Currency exchange

[hughnique]

I logged in today and got on ok with wise, not a particularly good photo but they seem to have accepted it, but I can't see what it proves to them, they have no other pictures of me for comparison, and I'm sure that if faked passports can fool the people guarding the borders then to submit one on the internet must be easier.

[Hotrodder]

Its just as well we haven't got long to go of life's journey. The powers that rule our lives are making it more and more difficult to carry on.

[Sparkle]

Xe for me after problems with Currencyfair losing my money several times. Xe was easy to set up - if I remember a copy of my passport and my email address. I transfer my private pension over monthly and before I've logged out of the Xe site and gone on to my French bank account it's arrived already. When I first set it up earlier this year I sent £500 over to check it out I was charged £1.99 on my UK account - I don't pay any charges now so it may be that transfers under a certain amount incur a charge? I use my PC for making the transfer not a mobile phone although there is the app if you want to use it.

[suein56]

I gave up with wise some years ago and now use Revolut. I find it easy to use, reliable, cheap

But Revolut is 100% a mobile app .. so only on if you have good mobile reception and a smartphone.

Not so. It can be used via a pc app and you can access via wifi

Thank you for putting me right .. somehow I missed that option when I looked Revolut up.

[Hotrodder]

XE was one of the five I have tried to register with yesterday and today. In fact it was the only one I was completely successful in doing so. I forget now exactly why but I had to close the account without using it. Another one, called Optimal Currency looked like it was going to work but after several attempts was unable to log in after setting up the account. Even after their agent in UK contacted me with special links to try I couldn't get on board with them. Another dead end. If Wise can't be cracked I will have to go back to bank transfers that will cost a bundle, even for small amounts.

[suein56]

@Hotrodder
I know you built your computers yourself but what version of MS are they ?
I have recently stopped using my Win 7 laptop for anything financial i.e. Banking / Wise etc.
The laptop has good security and an excellent anti-virus but I found I can sometimes fail on something financial institutions are using to define me or perhaps it is my hatred of their bloomin' cookies. Essential cookies are allowed of course.
Which browser are you using ?
I use FF.

[niemeyjt]

My bugbear is Google. I block them - but so many sites now do their reCAPTCHA with Google - so I have to bring up a Private Browser.

It is a clever ploy by Google to make it harder to block them - so lets hope a future breakup will sort this.

And then you get the likes of easyJet whose Android app is developed by Google fanboys who now expect you to your boarding pass in Google wallet - so back to the old printed boarding passes for me - nice and unenvironmentally unfriendly (mind you, so if flying anyhow)

[Quiksilver]

so back to the old printed boarding passes for me - nice and unenvironmentally unfriendly (mind you, so is flying anyhow)

I wouldn't worry too much about the flying. When world leaders grasp the concept of video conferencing as an alternative to jetting off to (coincidentally) rather nice, exotic locations for their 'green' summits, then we can start to feel guilty

[Hotrodder]

Its not the world leaders pushing up the numbers of unnecessary flights but the "lower classes" that simply can't live with out all their cheap foreign holidays. Important air freight must always be prioritised but surely not a family of fat gits needing to lay on a beach somewhere hot, or cheap fruit that hurts local farmers, etc.

[Hotrodder]

suein56: I am using a cleaned up version of W7 with security updates up to August this year. Together with careful internet browsing and several security add ons and have never had a single blue screen of death or any malware issues. Along with many more (techy types) who find it more controllable with less built-in spyware. It also works on older, cheaper hardware.
I have a selection of browsers installed. In order of use I go for Opera, Firefox esr, Chrome, and Brave. The last two no longer receive updates because they don't like W7.

This morning I dug an old webcam out of the junk box to try to set up some way of satisfying Wise with the documents they insist on. Such a pain they won't accept an ordinary scan sent by email. Our electricity supply is being cut this afternoon for maintenance so I doubt if I will accomplish anything today.