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How to pay a bill in Australia?

Gary Stockton

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No - not a trick question, unfortunately :lol:

I need to pay the Australian suppliers for my suspension so they can ship it out to me - anyone know the easiest and cheapest way of accomplishing that?

Do I just go to my bank with a copy of the invoice and ask them to trfr the funds?

Cheers
 
Gary Stockton said:
No - not a trick question, unfortunately :lol:

I need to pay the Australian suppliers for my suspension so they can ship it out to me - anyone know the easiest and cheapest way of accomplishing that?

Do I just go to my bank with a copy of the invoice and ask them to trfr the funds?

Cheers

Phone them up and give credit/debit card details "sorted"
 
It will cost you about £30 at the bank. Paypal and Western union may well be cheaper but more hassle. If you are with more than one bank its worth shopping around for the best exchange rates.
 
Steve Wright said:
[quote="Gary Stockton":9ni2whum]No - not a trick question, unfortunately :lol:

I need to pay the Australian suppliers for my suspension so they can ship it out to me - anyone know the easiest and cheapest way of accomplishing that?

Do I just go to my bank with a copy of the invoice and ask them to trfr the funds?

Cheers

Phone them up and give credit/debit card details "sorted"[/quote:9ni2whum]


I go with that one... they can just charge your card..
and otherwise paypal...

good luck..
 
If they don't do international credit / debit cards then if you have their bank details you should be able to set them up as a payee on your online banking and pay them like that without extra charges.
 
I'll try the internal one, failing that I'll phone them at stupid o'clock tomorrow morning :lol:

Jon - apologies - have sent you your cash :oops: :oops:

Update - Clydesdale won't allow international pmt from online banking - go to a branch and pay £24 for the privilege :twisted:
 
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Forgot all about that Gary! You should have kept quiet :lol:
 
Most companies will be fine with credit cards [i'm Aussie] but you should fax it for security rather than email it. Phone order would work too if the Aussie company are ok with it. I've done both. Money transfers are painful as the sender and receiver get charged. HSBC charges about £17 which is one of the cheaper high-street rates - the Aussie company will have a charge too but they should absorb it. You will have no trouble transferring to their bank account though. Credit cards give you the advantage of some consumer protection if things go wrong. Oz has goods and services tax (GST) which is like VAT but as you're buying from overseas means they can subtract the GST. You may get hit by HMCE on the way into the UK though.
 
most international debit/credit card transactions will require copy of your passport and another form of ID shoing address to be faxed over. you will also possibly find that the bank blocks the transaction anyway on "fraud" grounds- which means you then have to get a block taken off your card (which my bank would only do for 1hour), get in touch with the foreign company and get them to take the payment within that hour.

Its a hell of a rigmarole, and just not worth it for debit card transactions for me! It may be worh it for credit card transactions as you should get purchase protection.

If you trust the supplier you may find a wind transfer easier- will cost £27 usually but goes the same day (sometimes the next), but is guaranteed to get there with no hassle. Only problem with this method is fees- sometimes the transmitting bank (an intermediary betwen the recipients bank and the senders bank) takes a fee, and you need to have said that you will pay the fees. Otherwise the supplier receives short funds and you have to send another payment.

If you work for a manufacturing company of a reasonable size you will probably find that they do international wire transfers already, and that finance may do one on your behalf- i've done a few for our staff in my time.
 
What about a simple online personal banking money transfer. I do it reasonably regularly and it works fine (albeit not to Aus). You'll just need their account details obviously and invoice ref No.
 
international transfers will need a Swift or IBAN account code which won't usually work with residential online payments. Some commercial systems like Telebank or Bankline can do it, but even then there is a cost associated.

To use personal payments you would have to find a company with a UK bank account.

You can do wire transfers over the phone, or in your local branch.

You could also try PayPal but you'd have to ask first- there are very good reasons for an international supplier NOT to accept paypal!
 
Nuclear Chicken said:
What about a simple online personal banking money transfer. I do it reasonably regularly and it works fine (albeit not to Aus). You'll just need their account details obviously and invoice ref No.

I don't think that will work as the Aussie bank no's are laid out differently to ours, for example where you have six boxes to type in the sort code you will have a different number of digits to enter. They will also need the IBAN of the destination branch. I find the best way is to get all the details of the destination branch/account then do it over the phone with your own bank. They generally charge £30 for this service.
 
Thanks folks - I'll give it a go with the Aussies tomorrow morning - the Clydesdale don't use Maestro anymore, they use MasterCard Debit, which processes the same as a credit card, so will see what happens. If that doesn't fly, I'll get the SWIFT details and go to a branch.

cheers
 
Seems to have gone rather painlessly - phoned them up, gave them my card details - suspension is on its way!!
 
When I bought stuff off Wholesale Automatics a couple of years ago it was like that, just a shame you have to phone at stupid 'o clock to catch them at work!
 
No no, here is stupid o'clock. Australia is on god's own time :lol: :lol:
 
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