My bank is delaying/not processing international wire requests

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Submitted by CONCHO on October 17, 2008 - 8:39am

FYI, my bank (I won't name it but it's a big one) seems to be either delaying or not processing international wire transfers. I submitted a request a couple of weeks ago, and after a week of nothing happening and no contact from the bank, I called them. They asked me if it was for a joint account (no), a bunch of other questions, and then indicated that they had no record of my request. They gave me a new fax # to send the request to and I sent in again.

A week later and the money still hasn't been transferred. I called them this morning and went through the same sort of routine but this time they put me on hold for a looooong time and then came back to tell me that those transfers are handled by a separate department and that they will call me before executing it. I asked them how long this will take and they can't give an answer.

I've never encountered this before, they have always processed these very quickly without contacting me.

Also, gold is at at $760/oz today but 1 oz. American Eagles are selling for $1100 on ebay.

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Expect this to happen a lot
Submitted by partypup on October 17, 2008 - 12:27pm.

Expect this to happen a lot more often from here on. I think we are very close to having exchanged controls imposed. At a certain point, as demand for the dollar dries up, money simply won't be allowed to leave this country. I'd really focus hard on getting whatever you need to get out NOW, in one lump sum, in one wire. Stay on them. And screw the $10K reporting law. Better to let the Feds know that you sent $50K and try to let them get their hands on it out of the country, than having $50K stuck over here.

You're spot on about gold. And the *market* price of silver is now less than it was 3 years ago, when the dollar was much stronger, long before the crisis began.

I wired domestically
Submitted by EconProf on October 18, 2008 - 7:12am.

I wired domestically yesterday, and it arrived in hours.
Suggest you go in to your bank & do paperwork then & there, get names, times, etc. then follow up within hours to be sure it executed.

I always send wires in
Submitted by blue_sky on October 18, 2008 - 7:19pm.

I always send wires in person, never had a problem with 'em.

Also, that sounds like a hell of an arbitrage opportunity there on ebay.

Sometimes happens. I presume
Submitted by qwerty007 on October 19, 2008 - 5:55pm.

Sometimes happens. I presume it's coming into the US? Best banks for this are the ones that are doing it all the time. I had to show a small branch office of WaMu how to do a wire transfer simply because nobody had ever done one before, and had never heard of a Swift code.