Nice 10% difference on international rates

paid at 32, real rate is 35

[eljefe3]

So I just checked my payment history and they are paying me at 32.00/dollar in a foreign currency. Check date is march 28.

I thoght this was extremely low so I check a few different international currency exchange sites and the currenty is trading between 34.94 and 35.15.

I sure would like to find out where they get their "official exchange rate".

This month has been much worse than any in the past as usually it's only a 4-6 percent difference.

Anyone else actually check the real exchange rates vs. waht is paid.

[jomaxx]

It's probably not based on the cheque date but the payment date. It might be possible to say more if we knew the currency.

I assume you also have the option of receiving the cheque in US dollars and converting it yourself? I do it that way.

[eljefe3]

I look at both the check date and payment date. 2 days apart, minimal fluctuation. US dollar checks take 45 days to clear, plus banks levy heavy fees.

Actually I just looked at Feb stats and was paid at 33.1 when the official bank rate was 35.7.

[mzanzig]

I am on EFT, and I use Oanda to check the currency exchange rates for the days where the payment has been credited on my account. So far (20 payments) I can say that much:

1) There is no major difference between what I should have received and what I actually received. ("Major" being 5% or more.) The biggest deviation was 2.3% in my favor. Looking at the total deviation over the whole lifetime, it is just 0.02% (in my favor). Looks pretty accurate to me.

2) There is also no "trend" in deviation, i.e. sometimes the difference is in my favour, sometimes the difference is in Googles/the banks favor.

I come to the conclusion that even with the payments there are some swings, but these are neglectible.

[eljefe3]

I looked at the site you mentioned, and it also shows a 10% difference between the offical rate as well as a 10% difference than what bloomberg and cnbc show on the ticker. Bloomberg, cnbc and the offical rate are all well within 1% of each other. Heck even my local money changer comes closer to the offical rate than what is paid out via google's exchange rate.

[Pengi]

My exchange rate seemed low this month too. (Normally the exchange rate seems to be about what I would expect.)

[ashii]

USD is very volatile in past 7 days.I have seen 3% variation in last couple of days for some currencies.