Any Mebers in Germany That Can Help Me?

[GearHeadDiver]

Hello all,

Inquiring to see if there are any members here located in Germany that may be able to help me out with a purchase on the German Ebay site?
Will use my own account but require translation and possibly help shipping the item to me here in Canada.

Any help appreciated.

Cheers,

Ash...

[808Airhead]

Hello,you can use translate.google.com to help you with interpetation via e-mail,etc.I use it all the time for German ebay!

[Darryl.Richman]

here who can probably help you out with a translation.

Usually the hardest thing with these transactions is actually sending the money. It tends to be very expensive to wire money from here in NA, but the Germans do it routinely and almost for free, so they expect everyone else to do it. If the eBay auction only mentions payment by "Überweisung", that means wire transfer.

Are you buying something big/heavy? If not, just have the seller send it by Post and insure it. (But if Canada charges a duty, they may decide to charge you based on the insurance value. When I send stuff to Germany, the German customs people do that to my recipients.) Expect the post to be expensive, and any private shipper to be more expensive.

[Bruce Frey]

You might try Xoom as a way to transfer money. This was recommend by some on another forum. I have signed up, but have not tried it yet.
Xoom

Bruce

[redavide]

I've bought many parts in Germany. First, you should try contacting the seller because many Germans speak English.

Another way to pay is simply make a wire transfer through your local bank to the seller's account.

[Darryl.Richman]

Which bank are you using, redavide? When I've looked into it, I haven't found a bank that will do it for less than $50. Most smaller banks hire out this service to BofA or another large bank with international business, and the local branches have no idea how to do a wire transfer.

I've heard of Xoom as well, and will try them out the next time I need to do it.

I have a friend in Karlsruhe, and in the past I've Paypaled money to him (with about 5% surcharge to cover the transfer and the conversion to euros), so he can transfer the money on my behalf. But it's frustrating, Paypal takes up to a two week float in Germany, so the money disappears from his Paypal account but doesn't show up in his bank account for two weeks. Only then can he make the payment for me.

[Bruce Frey]

I don't do international wire transfers often, but I did one last week. The amount was higher than Xoom permits so I didn't get a chance to try it out. My Wells Fargo account was charged $20 for the transfer and the exhange rate was a bit less than 3% higher than the published "official" rate. You pay for conversion on one side or the other.

I have come to accept bank and credit card fees as a fact of life with international transactions and living abroad. The cheapest way for me to move money from the USA is via ATM. I have no cost transactions and the exchange rate is as good as you can get anywhere. The problem is transaction size limits if you need a lot of money.

Bruce

[Darryl.Richman]

I don't do international wire transfers often, but I did one last week. The amount was higher than Xoom permits so I didn't get a chance to try it out.

Cool! So, what bike did you get??

[Bruce Frey]

No bike this time. All fun hobbies seem to be expensive, though.

Bruce

[redavide]

Which bank are you using, redavide?

Chase in the U.S. I agree with Bruce, there's no way around paying fees with banks and credit cards -- if there's no alternative, you've just got to pay the fee. Usually no matter how you try to pay internationally, at least a couple of banks will end up getting some type of fee.