activities rolling in the next months. I may take the hydro-foil to Vun Tao (sp) this weekend. 
As for the account I need, after talking in depth with a buddy last night I realized that I should probably bite the bullet and open a bank account back in the US. This may require some fancy footwork, like getting legal letters of proxy for cousins to open the account, etc. I may end up sending $ there to do it. I really wish I would have kept my US account open: the banking system here is okay but, from what I understand isn't quite ready for internet prime-time. |
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hot_rock
Joined: 16 Apr 2010
Posts: 107
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| Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 3:18 am Post subject: |
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| engaged as in to be married? (as opposed to very busy...nah, you mean married) fast mover my man, how did that come about? |
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CThomas
Joined: 21 Oct 2009
Posts: 380
Location: HCMC, Vietnam
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| Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 6:24 am Post subject: |
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| hot_rock wrote: |
| engaged as in to be married? (as opposed to very busy...nah, you mean married) fast mover my man, how did that come about? |
LOL. How can it NOT come about here? |
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anubistaima
Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 110
Location: Thailand
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| Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 8:15 am Post subject: |
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| No paypal in Vietnam (it's one of the countries not in the list). You can't have a US or UK paypal linked to a Vietnamese bank account (paypal country and bank country need to match to be able to withdraw money; there are a few exceptions but none apply to Vietnam). Trust me on this --I desperately needed a paypal account while in Vietnam and tried everything. Open one back home or have somebody do it for you. Will not happen in Vietnam. |
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CThomas
Joined: 21 Oct 2009
Posts: 380
Location: HCMC, Vietnam
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| Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 9:29 am Post subject: |
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| anubistaima wrote: |
| No paypal in Vietnam (it's one of the countries not in the list). You can't have a US or UK paypal linked to a Vietnamese bank account (paypal country and bank country need to match to be able to withdraw money; there are a few exceptions but none apply to Vietnam). Trust me on this --I desperately needed a paypal account while in Vietnam and tried everything. Open one back home or have somebody do it for you. Will not happen in Vietnam. |
Okay, thanks much. |
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MrMrLuckyKhan
Joined: 08 Feb 2008
Posts: 282
Location: Kingdom of Cambodia
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| Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 12:46 pm Post subject: |
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I have a business account with PayPal (not sure what all the differences are, but I have 2 free PayPal debit cards with the MasterCard logo on them and I can use them to withdraw money all over the world for only $1usd and no commission charges) and I was also unable to find any way to transfer funds (from here in CAMBODIA) directly to my PayPal account.
The ONLY option I have is to do a wire transfer from my local bank account here in Cambodia to one of my American bank accounts, and then I can transfer it for FREE from my American bank account to my PayPal account... If you end up having to do that, the FIRST thing you should do is get a list of Intermediate banks that your Vietnamese bank uses to wire money to foreign banks, and then call your 'home' bank and see which Intermediate bank/banks they also use. When u send the money, make SURE the sending bank uses the Intermediate bank they BOTH use so u get the best deal from the Intermediate bank that has to handle the transfer for them..
my example>>
my American bank: BB&T
my Cambodian bank: Canadia
an Intermediate bank they have in common: Standard Chartered Bank
fees to send $1000 from Canadia to BB&T>>>>>>>>>>
fee from Canadia to send: $30USD
fee from BB&T to receive: $16USD
fee from Stand.Chart.Bank to play middle man: FREE for that amount of money
*You can also contact either bank and have the SWIFT code of the other bank and they 'should' be able to search for a Intermediate bank they have in common. Make sure you REQUEST the sending bank to use that specific Intermediate bank or you might end up paying extra fees to a random Intermediate bank*
Sorry if this post is irrelevant to your case, but I thought it might be useful to someone reading this if they have also ran into similar problems with transferring funds from country to country..  |
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AmanJivan
Joined: 22 Dec 2009
Posts: 32
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| Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2010 2:54 am Post subject: |
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Having people draw money out using a debit card you have sent them from Vietnam is a very expensive way to get money to your relatives.
The ATM debit card transactions have a charge on them of 3 percent if master card and 2 percent if Visa.
Better to send your money be Telegraphic Transfer the cost is a tenth of using debit cards.
Of course using TT the bigger the amount the less you pay in fees comparatively |
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MrMrLuckyKhan
Joined: 08 Feb 2008
Posts: 282
Location: Kingdom of Cambodia
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| Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2010 3:17 am Post subject: |
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| AmanJivan wrote: |
Having people draw money out using a debit card you have sent them from Vietnam is a very expensive way to get money to your relatives.
The ATM debit card transactions have a charge on them of 3 percent if master card and 2 percent if Visa. |
Again, my PayPal debit card DOES NOT charge anything except $1 to withdraw from any ATM around the world. So sometimes I'm only charged about 1% to withdraw cash from an atm here in Cambodia... |
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Kornan DeKobb
Joined: 24 Jan 2010
Posts: 242
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| Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 2:05 pm Post subject: |
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| MrMrLuckyKhan wrote: |
I have a business account with PayPal (not sure what all the differences are, but I have 2 free PayPal debit cards with the MasterCard logo on them and I can use them to withdraw money all over the world for only $1usd and no commission charges) and I was also unable to find any way to transfer funds (from here in CAMBODIA) directly to my PayPal account.
