BEWARE OKPAY bank wires

[chungenhung]

Did a bank wire, took them exactly 1 week to reply to my support ticket, and that is after I opened about 20 others to ask them to look into the wire issue. Still have NOT received my wire yet.
Their website says "The bank charges are USD: 1% (min. $12, max. $20)". But I was charged almost 9% for the incoming wire.

Further, they want me to upgrade to merchant account, in order to release the money into my account.
One of the step says website verification, which I don't have. So I send them another support ticket. Now I gotta wait another week for a response.

But really... 9% fee is just too high, and not what their website says.

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[Moebius327]

Just wired 100 Euro today. To answer my support ticket took them 39 minutes.

[joesmoe2012]

I've sent in multiple wires.

I think there's like a $20 fee or something when they are received, i've never been charged anywhere near 1% not to mention 9%.

I think there is a 2% fee to move over to BTC-e though.

Sometimes it does take literally weeks for them to clear wires though (especially larger ones).

And they will randomly ask for more verification all the time ,which is another major headache.

[chungenhung]

As of 04/22/2013, I still have not received my funds.
They responded asking me for prove for wire transfer, which I have uploaded when I opened the support ticket!
Plus, they conveniently forgot to answer my question about why the fee is 9%.

[BCB]

Dude,

What did you get the scammer tag for??

[Moebius327]

 Update: It took 1 business day for my funds to arrive.

[ruggedman_dan]

What country are you all in?

Also, is everyone withdrawing or trying to deposit?

[Moebius327]

What country are you all in?

Also, is everyone withdrawing or trying to deposit?

Deposit from Germany. Sofort banking

[Raoul Duke]

Dude,

What did you get the scammer tag for??

For not paying what he owes to someone, maybe? 

[chungenhung]

Okpay replied to my ticket. But they never told me why the fee is 9%. That question is ignored even though I posted it several times on the support ticket. Funds still "frozen".

[chungenhung]

Okpay finally replied to the 9% fee question.
Here is what they said

There are no hidden charges, however we would like to warn you that correspondent bank charges can be applied and vary and (deducted from the sent amount).

Please do not ask us to give you the exact fee for the transfer you will send as it all depends on the country and the way banking system works is that in many cases you can not calculate the amount with 100% guarantees.
If you would like to get the detailed report on the fees and transfer times associated with your recent wire withdrawal feel free to request a SWIFT confirmation (subject to fees).

Note that I paid for the $45 transfer fee from my end, so the only other fee is OKPAY's bank receiving fee.
They are saying they don't know what's the fee for them to receive funds. And if I were to request a SWIFT confirmation, they want to charge me more money for it.

In sum, they can say their bank charges them $5000 to receive a $5000 transfer, and get away with it, b/c according to them, the fees varies, and if you want a report, you would have to pay again.
Let's say the report fee is $100, so I transfer $200. They come back and say that $200 transfer have a $200 fee, and thus, not enough funds are left for the report.

This is total scam, at least for wire transfers from USA

[chungenhung]

As of now, still no explanantion of 9% fee.
So, for those wiring from USA, just know that you will be hit with a 9% fee instead of their stated 2% or $20 max fee.

[bittencoin]

I wired $500 to OKpay to put into an exchange.  The total cost was $75.

It costed a flat fee of $50 from the bank.  OKpay charged a fee and reduced $500 to $485.  Transferred $485 into btce, that amount is reduced roughly to $475.

So starting at $550 ($500 + $50 fee), ended up with $475.  Three ways to look at the cost, choose the number that makes you feel sad the least: a $75 fee, or a loss of 8.64% of the starting amount, or 15.8% cost to deposit $475.  

Why are you tagged as a scammer?

[slacker]

As of now, still no explanation of 9% fee.

Here is my explanation: Why SWIFT bank transfers sucks and correspondent bank fees are legal theft.

OKpay charged a fee and reduced $500 to $485.

OKPAY don't take fee for depositing funds with wire transfer. But their bank take fees. In this case the fee is $12. Also there is a correspondent bank fee (in this case the fee is only $3).

[chungenhung]

I wired $500 to OKpay to put into an exchange.  The total cost was $75.

It costed a flat fee of $50 from the bank.  OKpay charged a fee and reduced $500 to $485.  Transferred $485 into btce, that amount is reduced roughly to $475.

So starting at $550 ($500 + $50 fee), ended up with $475.  Three ways to look at the cost, choose the number that makes you feel sad the least: a $75 fee, or a loss of 8.64% of the starting amount, or 15.8% cost to deposit $475.  

Why are you tagged as a scammer?

That high % of fees is if you are wiring a small amount, and $500 is a small amount.
Most of those fees are flat rate. I wired $5000, and paid $45 for the transfer on top of that.
The receiving bank should have gotten $5000, but OKPAY claims that they only received $4780. There is no way the fee at the receiving end is $220. And if it is, they should KNOW how much their bank charges. OKPAY is unwilling to tell me how much is the fee on their bank. They cite is can be due to banks in between that charged the fees. According to my bank, there is no 3rd or 4th bank involved. The funds went straight to the receiving bank.
Got a message from OKPAY support, and again, they simply say to upload my transfer confirmation, which I did upload on the first support post, and since then have uploaded it again.

[S-Fattah]

okpay has probably the lowest commissions
And if you think you pay too much for the operation, as far as I know, about fees you should contact directly to the bank, which services you use.

They also gave me some advice: if the withdrawal amount does not exceed $ 1,000 it is more cost effective to withdraw money from OKPAY via money transfer systems, and if the amount is much higher, more cost effective is to use bank transfer.

[Lethos]

... and this is why I moved to only do local bank transfers (totally free here).
Banks are a pain for these fees and it really eats into your profits.

[Abdussamad]

I wired $500 to OKpay to put into an exchange.  The total cost was $75.

It costed a flat fee of $50 from the bank.  OKpay charged a fee and reduced $500 to $485.  Transferred $485 into btce, that amount is reduced roughly to $475.

So starting at $550 ($500 + $50 fee), ended up with $475.  Three ways to look at the cost, choose the number that makes you feel sad the least: a $75 fee, or a loss of 8.64% of the starting amount, or 15.8% cost to deposit $475.  

Why are you tagged as a scammer?

That high % of fees is if you are wiring a small amount, and $500 is a small amount.
Most of those fees are flat rate. I wired $5000, and paid $45 for the transfer on top of that.
The receiving bank should have gotten $5000, but OKPAY claims that they only received $4780. There is no way the fee at the receiving end is $220. And if it is, they should KNOW how much their bank charges. OKPAY is unwilling to tell me how much is the fee on their bank. They cite is can be due to banks in between that charged the fees. According to my bank, there is no 3rd or 4th bank involved. The funds went straight to the receiving bank.
Got a message from OKPAY support, and again, they simply say to upload my transfer confirmation, which I did upload on the first support post, and since then have uploaded it again.

That does seem a bit high but generally speaking correspondent banks do charge arbitrary amounts and neither the receiving bank or the sending bank has any say or knowledge of that.

SWIFT is for really large amounts such as those sent between importers and exporters.

[chungenhung]

They finally admit they received the funds, and claims that funds will be available within 24 hrs. This is the 3rd time they said this.
And of course, 24hrs went by, and still no money

[chungenhung]

Now they said they didn't get the funds.....