Postal Problems & Banking!!

[Musetta]

Not so easy peasy in Italy. I want to know the easiest and cheapest method for Americans and Canadians to pay. Almost all banks in Italy charge huge fees for bank transfers, cheques etc. which are paid into ones account.
Do the clients get charged for using a bank transfer at their end, or is it only the receiving end where the charge occurs?
Chianti

I'm still trying to figure out a good way for Italy! so far...not come up with anything good PayPal is what I've been doing but I'd really love another solution.

To give you an idea...I'm with /bank of America here in the US; I am charged $35 to send a wire ($15 to recieve!) so...if I were to book something that needed a wire transfer, it would cost me over $100 (!) if I were to send a deposit and two payments...and that's without the currency conversion fees! Way too much for me to ask people to pay since it's a quarter of my weekly rate.

I have yet to have an American willing to give me a plain, old, ordinary, free , US check - alll, so far have insisted on credit card. Wires are sos rare here, that they feel much "safer" that way that they have some sort of record if something were to go wrong (i.e. they show up and there's no house!)

Euro payments are a pain too...because, as you said, Italian banks charge high fees as well

don't really know what else to do though besides use PayPal ans suck up the fees
(which do turn out less for me than wires since I would have to recieve three and make one for the damage deposit)

I'm open to any othere solutions you think of!

[Hells Bells]

I was charged 4 euros for a transfer out of my account (French) last week. Cheque would have been free though.

[Musetta]

ok...now I'm REALLY jealous!! Maybe I should move to France!! (hay! there's a thought! !)

One transfer out from my US bank is equal to....50EUROS (!)

(which explains why no one from the US would want to pay it...maybe for a REALLY expensive place it wouldn't be a problem...but not for a budget property)

[Hells Bells]

This was French account to French account though. An international one would have been more expensive I think. My UK bank charges £20 per transfer.

[Hells Bells]

How shocked am I at 50 euros though, no surprise it's a no-go.

[Musetta]

yes...you're right though....domestic trasnfers would be about half the price...still...too much!
feel like such a newbie that I don't have a decent payment system worked out!!

problem is that guests are mainly from the UK (or Australia@!) and property is in Euros...and I'm in USdollars (Italian banking system is a mess and, I COULD put paypal payment or wire transfer right into it...but rather not-don't really trust it...and...this is SO ODDLY ITALIAN..."wires" can take WEEKS to be "recieved" into your Italian bank account!! yes...I know that the whole POINT of a wire is that the money gets there instantaniously...Italians have not figured thihs out though (and I say that with love, of course).what a scam. don't really want to wait weeks to see if my guests' money actually gets there!

nice thing (although I hate to admit it becasue the fees are REALLY really high for crossborder payments into a US account too!) about paypal though is it lets me take and hold a balance in euros - so I don't need to pay to convert damage deposit...so...guess that's an up side. I can take credit card payments in USD for my US guests - so that works out ok.