Scottish Elises

Hi,

I've signed up for a card from weswap.com - this is a pre-paid credit card which allows you to load up with GBP, swap to EUR at between 1-1.4% commission (over interbank rate, I think) and then pay for beer in Europe in EUR with no additional charges.

Better yet, if your friends have the same cards you can arrange peer-to-peer currency swaps at lower rates.

I think it's a great idea and could be handy for SE types to swap spare currency back and forth between one another.

Now, if you want to sign up you can go to weswap.com and sign up.

If you want to be nice to my son you can sign up through this link instead which gets him a tiny referral bonus (he got one and told me about it which is why I got one):

http://swp.to/invite/pal3533

Happy swapping,

Robin

(I swapped 500 GBP into 633.26 EUR which is a rate of 1.267 - today's interbank rate is 1.285 - so my commission was 1% against interbank)

Anything that helps stick one up the Banks and CC companies is good news. I have just repaid the money to Markus's Bank that he paid me for the MMC discs and the bloodsuckers took £25 from each of us in charges. That sort of thing should not even happen to Scam Van drivers Don.

Next day I discovered this App, https://transferwise.com, which today would cost me £4.98 and he would have got the full bank rate of 1.278EUR.

tut

I have send thousands using tramsferwise....can highly recommend

I am always wary of pre-pay cards. We used one for a short period of time and left it sitting with £30 or so and didn't use it for maybe 6 months. When I checked what was on it there was a charge of £2 per month after 3 months for non usage !! When I then tried to get the remaining funds back they threatened a £25 fee for refund charges. I fought that one and won but still lost out on the 3x £2 non usage fee.
No one does read them but obviously we should as there can be some shoddy practices hidden in T&Cs

I signed up and will see how it goes. Did the card take long to arrive, Robin? We're off to the Eurozone for Easter, which is only a week away.

Or alternatively, just sign up for a Halifax Clarity card. No fees, charges or commission whatsoever and a totally perfect exchange rate.

It's even fee/commission free to withdraw cash abroad. They do charge interest on the cash amount (£1.50 per £100 per month) but it still works out cheaper than buying foreign currency in the UK. A way to avoid the cash withdrawal interest is to log in to your internet banking and pay it off as soon as you've withdrawn it

Graham and I couldn't live without our Clarity Cards.

Regards,

Jeremy

Likewise Jeremy, I got one for the family holidays and cottoned on to the same procedure, take cash out when necessary then immediately pay it off on line so no interest payable.

I only use it abroad as I have a Santander 123 on which I get Cashback.

tut