Hi

I need to make payments to a freelancer who lives in Sweden. He has requested that we not use PayPal (eg "paypal is stealing my money!"). Ive looked into doing an International Wire Transfer but it would add a 15% overhead to my costs. I looked into Western Union and it didn't work out for many reasons (very poor customer support being one of them). Money Gram only supports physically going to an agent and picking it up but that's not an option because I would prefer to just do it electronically (minimal hassle on the client). The US post office doesn't do money orders to Sweden. I have no clue if I could send him a check (or a prepaid visa) and if it would work over there.

Does anyone know what the best way would be to pay someone in Sweden? Maybe I will pay him in fruit-baskets from an online gift shop xD.

Conoktra, you two should have discussed and agreed on payment method when you started working together. Now that you're at the point of needing to pay him, you and he need to discuss and agree. The wire transfer does have a cost, but just about every method entails cost for one or both parties. Cost of doiong business since you're the paying party, you may have to be the one to bear the cost (even if the payment comes at a cost to him, which you can figure in and cover).

I'd recommend talking to your bank, mine atleast handles international money transfers(get your partners IBAN number) at a reasonable rate. (its fixed per transaction though so for small transfers it gets quite expensive)

Xoom has worked for me, specially after PayPal closed my account due to their sudden policies changes.

Thanks for the feedback guys, I appreciate it.

Maybe you could tell him that using PayPal would be cheapest, and if he doesn't want to use it, he has to cover the costs of using a more expensive method (e.g., by taking the costs out of his payment)? Put the burden of cost on the guy who wants to do something costly.

How much money is it, and how "white" does the money need to be ?

Its not exactly as pure as driven snow, but you might want to look at a prepaid Visa card with the money on it, that you give him the numbers for that he can then spend his money on the internet.

The "online fruit baskets" option also isnt a terrible one ... get him to set up an account on some "sell crafts online" website. Buy his appallingly overpriced fruit baskets - $199 for a fruit basket ! I'll take five ! Ker-ching. He gets his money, and theres even a paper trail of sorts for the accounts people.

Just do a wire transfer and split the costs with him. If he wants to refuse to use paypal then hopefully he's understanding with the additional fee's involved. Hell for deals over $1000 wire xfers usually end up being cheaper than paypal but I'm guessing that you're a bit under that if the fee's are 15% of your costs.. Have you looked at xoom.com?

The thread is closed because it was a necroed old thread. If someone wants to add something, please start a new thread -- if it warrants it.