Hi Everyone , My first post here and I want to say firstly how much I've been enjoying the challenge of Arkadia since I landed three days ago. Folk seem very friendly and I'm looking forward to staying around for a long time to help build up the colony . Unfortunately the reason I'm posting is because I need to try and understand something about the deposit system. When I joined I decided to make a small first time depo (money brought with me from Earth if you like) of $10. What's confusing me is according to my bank statement the depo cost me £7.50 however at the current exchange rate $10 is round about £6.10 .I've looked everywhere for info about transfer charges etc. and have no problem if MA take a small % . I've enquired at my bank and they claim they haven't charged me for the transaction (Visa debit). Can anybody here please help clear this up for me? As I said I expect a small % for transfer fee, but this is a 23% charge, seems very high.
First welcome to Arkadia For me the best way to depo is Ukash atm ....i havent pay any fee for my bank only the small transfer fee from MA ...it is´nt much (sorry dont remember the numbers) it is in my eye the cheapest option to depo...that or CC Maybe someone else can explain better
If I remember correctly, the charge MindArk takes for processing the deposit is 3%, so yes, that % you quoted seems a bit high. If your bank said they did not charge you for it, perhaps it was on the Visa side of the transaction? I actually had a similiar problem some years back but after getting back to the bank again, insisting they find out who charged that extra bit, it turned out it was the bank all along, as a foreign transaction, that had needed conversion from UK pounds into US dollars. Send a support case to ask for sure, but if MindArk says it wasn't them, ask your bank to look further for you. Good luck, hope you get it sorted and welcome to Arkadia
3% seems to be correct what MA charges and any other fee's you have been paying have been charged by your own bank, either their own fees or fees from VISA or whatever card service you use. Question comes up very much lately, and you did what you should do ask your bank. And most likely the "normal" bank persons dont handle much international transfers so they dont know all that is charged and for what so demand to speak to someone who understands these things. (it sure seem like they dont tho as 9/10 times I asked my bank questions of international trades I got weird and uninformed answers)
Thanks for the replies guys. I'm fairly sure this is the bank and/or visa.As Jenny said the "normal" person I spoke to at the bank was very vague about international tranfer charges. UKash looks like I good way to go in future. Thanks again for the help.
Just like to add this for the benefit of any new players who might read it.Just deposited £5 through Ukash today. Couldn't have been easier and I was only charged 18p for the transfer. I would thoroughly recommend this method to anyone.
Bear in mind also what website you used to do the £ to $ conversion. You can get different figures depending on what you use. I remember when i first did my bank deposit I had a similar issue. Here is part of the reply from support: I was ofcourse using a different website for the conversion and didn't take into account the change from when i made the deposit to when I was looking it up . ECB website: http://www.ecb.int/home/html/index.en.html ECB currency converter tool: http://sdw.ecb.europa.eu/curConverter.do
My fee was 7%, so a $10 depo gives you 93 ped. That's using a visa credit card. I should add that some credit cards charge higher fees than others.
I've previously noted charges on my Creditcard. 3.5% is what Visa apparently charge (and MA pass on) hence the 10USD-->96.5ped, plus a cash advance fee (because of the "process code" MA apparently use) plus a foreign exchange fee as well.
