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Fed Meeting: First 75-bp Rate Hike in 27 Years! Strategies for SaversReview of OFX Money Transfer
OFX provides a solution for customers who need to send money internationally, converting it into a different currency as part of the transaction. Since international money transfers involve many steps and services, there are lots of opportunities for fees to pile up.
The bottom line is that you want to find a reliable service that keeps transaction fees, conversion fees and ancillary fees to a minimum and provides your recipient with the largest amount of money in the fastest time possible.
What is OFX?
OFX is a money transfer service that allows you to send money online or from a mobile app to an overseas account in its local currency. Billing themselves as experts in international money transfers, OFX allows customers to send money to over 190 countries in 55 currencies.
The company launched in 1998 under the name OzForex, based in Sydney. Now, the company’s headquarters are in San Francisco, although its 200-plus employees are spread across offices in Sydney, Hong Kong, London, Toronto, and Auckland.
Besides having banking relationships with industry heavyweights UBS, Barclays and Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon), OFX trades on the Australian Securities Exchange. The company’s OzForex platform is the backbone of the international money transfer services of other well-known names, including Travelex International Payments, MoneyGram and ING Direct, among others.
OFX money transfer highlights
- Zero transfer fees: The company charges a markup on the transfer rate, but there are no additional service fees.
- Favorable exchange rate: OFX focuses on keeping its exchange rate markup to a minimum.
- 24/7 access: As a web-based money transfer service, OFX is always “on.”
- Federal registration: The company is registered with a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury known as the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN.
- Transfers are not instantaneous: in most cases, it will take one to 2 business days for your money to be deposited into your foreign destination account.
| OFX Money Transfer Details | |
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| Sending money | Fees and penalties |
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Sending a money transfer with OFX
Before you can begin sending money via OFX, you’ll need to sign up for an account. The process takes about five minutes. You’ll be asked various personal and identifying details, such as your name and address, occupation, email address and date of birth.
Once you’ve provided all the required information and opened your account, transferring money via OFX is a simple three-step process.
The first step is to sign up or log in and set up the details of your transfer. This information will include how much you’re transferring, which currency you’ll be converting to and who the recipient is.
The second step requires you to fund your transfer via either wire transfer or Automated Clearing House (ACH) debit from your bank. Cash, credit cards, checks and bank drafts are not accepted.
Lastly, your money will be transferred to your recipient. In most cases, the entire process takes between one and two business days. You can track your money transfer on the website or via the company’s mobile app.
Pros and cons of OFX
OFX has many features that make it a strong competitor in the international money transfer space. But it does carry some drawbacks as well.
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What people are saying about OFX
For the most part, customers seem satisfied with OFX. USForex Inc., which is the wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of OzForex Limited, receives an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, where it has been accredited since Jan. 7, 2013. In the past three years, the company has just two complaints registered on the BBB website.
Around the web, Trustpilot shows 3,443 reviews with a composite rating of four stars out of five. The reviews as of Feb. 12, 2019, were 80% excellent, 10% great, 3% average, 2% poor and 5% bad.
Most reviews are positive in terms of the zero transfer fees and good exchange rates the company offers, while negative comments refer to the slow transfer times and the $1,000 minimum.
The company’s website is, not surprisingly, full of five-star reviews about the “fantastic experience” and speed and reliability of the service.
Alternative money transfer options
| Xoom Money Transfer Details | |
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| Sending money | Fees and penalties |
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Xoom is an international money transfer firm owned by PayPal, one of the innovators in personal money transfers. Xoom offers extensive choices for both delivery and receipt of money transfers, with varying fees. While in some places, like the United Kingdom, recipients can only have funds delivered to a bank account, in other areas, like the Philippines, money can be delivered in one of three ways: via bank account deposit, cash pickup or door-to-door delivery. Although some transfers via Xoom can take a few days, most are available within minutes.
| TransferWise Money Transfer Details | |
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| Sending money | Fees and penalties |
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TransferWise is a U.K.-based money transfer service that was founded in 2010. It operates a bit differently than the other money transfer services in that it has specific currency-based accounts in 49 countries. When you make a transfer, you move your money into a TransferWise account in the same currency, while TransferWise deposits an equivalent amount of your desired currency into your destination account. Thus, money never crosses borders using TransferWise, allowing the company to use real-time exchange rates with no markups — only transaction fees.
1. Blocking large transactions online forcing customers to accept lower "client rates" over the phone not the rates advertised as inclusive of fees already.
2. Proclaiming that target rate "limit orders" can be canceled online, but not providing that function
3. Not disclosing mandatory cancellation option to consumers
4. Promising instant notifications when the "limit order" target rate is reached, but failing to do so leaving customers trapped and unable to proceed with either the limit order or cancellation.
5. OFX's online calculator consistently short-changing customers - unless they fixed it after complaints (just do some math and save screenshots as I did)
6. Posted exchange rates dropping as the numbers are entered into the online calculator
7. Wildly varying quotes from dealers for the same transaction;
8. Terms and Conditions are not provided prior to transactions as required
9. Refusing to lock the quote if the rate is favorable to the consumer during the order process and a locking it if it's favorable to OFX
10 Appalling telephone order process with long delays and lack of communication between dealers about previous quotes;
11. Deliberate avoidance of traceable communications and insistence on phone calls and verbal agreements impossible to reproduce by customers;
12. No warning to consumers that calls are recorded - illegal in many states (see User Agreement quote below)
13. No regulator name nd contact disclosures provided in communications, either written or verbal, as required by CFPB and state regulators.
14. The company uses different names making it harder to track by consumers: OFX name marketed to consumers is not US Forex as it is licensed by CFPB
QUOTES FROM OFX "USER AGREEMENT"
"FORWARD CONTRACT: C. Changes Subject to your cancellation rights set forth in Section 15, once you book a Forward Contract, it cannot be canceled"
Section 15 - Communications, not Cancellations
"6 Recording Telephone Calls
We may, without notice or warning, monitor or record telephone conversations you or anyone acting on your behalf conducts with us for quality control and training purposes or for our protection. You acknowledge that we have no obligation to retain or make available to you such recordings."
OFX also promotes (pays for?) positive reviews and responds to bad ones on Trust Pilot to look like they will make it right...There are also many fake glowing reviews on sites created just for that purpose with suspicion raising titles to get your attention.
CFPB will take action if enough people file complaints with them...