My Rose is finished at last. To all who own a Rose in the U.S. how did you pay for it? Do I just go down to the store and buy an international money order in U.S. dollars? I don’t want to delay my whistle or cause Mr. Rose any trouble by sending the wrong thing.I think there was a thread about this a while back, but in searching I could’t find all the info I wanted.
24brix
24Brix,
The following is post/repost of the information I shared regarding use of Foreign Exchange Services. There are 2 links at the bottom that may help locate an exchange service for you. Heres the post:
On 2001-12-28 09:28, LeeMarsh wrote:
Jessie,On 2001-10-30 15:45, LeeMarsh wrote:
Tony,You may want to look in your yellow pages under Foriegn Exchange Services. These services will for a small fee create a bank draft in a foriegn currency drawn on a foriegn bank. For example, an exchange service 8 blocks from where I work, created bank draft drawn from Barclay’s of London in British Pounds Sterling, that I sent over to england to pay for some whistles. The fee was less than 10 dollars total. I paid them with my visa. This was like sending a certified check in the vendor’s currency that the vendor could deposit or cash as they chose. Very easy for the vendor, suprisingly easy for me once I found the exchange service. They even provide this service over the phone and will mail you the bank draft.
I found a lot of the banks wanted to charge fee’s in excess of 50 dollars.
If your buying an expensive flute or whistle using a foriegn exchange service may be the best way to get the money to the instrument maker.
And then with your new purchase you can …
Jess, if you can’t find one in Nashville, e-mail me and I’ll get you the name and address of the local place here that has an 800 number.
Jess hope this helps with your foriegn purchase, I know you’ll …
Enjoy Your Music,>
Lee MarshP.S. I found the info on the foreign exchange service I used here in DC. They have a web sight at <a href=> http://www.afex.com/afexoffices.html>Associated > Foriegn Exchange (AFEX). In addition to office in several cities, they have 800/888 numbers to most of their offices. I believe the fee for a bank draft drawn on Barkley’s Bank of London in British Pounds Sterling was about $7.00 Hope this helps.
P.P.S. <a href=> http://www.wmeinc.com/Orders.asp>World’s > Money Exchange out of Chicago also provides these services.
Hope this helps and …
Enjoy Your Music,
Lee Marsh
[ This Message was edited by: LeeMarsh on 2002-02-06 17:07 ]
24Brix -
I went to one of the URLs posted above to inquire, since I also have a Rose on order. I received a quick response. Here are the relevant bits:
(note - even though they said $100 or less, I quoted 160 british pounds and they said that was fine)
For amounts of $100.00 or less, I would generally recommend a bank draft, which is basically a cheque drawn on our British bank account. There is no fee for this, your cost is simply the value in British pounds multiplied by our exchange rate (GBP is at 1.5106 today, but the rate changes daily.)
For a wire, there is a $15.00 fee in addition to the exchange rate.
Since we generally work with corporations, we have an account application that we require all prospective clients, corporate or individual, to complete, but that is all that is required to set up an account. There are no set up fees or maintenance fee.
If you used us, you would pay for your order with your personal check. We have a procedural rule that requires we wait for the customer cheque to clear on initial orders before releasing the bank draft or wire. This may seem strange, but bear in mind corporate clients are routinely doing initial transactions for very large amounts.This generally takes about three days from the east coast.
I don’t want to post the person’s email address for spambots to get, but anyone who would like it please email me and I will get it out to you.
I posted a msg. on forum about paying for a Rose whistle in late December.
E-mail Fred and tell him that you are going to send him a cashier’s check in U.S.$ and ask him how much you should make it out for. (His bank charges him a small fee to convert U.S $ to British pounds,.. about $7 as I recall)
Thewn, go down to your bank and buy a cashier’s check for that amount of US$ made out to K.F. Rose. They will charge you $5 for this.
Put said check in an envelope addressed to
K.F.Rose,
22 Atkinson St.,
Colne, Lancs, BB8 8AT
England
and send it to him by registered mail.
My whistle arrived in less than 2 weeks, and this was during the Xmas rush. I did not have to pay duty on it, but it is possible that you might. (There is a discussion on instrument duty ccarges in the current Wooden Flute Digest (No. 1127) The website is
woodenflute@woodenflute.com
FYI: International Money Orders COULD NOT be sent to the United Kingdom last I checked. Probably has something to do with the war on terrorism. But the Post Office will send your money to him by registered mail … cash or check! Go figure!!
Your bank will be happy to wire your payment to Fred’s bank account in England, but it will cost you $40 to do it, and there is really no point.
There is very little danger, I think, in having registered mail go astray, and the U.S. Postal Servuce (and, presumably, the Royal Mail) keeps scrupulous track of it all the way. If you want to save 5 bucks, you can just send Fred the cash, I suppose, but I think there is some kind of magnetic strip on the cashier’s check that might make it less attractive to the light fingered.
Mal
Sounds good, but the APEX bank draft seems to be only the monetary amount and no fees. I’ve asked for an application and I’ll post if I find any catches.
Thanks for all the replies. Wow, you guys are great. You’ve given me two options. I have to decide which to use now…
-BRIX
BRIX
If you can, it’s a help to Fred to receive the payment in British Pounds already, rather than convert at his end.
Enjoy the whistle, I’ve seen it (and others) in a couple of stages of manufacture over the past few weeks, and you are going to love it!
I wonder when or if he’s planning on offering whistles in different keys. His D is easily my favorite! Jim
Hey Brix,
I might have done it the hard way, but it was the only way I could find. When I paid for a Bleazey I called around to find a bank that did international drafts. I then had to open an account in order for them to do the draft for me. Perhaps larger metropolitan areas would have more resources.
Vinny
I recently received a communications from my Visa company (a large bank) offering the the option to sign up for a service which allows for overseas cash payments in forgeign currencies. I didn’t pay much attention to it I’m afraid but you might want to look into something like that as well.
Jim - Fred is intending to make a blackwood low D. When he does, my order will be the first! The bad news is, he is so swamped with high D orders that he hasn’t progressed beyond the prototype stage - it’s months/years away!