Has anyone used XOOM before?

[henryb]

Four days later the transaction was still being processed. I was using their partner MORE money services and their questions seemed really shady. They wanted to know ...

How long does it take to fund your Paypal from a bank account? ACH transactions are reversible. You do not have any history with them. So, I am not really surprised they are asking questions.

 

[superfresh]

Xoom's site advertises you will have the money in 15 minutes ... but that didn't bother me.

What bothered me was it wasn't event that much money and MORE is supposedly an international service yet the person didn't even speak English???

He wanted to know what my occupation was, what I was going to use the money for and where I would be picking up the money. If they advertise that they have 3 locations then why does it matter. If they only have money at one location than just put one location. It just made the experience sketchy.

 

[JamesKTusa]

Xoom's site advertises you will have the money in 15 minutes ... but that didn't bother me.

What bothered me was it wasn't event that much money and MORE is supposedly an international service yet the person didn't even speak English???

He wanted to know what my occupation was, what I was going to use the money for and where I would be picking up the money. If they advertise that they have 3 locations then why does it matter. If they only have money at one location than just put one location. It just made the experience sketchy.

-------------------------------------
Superfresh,

To your points (posted three times--twice here and once on a new thread you just started! Please limit your postings on same topic...):

- Yes I agree the MORE location on Libertad near Santa Fe seems quite plain and unprotected. Advise go during daytime and bring a friend and moneybelt, no different than hitting any ATM in the Retiro area--stay alert.

- As I mentioned in my long post re: Xoom on ~17April, I did receive a local call in Spanish, just verifying the amount and telling me I had to go to the Libertad location to pick up my pesos. Didn't bother me, I like verifications. Don't know the status of their other locations e.g. Palermo.

- Yes, the local call was in Spanish. We're in Argentina, where one can hope for, but never expect, an English-speaking rep. MORE is just a local money transfer agent (see www.moremt.com) contracted with Xoom, they're not American Express, nor are they a sketchy back-room 'jeweler' doing blue-rate dollar-buying.

- Yes they asked me my occupation and of course I said 'soy ladrone' No, really, these standard/nosey questions shouldn't bother you. Who cares? And if they ask me something I don't want to answer, I politely say "none of your fu&$!'ing business".

- Of course one should never specify both WHERE & WHEN one is picking up cash--that would be foolish. In my case I told them I'd be there sometime during the next few days (with my armored truck).

What I can't understand is how anyone can stay in business selling pesos better than the blue rate, i.e. currently Xoom is giving 5.18ARS/USD minus 1-3% commision, and the Ambito informal rate is 5.01. Any ideas out there? If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is...

Good luck,
Jim

 

[ndcj]

What I can't understand is how anyone can stay in business selling pesos better than the blue rate, i.e. currently Xoom is giving 5.18ARS/USD minus 1-3% commision, and the Ambito informal rate is 5.01. Any ideas out there? If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is...

The price for contado con liqui is over 5,60 right now.

Presumably the recipient company of the funds transfer order here in Argentina disburses payments in pesos to you and, in turn, receives US dollars in an account abroad to compensate them for the pesos. This gives them a semi-legit, mostly en blanco way to get dollars in large quantities.

 

[sesamosinsal]

I used it today. They asked similar questions about occupation and what I was going to use the money for. I think this might cover some legal liability, and I never found it shady. After all of the fees, I got $5.01 per dollar.

 

[jimdepalermo]

Thanks Bradly for pointing this out. I transferred some money last week via standard channels at the standard bank rate, less bank commissions and fees. Today I calculate the advantage with Xoom, and I would have deposited 20% more pesos if I had Xoom wire the funds into my Citi Argentina account.

Next time. . . .

 

[BXpat]

Did anybody else send money to an Argentine bank account NOT in their name?

Here is an excerpt from the email I received for transferring money to my girlfriend's Citibank:

Con respecto a su consulta, las transferencias que puede recibir su cuenta desde el exterior cuentan con una comisión mínima de U$S 60.-. y el beneficiario de esta transferencia debe presentarse ante la sucursal de Argentina donde se encuentre radicada su cuenta a fin de firmar a modo de declaración jurada el formulario correspondiente según normativa cambiaria vigente.

Should I just be doing the Bank Pickups?

Here is the rest of the email:

Recuerde que, al momento de presentarse en la sucursal, deberá informar el código de concepto de la transferencia. La aprobación de la misma esta sujeta a la verificación de la documentación presentada.

Esperamos haber respondido con claridad a su inquietud, y por favor, no dude en contactarse nuevamente con nosotros si lo considera necesario.

Muchas Gracias por utilizar Citibank Online.
Cordialmente

Customer Service

 

[demokritos]

Why did you have to go to the Retiro location? Today I tried going to the "Santa María de Oro 3007", as listed on xoom's site, there's just an apartment building there.

