Western Union money transfer

[pmacay]

I just sent 2K on May 1 from a USA bank to an ARG Santander bank acct, the good thing is it said it will arrive in 6 days, previously it was taking 8. I tried again to use my husband's debit card to do a transfer to our account but it was rejected. I'm thinking because it's both our account that WU is thinking I'm trying to avoid transfer fees by using a new login to the same bank account. (??) I did order a new debit card from CitiBank, my old card was an ATM card, not Debit, which I thought was the same but the debit card has that 3 character security code on the back that the ATM card didn't have. On May 1 with the $60 transfer fee the exchange rate I got was $1,155 pesos.

 

[Caribbean Cool]

And about Western Union......at one time in the past they blocked me. From sending and receiving. I never could find out why. I finally figured out how to use WU again....open a new account with a different email address. Works well. But only depending on W.U. for life down here I think is a marginal idea. A backup is important.

 

[Che1990]

Dólar Hoy is showing it even higher. Don’t want to get my hopes up though!

nope it was a mistake

 

[steveinbsas]

Yeah it spiked Friday 15% it should be somewhere around 1280~; you can expect that Monday somewhere during the day/evening.

Looks like it's down today:

Dólar CCL hoy, cotización y precio del Dólar CCL | Clarín

Dólar CCL. Los principales indicadores económicos de Argentina y el mundo. Noticias del dólar, Merval, empresas argentinas, acciones y bonos de deuda.

www.clarin.com

Compra: $1207,60

Venta: $1206,80

I made a WU transfer on Friday at a rate of $1190.00. It hasn't changed since.

 

[steveinbsas]

PS: the link in my previous post actually indicates today's CCL declined over 14% from the prior rate of $1520, so it went up suddenly amd then suddenly dropped, while the WU rate remained unchanged:

From the Clarin link:

Compra

$1209,60

Venta

$1209,10

Valor anterior

$1547

Variación

-11.53%

This isn't the first time something like this has happened. It's not umcommon for Western Union to wait to see if a sudden increase is sustained.

 

[pmacay]

Looks like it's down today:

Dólar CCL hoy, cotización y precio del Dólar CCL | Clarín

Dólar CCL. Los principales indicadores económicos de Argentina y el mundo. Noticias del dólar, Merval, empresas argentinas, acciones y bonos de deuda.

www.clarin.com

Compra: $1207,60

Venta: $1206,80

I made a WU transfer on Friday at a rate of $1190.00. It hasn't changed since.

Yes, my rate was also 1190 on May 1, but factoring in the $60 transfer fee on a 2K transfer took the rate down to 1155.

 

[pmacay]

I just did another USA bank to Argentina Santander bank transfer. I have to use the bank to bank transfer as my debit card was rejected for some reason and I didn't want to go into a local branch to figure it out. I have done 8 transfers since last November and they have all taken 7-8 days to clear into my Santander acct. This time on June 3, I used the Western Union phone app, and used the "Quick Resend" option while looking at "Recent Transfers" and my money showed up the next day at Santander. This is the first time this has ever been so quick with a bank to bank transfer. I don't know if WU made a change, or using the phone app was the trick, or using the "Quick Resend" over making a "New" transfer, but I'm very pleased it's faster. The exchange rate was quoted as 1192.6 but factoring in the transfer fee I got a rate of 1158 pesos.

 

[Johngwyn]

I just did another USA bank to Argentina Santander bank transfer. I have to use the bank to bank transfer as my debit card was rejected for some reason and I didn't want to go into a local branch to figure it out. I have done 8 transfers since last November and they have all taken 7-8 days to clear into my Santander acct. This time on June 3, I used the Western Union phone app, and used the "Quick Resend" option while looking at "Recent Transfers" and my money showed up the next day at Santander. This is the first time this has ever been so quick with a bank to bank transfer. I don't know if WU made a change, or using the phone app was the trick, or using the "Quick Resend" over making a "New" transfer, but I'm very pleased it's faster. The exchange rate was quoted as 1192.6 but factoring in the transfer fee I got a rate of 1158 pesos.

I uses WU too, but never anywhere close to 7-8 days. I do it cash, usually the same day, sending in the morning, after lunch I can pick it up at the WU store...

 

[pmacay]

I prefer to do electronic transfers so I'm not waiting in lines, or walking out of WU with lots of cash, then having to deposit it into my Santander acct, again waiting in line there. So it's more of a convenience/safety (lazy) thing for me to do the transfer directly into my account.

 

[Filipo]

Are you still using WU to transfer from foreign countries to Argentina or did anybody find better alternatives?

For people with a MACRO banc account there might be one alternative, transfer USD directly as they won't charge commission:

Transferencias en dólares: un banco privado eliminó comisiones en operaciones desde el exterior

Esta medida tiene como objetivo ayudar a profesionales, freelancers y grupos familiares o personas que reciben ayuda económica a que "cada dólar llegue a la cuenta sin descuentos inesperados".

www.ambito.com

Still depends on what your bank is charging for sending the money.