Bitcoin Forum

Hi everybody! I am new in this forum and this is my first post.
I found one guy who can sell me some BTC, and he prefer to use bank transfer.
The problems in, that i citizen of U.S. while he is from UK.
I understand that i need to make international wire transfer, but i dont know how to do this one.
some people suggests me to use xe.com.
I would be really appreciate, if you can tell me how better send money from US to UK using bank account?

Please do not make an international wire transfer to some random person just to buy BTC. There are many other much safer options. Try localbitcoins.com if you need them fast. If you are not in a hurry try coinbase.com.

Yes, send the money if you absolutely know this person and trust him. If you just met him and he promised you that he will sell you coins and he won't screw you around then please don't do it. There are much higher chances he will scam you then he will not.

If that's the case, stick around here with us and we, the community will try to help you to obtain some bitcoins.

Let us know!

I found this guy on Reddit, and he have a good reputation. I think i can trust him. Also he agree to start with a small batches, to make a trust for each other.

Thanks a lot, i really appreciate it!

A bank transfer to the UK will take ages, is non reversible and expensive. There's a million better options for obtaining coins safely. What's so special about what this guy is offering?

Recently I used this app called Xoom. You can try it and tranfer through the App. They send the transfers really fast ,like in 3-4 hours. But doing so wouldn't make it reversible later, so you might want to add an escrow to the deal.

Thanks! Can you tell me, are they asking for some ID?



He can go with a good rate

better use anyother good sites with support like lbc rather than direct deal

Below market? That would be a throbbing red flag. He can get the full market rate anywhere he likes in seconds and doesn't have to wait nearly a week for your money. It doesn't add up to anything other than a scam but do what makes you happy.

Hi There,

I know how difficult it is to send and receive money world wide.

My mom is in the UK and I in sunny South Africa.

We use www.exchange4free.com
It is the cheapest way! We have never had a problem and would highly recommend them!

Keep well   

I'm also new to the bitcoin game, and wanted to get my hands on some "instantly". That is not possible (without great risk, I guess).. Even calling bitcoin an instant way of paying is somewhat misleading in my opinion, since even if you are willing to risk just a single confirmation, that will still take at best on average 5 minutes (at best meaning your transaction makes it into the next block, and with blocks targeted at 10 minutes apart, on average it will be ~5min).

Nonetheless, I will share my experiences thus far. I decided to go the exchange route because I wanted larger quantities than I could see on eBay, plus eBay prices were high, plus using PayPal to sell bitcoins is high risk (I imagine buying is lower risk, but you pay high premium because seller is taking risk).

The first account I set up was at coinbase.com - They required my name / address / phone. I don't believe they required me to upload any documents because their verification system was much like PayPal's: Login to your online banking through their site to verify your bank account. To get access to instant purchases, attach a credit card, they will make 2 pre-authorizations (not actual charges) between $1-$2 on the card.. you verify by telling them the amount of the charges.

Upon my initial sign up and bank login I was allowed to purchase a maximum of $200USD of bitcoins (daily). At that point, I attached my credit card, and was given a weekly instant buy limit of $25. The first purchase took about 1 week to clear (had bitcoins I could transfer out of their site). I could not make any other transactions until the first one cleared.

Since the first one right away I made the $25 instant buy, and it was fast. Also for several days I made additional buys close to the daily max. These transaction each are pending and take a week to be cleared.

So as for coinbase: Pro's: easiest to set up (no document uploads or Wire transfers).Con's: Slow first transaction. Low amounts able to buy.

Another big limitation of coinbase as an "exchange" is it appears solely market orders; that means you say buy - it tells you the price you can buy it for same for sell. The other exchanges offer "limit" orders where you make a bid (to buy) or ask (to sell) and transaction only happens if both parties get their price.

The second exchange I tried was Kraken. Here I registered to "Tier 2" which allows a moderate level of bank transfers, however after submitting my name / address and phone #. The site informed me that I could only trade cryptocurrencies because the process of setting up all the government required stuff was not yet complete in my state.

I happen to residences in both Canada and the US, so I tried registering with my Canadian info. At tier 2, I got notification that they were unable to verify my information and please send ID / passport (basically Tier 3) - I did so, and yet to hear from them since...

Since then I've learnt Kraken is a UK based exchange, so EU residents probably will fare better than myself.

(Getting to the international wire transfer soon!)

Next I signed up at coinsetter.com. Here the signup process was well designed, and guided you through fairly thorough process from ID info, document uploads, account info, and setting up a wire transfer. I went through everything, got the wire transfer info and advised them to expect a deposit of a $$$ amount. I logged on  to my online banking (Bank of America) and was able to find International Wire Transfer through their "Send money to someone" pages. (Coinsetter's business is located in Canada, but their bank is in Malta (USD though)). I filled out the wire transfer info (carefully it can be a bit confusing the first time), and sent it on its way. I did this on the weekend - so good old fashioned banks, they informed me the transfer would be initiated the next business day. The bank fee was a little under 1% but I imagine will depend on your bank and the amount. I was expecting a charge on the receiving end, but there was none. On the Monday, my bank e-mailed that the next-day wire transfer had been sent (saw that Mon. morning) and Monday after work, I logged on to coinsetter and saw my money was there and placed a few trades... I'm now liquid with bitcoins (although I have not yet transferred any out of coinsetter yet).

On another note, Monday during the day, one of the coinsetter's VPs called me on the phone welcoming me to coinsetter and offering any assistance I might need.

Pros: Easy to use, fast, reasonable fees, nice personal touch - hope it reflects their customer service. Cons: Need to fund with wire transfer (but so far that seems the same everywhere for non-trivial volume, LEGAL methods that are accountable to governments wrt money laundering...), the exchange volume is low (which means trades might take more time, and possibly more (or maybe less) price volatility (so far their trades are comparable to the higher volume exchanges.)