Hi All,

Normally I hit the ATM's every week or two to get pesos (using my fee-free Fidelity or Schwab ATM card of course!), but yesterday I decided to try Xoom. It took 5 hours in total, and it worked flawlessly.

I changed (as a test), US$300 + US$10 fee, to get 1511 pesos (4.88ARS/USD). I don't have a bank acct here (never needed one, have resisted those fabulous discounts). And I didn't opt for the Xoom option of using a credit or debit card, which incurs a higher fee than a direct transfer from my USA bank. Nor did I opt for the Xoom option of extracting dollars (yes dollars!) from a local Banco Frances.

An hour after placing the order on internet I received a phone call via my MagicJack phone from Xoom-USA verifying I was legit, my identity, etc., plus a local phone call from Xoom-Arg rep (in Spanish) confirming the transaction and informing me when/where I could pick up the pesos, plus two emails confirming status of the approval/transfer. All very legit, I like to see such crosschecks, gives me warm-fuzzies. (All except the part about my having to go to the MORE Retiro place on Libertad near SantaFe instead of the more convenient (to me) Palermo sites on Oro y Segui and Charcas y Diaz). I went there before 6pm (when they close), needed only my USA passport, no CDI or anything else requested. Walked out after 3 minutes with pesos en panza.

This week their base rate is 5.037 ARS/USD, with a fixed US$30 fee (for US$1000+ conversions, otherwise ~3%), so if you change US$3000 you'll be charged a 1% fee, netting you 4.99 ARS/USD, not too bad. This week. The rub for me is that it would take me 2-3 months to burn through US$3000 worth of pesos and by that time the peso will have seriously depreciated more, so I'll limit myself to US$1000 or US$2000 transfers for now and live with the slightly lower rate of 5.036 minus 3% or 2%. (Over the last 9 months the peso has been depreciating about 3 centavos per month against the dollar, e.g. 4.30 to 4.33).

I suppose from the Argie GOB perspective Xoom is just another casa de cambio, exploiting the 5+ peso/US$ exchange rate currently available worldwide (except for inside of Argentina). Remember you're tapping into dollar sources outside of Argentina, i.e. selling dollars afuera from your (hopefully) proven, legal bank accounts and buying pesos with them inside Argentina, so you're not doing anything undesirable to the GOB, i.e. you're not extracting/hoarding dollars or sending them offshore.

Note: I noticed the Xoom peso/USD rate jumped a whopping 0.1 from 4.93 to 5.03 on Sunday night April 15. Surely there will be similar big jumps in this and the blue rate due to the investor community ranting over the YPF confiscación, so I advise change only enough pesos that you'll burn over a month, nada mas. I also advise doing it together with another extranjero to pool resources and benefit from the lower proportional commission (and you can 'bodyguard' each other, a bit).

Please stay tuned and share your experiences.

Somehow (warning: rant to follow), I think whenever I stumble across something good like this, it goes away when the Argentines (inevitably) figure out how to screw it up. Or when the yankee owners of Xoom realize they can't turn a profit here due to the peso instability and dollar craving.

ciao chau,
Jim

 

[Stafford]

Hi All,

Would love to get any recent thoughts on Xoom. I am thinking about trying it out this month as an alternative to withdrawing with my Schwab ATM card. Looks like they are currently offering 4.9336, which is a bit lower than the 5+ rate they had going during the early days of the YPF chaos. Still, that's a nice premium above the official rate. Talked to them on the phone and they said as a first time user, I would get the (roughly 3%) fee waived if I type in "speedmay" in the promo code at checkout. They would want me to go to the main "More" location on Libertad. Now that I see it on a map, I remember it. I'd walked by there a million times because its near Piola. That would be for ARS.

I am also considering USD, but I just highly doubt that Banco Frances is really going to hand over USD to me. Plus that's one more transaction I'd have to deal with in terms of switching over to pesos.

Anyway, has anyone had success with this recently? Is there a major queue? I am trying to weigh the risk, opportunity costs (my time) against the benefits.

(I'm not interested in doing the dodgy bond purchase that was brought up in another thread)

Thanks for help!

S

 

[flurec]

Stafford-

I did a transfer last night directly to a friends account at Banco Santander Rio at 8PM and at 9AM this morning they say it is complete. Haven't verified with my friend.

I called xoom and they warned me that this is only for friends and family (or to oneself) and NOT FOR ANY business purposes or they will cut you off.

My limit is $6000 US / month or $19,000 in three months which doesn't even make sense... I imagine that if you are doing more than that they don't think it is for "friends and family".

I tried Banco Frances in dollars. No dice. They would not pay out in dollars and hassled my friend since she is not a bank client. Tried to up sell her to a credit card etc. I don't think you will be able to get dollars. They pay out pesos at official so try it with a small amount first but my guess is you get pesos at 4.4. Not worth it. Send pesos at 5.