Accepting a bank wire transfer

What should we be concerned with?

[BradleyT]

We received a call from a company in South America that wants to place a large order ($5,400) through our new store. They want to do a bank wire transfer.

We googled the company name (it's a franchise store) and it's linked to by a lot of legitimate sites so we doubt it's like a Nigerian scam.

What precautions should we take? Are they able to withdraw funds when we give them our bank account numbers? Or are wire transfers set up to be one-way transactions?

[LostOne]

Interesting topic. I'd like to hear some comments too. We probabaly do $30,000 in wire transfers per month but all of it orginates in the states. I'm a believer it's a done deal that can't be reversed.

[warrisr]

We regularly accept wire transfer payments from many countries and in the past three years have not had a single problem.

The one precaution we do take is to use a bank account setup specifically for incoming wire transfer payments. We then transfer the funds out of this account as soon as they are received.

[tolachi]

Wire transfer should be legitimate and 100% safe for you. That is how we handle orders from countries with lots of credit card fraud.

[BradleyT]

Thanks guys. I think we'll set up an account specifically for incoming transfers like warrisr suggested.