So I did also sign up with bitfinex. Their process was very similar to coinsetter, and I have wire transfer info for them but have yet to make a deposit there.

I guess in summary, Wire Transfer is pretty much the only legit way to fund an investment sized bitcoin trading / purchasing account. This does require you provide identification and bank information as well as proof of residency etc..

My experience with the wire transfer process, was pretty simple, just have to read the instructions carefully, (coinsetter included an e-mail address to ask for help if anything didn't make sense). It was fast too (except for bank holidays, but still faster than the 1 week with coinbase for peanuts limits). Bank fees are a concern if it is for many small amounts, you probably want to make low frequency larger deposits.

A note, towards to OP original question; why buy from some Joe Blow you don't know with wire transfer when you can do it with an established exchange?

Hope this help some people.

Yeah, it's really helpful information for people like me, who only start working with Btc

In my view instead of going for International Transfer i will go for direct buying through this site "Bitcointalk" members through Escrow service which is most secure way of buying and selling of Bitcoins or Alt coins.

This way we can avoid most scammers as we can check their ratings and reliability.

Yes but you need to have something in exchange for btc, in this case it is cash in form of international transfer, and an escrow from here can be used as well.

Yes it will be more secure than exchange our money, buying or selling of bitcoins or alt coins in other exchanger. But i think there are several exchanger which trusted and reliable also to buy and sell bitcoins

As an update to my learning experiences, so far I have now made multiple International Wire Transfers to Coinsetter & Bitfinex.

Both have been smooth, Coinsetter to (if I recall Bank in Maldive) was smooth, the instructions worked perfect and the money arrived in my account same day (once my bank processed after the weekend.) My bank (Bank of America) charged $45, and although I had no fee on the other end for first transfer, after that fee of $30.

The transfer to Bitfinex had a couple minor hichups; first the SWIFT code in their instructions was not recognized by my bank, and I could not find the bank through the provided address either. I e-mails Bitfinex's help and received a response acceptably quick with their head-office SWIFT code, that one was recognized.

The second minor thing was when I enter the bank's country as Taiwan, I received a warning that that country has in the past been "slow to process" and payments could be delayed. That could make you worry, but we are talking about "same-day" wire. My transfer arrived ready to use in my account in maybe at most a day & a half. Same fees as other end.

I finally got some level of verification on Kraken (with Canada address) but no access yet to do an "Interac" transfer (easy way to pay - like debit card). I didn't investigate their wire transfer since At this point I'll stick with Bitfinex for most stuff.

As for Coinbase; after several week's I'm still limited to $200 per day buy and those take a week to be available + since it doesn't have any functions as an exchange except market price, I have my 0.8 coin I should get tomorrow then I'm done with them.

Bitfinex is my favorite for the reasons I mentioned above, but plus they have some cool advanced features. One which I particularly like since I'm trying to accumulate bitcoins hoping the price will rise continuously over time. They let you lend your bitcoins (or cash or LTC) on the SWAP market. You offer to lend your coins at a rate that you bid (just like exchange people bid / ask prices for the swaps) and you set duration (so if you want easy access to your bitcoins you can offer 2-3 days). This is a "safe" investment because on the "high-risk" margin side where the borrowers are, they don't have direct access to your coins..

So if you plan to just hold your coins, lend them out and you get a few fractions of a bitcoin every night added to your account. You bid a daily rate; something typical right now is 0.0175% per day (I've gotten 0.025% best - I haven't quite figured out what drives the SWAP demand, it dropped when price of BTC went up, which is somewhat opposite to what I might have expected). Anyhow even at 0.0175% per day (sounds tiny) but compound that for a year is you calculate as APR = (1.000175^365 - 1) = 6.6% - Now they take 25% of your profit as fees, so that leaves you with about 5% per year interest... Yeah not a way to get rich, but try finding that rate in a Bank savings account, plus you still get all the capital gains on the bitcoins themselves.

Is english your native language? oh yeah you said you are from US right?

As he prefers to use bank transfer and as far as he is reliable, you should use bank rather than third party money transfer.

You did not mention about your residential country,  US or UK? -- Does not matter citizenship
Which bank do you use? - US bank or British Bank?
Which currency do you use -- USD or GBP
Do you need to convert FX?

Each of that seriously effect your commission / conversion rate  ;)

whatever your transfer method,the key is always trust.. if you believe him,sent the money,if not,dont do that..simple

You often can't trust people you've known all your life. The odds of a Reddit random being 100% above board when you're sending an irreversible transaction are somewhere in the region of nil. If they are straight then that's wonderful but what's the point in risking it when there's no shortage of options with lengthy track records?

couldn't have said it better myself

use escrow and get some advice from senior/legendary account ;D

I agree, only wire the money if the person is trust worthy. I would recommend you to use western union if you want to transfer money fast, but the WU are too high IMO.

Exchange4free a safe and secure way to transfer money.
I use them to do my international transfers. ;)

Says a newbie, and whats the point of promoting sites no one has heard of before.

TIME IS MONEY AND WIRE TRANSFERS TAKE LONG AND CAN BE OPTED FOR LARGER AMOUNTS WITH TRUSTED MEMBERS :)

first think is that you should trade in local area.but you still want to make deal outside of india first conform that they are trusted or not.may be they are spammer and you can pay them by PayPal exchange of btc.

please be caution when you use paypal, because i came to know that using paypal lot of scam are happening. paypal is not secure nowadays. trading in local is best idea but take some precaution when dealing with them like where you are going to do the transaction and palce where you meet him. choose this wisely because their is local scamming is also very high.