as the title says, What's the best and cheapest method of payment when buting stuff from the US an USD?? Direct deposit, Credit card, Paypal, Etc...
Depends on where you are buying from: eBay = Paypal; Cos = I was happy to pay via credit card I would never pay direct deposit on anything unless I knew the seller really well.
You get kinda shitty rates with Paypal. Never tried international EFT to USA, I usually just use my MasterCard.
is the rate good with credit card and how about fees, is there any?, also will a visa debit card do the same job
Well it's better than Paypal, but there's a very small currency conversion fee as well. I use my debit MasterCard, I never use my credit card
When you use your credit card there is around a 3% fee (depending on the card) but usually the seller wears that. But for high value items they will not be too keen unless they have a good margin. Up to US$2000 I found it was better to use paypal or credit card, both screw you on the exchange rates but also provide some buyer protection. Over that it is cheaper to use telegraphic transfer. But make sure you get the information correct or you will get screwed twice on the exchange rate, once on the transfer and secondly on when they send it back. Also note your bank will probably charge a fee $20-30 and the US bank will also charge a fee US$25-30 so you will need to add a bit extra for that.
Just bought a few items from the US today using Paypal. Total was $245 USD, which came out to $255.18 AUD. The exchange rate was 1 AUD = 0.960106 USD. MoulaZX