The ONLY option I have is to do a wire transfer from my local bank account here in Cambodia to one of my American bank accounts, and then I can transfer it for FREE from my American bank account to my PayPal account... If you end up having to do that, the FIRST thing you should do is get a list of Intermediate banks that your Vietnamese bank uses to wire money to foreign banks, and then call your 'home' bank and see which Intermediate bank/banks they also use. When u send the money, make SURE the sending bank uses the Intermediate bank they BOTH use so u get the best deal from the Intermediate bank that has to handle the transfer for them..
my example>>
my American bank: BB&T
my Cambodian bank: Canadia
an Intermediate bank they have in common: Standard Chartered Bank
fees to send $1000 from Canadia to BB&T>>>>>>>>>>
fee from Canadia to send: $30USD
fee from BB&T to receive: $16USD
fee from Stand.Chart.Bank to play middle man: FREE for that amount of money
*You can also contact either bank and have the SWIFT code of the other bank and they 'should' be able to search for a Intermediate bank they have in common. Make sure you REQUEST the sending bank to use that specific Intermediate bank or you might end up paying extra fees to a random Intermediate bank*
Sorry if this post is irrelevant to your case, but I thought it might be useful to someone reading this if they have also ran into similar problems with transferring funds from country to country.. |
Your advice about finding out about intermediary banks is great and can save people a lot of money. I wish I knew it a few years ago when I was charged $75 to send $500 from Kuwait to Korea! The thing was, I specifically asked the Kuwaiti bank how much it would cost so that my Korean bank would RECEIVE $500. I had a credit card to pay so I needed a certain amount to arrive there. When my Korean bank only got $470, I was pissed as It was not enough to make the complete payment.
But I wonder about your Paypal ATM card. Paypal only charges $1, but who pays the ATM fee, or are you limited as to which ATMs you can use worldwide? |
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MrMrLuckyKhan
Joined: 08 Feb 2008
Posts: 282
Location: Kingdom of Cambodia
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| Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 2:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Kornan DeKobb wrote: |
Your advice about finding out about intermediary banks is great and can save people a lot of money. I wish I knew it a few years ago when I was charged $75 to send $500 from Kuwait to Korea! The thing was, I specifically asked the Kuwaiti bank how much it would cost so that my Korean bank would RECEIVE $500. I had a credit card to pay so I needed a certain amount to arrive there. When my Korean bank only got $470, I was pissed as It was not enough to make the complete payment.
But I wonder about your Paypal ATM card. Paypal only charges $1, but who pays the ATM fee, or are you limited as to which ATMs you can use worldwide? |
Oh, sorry if I didn't make that clear. I ALSO pay whatever the ATM charges. Here in Cambodia some charge about $2 for the fee. So, if I take out $300, I pay $1 to PayPal and $2 to the ATM, which is only 1%. I've also heard there's an SBC ATM that doesn't charge anything on their end, which means I would only pay $1 for an ATM withdraw.
Well, about the wire transfer....
The good news??
-it was real quick, only took about 7 hours to hit my account and be ready for withdraw
The bad news??
-I can see from my online BB&T account that there was an EXTRA $15 taken out. This 'probably' means my bank in Cambodia is as incompetent as they seem and sent it through the wrong bank. It's also possible that my BB&T bank was wrong about something.
I'm assuming that my Cambodian bank sent it through the wrong Intermediate bank, which would be the reason I got charged $15 somewhere along the way. I MADE the banker that helped me write 'it will be sent through Standard Chartered Bank' on EVERY single sheet of paper he touched, AND got him to sign next to it on my receipt. He seemed sure that it would go through it, but I made a big deal about it and even told him, 'No offense, but there is a good chance I'll be in here next week because u guys sent it through the wrong intermediate bank, so I need u to sign all of your promises...'
I hope it's actually an error on my American bank's side because they are more likely to admit to an error and 'correct' it, whereas my Cambodian bank is likely to do exactly what I envisioned before hand.. "We are so sorry, we not know how this happened.. We wish we could do something to help u with this problem u have... Is there anything we can do besides lifting a finger??..."
I'll post back once I find out what happened.....  |
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CThomas
Joined: 21 Oct 2009
Posts: 380
Location: HCMC, Vietnam
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| Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2010 3:51 pm Post subject: |
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| This is good but it'll get lost in the wash. Can y'all start a new thread, please? |
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MrMrLuckyKhan
Joined: 08 Feb 2008
Posts: 282
Location: Kingdom of Cambodia
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| Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2010 6:32 pm Post subject: |
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| CThomas wrote: |
| This is good but it'll get lost in the wash. Can y'all start a new thread, please? |
oops...
Well, I still got hit with an EXTRA $15 charge from the Intermediate bank, Standard Charter Bank. I called my American Bank and they TOTALLY back-tracked on what they first told me... They now say, 'we were only quoting you charges if WE send money through them, NOT if WE receive money through them.... tis life.... |
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MrMrLuckyKhan
Joined: 08 Feb 2008
Posts: 282
Location: Kingdom of Cambodia
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| Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2010 6:41 pm Post subject: |
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| CThomas wrote: |
As for the account I need, after talking in depth with a buddy last night I realized that I should probably bite the bullet and open a bank account back in the US. This may require some fancy footwork, like getting legal letters of proxy for cousins to open the account, etc. |
Not exactly sure what u mean by 'proxies,' but if you mean like giving someone 'Power of Attorney' u also need to be in the usa to do that.
I gave my mother/lawyer my power of attorney and WE BOTH HAD TO BE THERE at the same time to sign it in front of a notary. That might vary from state to state, but probably not.
let us know what u end up doing!!! |
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