International cash payments with Xoom

Payment methods
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Today I used Xoom for the first time to wire $100 to a friend in Argentina. It worked surprisingly well.

Xoom permits transfers bank accounts or debit/credit cards (in the US only I think) to persons in several countries. The recipient can pick up the money in cash or have it deposited to his/her national bank account.

I elected to make a bank to cash transfer. The fee was $4.99. The precise fee varies with country and payment method:
https://www.xoom.com/money-transfer-fees

Additionally, there was a 3.3% hidden fee built into the exchange rate (14.86 ARS/USD vs 15.38 ARS/USD on Google). Then again, no bank would probably offer a significantly better exchange rate.

Xoom informs the sender when the recipient has picked up the cash. So, there is no risk of chargeback.

You can only send money from US-based bank account or debit/credit card.

As part of my transfer I should add that a Xoom representative called my on the number provided to verify that I had initiated the transaction. They confirmed my name, email address, recipients name and asked what the purpose of the transaction was.

First impressions suggests Xoom could be a reliable and safe way to send fiat internationally in exchange for crypto.

Countries you can send to with Xoom (from the US):
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Bangladesh
Belgium
Bolivia
Brazil
Canada
Chile
China
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cyprus
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
El Salvador
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Guatemala
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
Hong Kong
India
Ireland
Italy
Jamaica
Kenya
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Mexico
Nepal
Netherlands
Nicaragua
Pakistan
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sri Lanka
United Kingdom
Uruguay
Vietnam

1 Like
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If it takes credit cards it will allow chargebacks. Can’t use it.

It’s part of Paypal. It also only has 128-bit data encryption, which is fairly lame these days.

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Xoom is bank/card to cash. In that case, chargebacks are not possible. It can also be bank/card to bank, in which case chargebacks may be possible, but likely difficult as the transactions crosses jurisdictions. I would recommend people only use Xoom for international bank/card to cash transactions, if it is added to Bitsquare.

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Fair enough. There are a million of these things now, the banks are trying to fight back against bitcoin. But honestly the value is fairly low … unless you have a friend in Argentina who needs cash in a hurry.

Here’s another one I wouldn’t touch: https://transferwise.com/au

To these guys it’s all about ‘membership’ and ‘registration’ and lock-in and hidden fees and imaginary ‘security’. I don’t trust any of them.