Job Discussion Forums

[Omeo]

Anyone ever do any shopping online from another country? How do you pay for something in a currency you're not getting payed in? If I'm getting payed in yen, how do I pay for something in dollars? How does that currency conversion work? Do you just figure out how much it'd be in dollars and send that much yen or do you just use a credit card or what? What if you have to send a check? Just another little scenario I've envisioned and thought I should ask about.

[spiral78]

On the one or two occasions I've done shopping on-line, I've used a credit card, so the transition from/to currencies is handled by the bank. I've paid a fee for this, of course. But one very good reason to avoid shopping from abroad whenever possible is the tarrif that some countries charge on new goods coming from abroad. It's true in Canada - I pay a fee for new textbooks coming from the States. I once ordered something from the States to the Czech Republic and ended up paying half of that thing's total value in tarrifs!! Rules are different everywhere, but I guess it's usually much better to have your family/friends order anything you might really have to have and ship it marked 'gift' ..

[Cdaniels]

Omeo, if you keep asking questions like this there will be little left to talk about on the newbie forum. We will have to tell newbies to reference Omeo's question on such-and-such a date.
I never use anything but a credit card/bank card online. They give you some (slight?) measure of protection against fraud, and provide a "paper trail" of records that can be tracked easily. You might want to check out paypal.com, and the options they offer for making online payments.

[denise]

I did it all the time in Japan, from both US-based companies and Japan-based ones. With the US companies, I used my ATM card, so there were no weird currency conversion issues. With the Japan companies, they sent me a whatchamacallit--a type of invoice--with their bank info and I deposited cash into an ATM machine. Never did get the hang of it... It always took me about half an hour to complete what should have been a 30-second transaction!

Tariffs can be absolute murder. I also had something shipped to the CR and ended up paying about 50% of the retail cost in tariffs. Ditto in Peru--with the tariffs, corruption, and low salaries, I won`t do it again from here! I don`t remember it being a problem at all in Japan.

Oh, and of course, even if there aren`t ridiculous tariffs to pay, the cost of shipping can be a bit exorbitant.

d

[ls650]