Info on Proz payment system

On 2003-02-19 08:27, Lemster wrote:

Hi Antonella,

The first place to check on how the ProZ.com wallet works is the FAQ list www.proz.com/?sp=faq#wallet.



In my personal view, the wallet is most appropriate for smaller payments which would not be commercially viable for payment via bank transfer. You should also bear in mind that the wallet is denominated in US dollars (cf www.proz.com/?sp=bb/viewtopic&post=48701#48701), which means that you will most probably incur additional costs as a result of currency conversion (also check www.proz.com/?sp=bb/viewtopic&post=51847#51847 in this respect.



If you search the ProZ.com forum area for \"wallet\", you\'ll find quite a number of related threads.



HTH - best regards, Ralf









Dear Ralf



I have only been a member for a week now, so probably this is a bit early to comment. But payment is always an important, if not the most important, issue. Looking at the percentages taken for money transfers through the Wallet facility, I was surprised to find them to be so high. 5 percent may seem a small amount when we are dealing with jobs of, let´s say, USD100 to USD200, but imagine the cost for transferring payments in the region of USD2000 USD?? Even with normal highstreet banks in England the amount taken for money transfers has a ceiling.



Regards



Ivo ▲ Collapse

On 2003-03-02 11:32, Lemster wrote:

Hi Ivo,

Have a closer look at my response to Antonella:



Quote:

In my personal view, the wallet is most appropriate for smaller payments which would not be commercially viable for payment via bank transfer.

The ProZ.com wallet is not intended as a commercial payments service, but mainly as an alternative where banks\' minimum charges represent a problem. The bank where I hold my business account in Germany charges a minimum EUR 14.50 - that makes sense for a payment of 5,000 euros, but not for 20 or 50 euros. (BTW I have found UK banks to be significantly more expensive for cross-border payments.)





Hi Ralf



Thanks for the prompt answer. Anyway, I wanted to tell you about the difference in the way German and English (and French) banks deal with money transfers from the Eurozone to GB. Last year I did one job for Kudos IDD (for their French arm). Having invoiced appr. EUR160, I was astounded to find only GBP130 in my account. I enquired at my bank and found out that the overall costs for the bank service on both ends was GBP 11. But where was the rest?? Only after enquiring stubbornly once more, I received the information that there was an additional intermediary bank that had taken appr. GBP20. For what, I ask? I have now an arrangement with the French arm of Kudos for them to pay all the 30 or so pounds in clearing fees for every future job I do for them. When my sister transferred monies to me from Germany (in the thousands) last year the clearing bank WLB charged only a small nominal fee for this transaction. Now that´s what I call reasonable!



Gruß



Ivo ▲ Collapse