Bank charges Thread poster: Joy Lewis
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Joy Lewis
Barbados
Local time: 01:00
Member (2007)
French to English
+ ...
Hello All,
I have been wondering for some time now who is liable for bank charges, the translator or client (in my case, agencies)? I have found that depending on the country of source of funds, these charges can vary between USD20-25 per transaction.
Looking forward to hearing from you and thanks in advance for your replies.
Regards,
Joy
| | | | Steven Capsuto 
United States
Local time: 01:00
Member (2004)
Spanish to English
+ ...
| I discuss this with foreign clients up front | Aug 2, 2007 |
The only agreement I'm willing to accept is that the client pays the fees assessed by his or her bank and I pay the fees assessed by mine.
The problem is that for transactions from certain countries, there's an intermediate bank that takes 6%, and I wind up eating that.
In some cases, I find it's cheaper to use a service like Moneybookers to transfer money from overseas, though I don't know whether they can be used from where you are in Barbados.
| | | | | Everyone pays theirs | Aug 3, 2007 |
Steven Capsuto wrote:
The only agreement I'm willing to accept is that the client pays the fees assessed by his or her bank and I pay the fees assessed by mine.
That's called fee splitting and is the mode we normally use as an agency. Both parties pay their own bank.
PayPal, Moneybookers et al. are often the more economical alternative.
B
P.S.: Obviously, this is a matter of negotiation - in some cases, we've agreed to cover both fees, e.g. when the transaction amount would have been nearly eaten up by the receiving bank's fees.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 07:00
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Every client is different | Aug 3, 2007 |
Joy Lewis wrote:
I have been wondering for some time now who is liable for bank charges, the translator or client (in my case, agencies)?
In an ideal world, you pay the charges on your side, and the client pays the charges on his side.
However, if most of your clients are once-off clients, then there's really no way you can prevent more charges being pawed off to you, because with a new client, the payment procedure is also new.
With regular clients, it may be easier to renegotiate the rate once you discover a pattern which may indicate that you are paying more charges than you had anticipated.
The two principles in this are:
* Have a minimum rate that would cover some eventualities.
* Increase your profit margin slightly, so that if something goes "wrong" with a payment, you can still afford to take the knock if you have to.
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Joy Lewis
Barbados
Local time: 01:00
Member (2007)
French to English
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER | Thanks for all suggestions | Aug 13, 2007 |
I'll bear what was said about Moneybookers in mind.
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