To ask the best way to send money abroad.

[TrickyD]

I would like to send some money to a friend who is suffering badly from the Covid restraints in her country, no job no welfare benefits,

There seem to be various methods, bank transfer, Western Union etc.
I cannot work our which represents the best value, i.e. least amount deducted for admin etc.
I looked at Martin Lewis but am still confused.

Transferwise

Post office do money gram

My friend gets her mum to transfer via western union the only downside is if you can’t get into a western union and you want the money transferred to a bank account it costs money, if you don’t want to pay the fees you have to collect the money from western union personally. Money is transferred from Jordan to U.K. in this case.

Alternatively does your friend have/or can she set PayPal up? She can then withdraw straight into her bank account.

Transferwise. It's both cheap and quick (cheaper and quicker than direct bank transfer), providing of course you have bank account details for her.

If you want to send cash you can use Western Union, but it has to be picked up in person at one of their specified places and it costs a fortune.

If it’s a large amount, transfer wise or currency fair. If lesser amounts ( 1k abd Under) use revolut. You can send via revolut to a bank account anywhere in the world ( I think) for no charges

WU exchange rates dreadful, so even if you pick a reduced fees option, it still costs a lot more.

Depends where they are I suspect. I have used PayPal to US friends very easily. Faff free but not sure it's the cheapest.

Thanks for the suggestions. It is the Dominican Republic, and unfortunately Transferwise and various others do not deal there.

Paypal. My son and I use this [ he is in Canada ]

Paypal annoyingly do not offer Dominican pesos.

If I sent the money in US dollars would my friend have easy access to it?
$$$ are used commonly in the DR.

We always use Transferwise
Incredibly easy and quick and cheap

Beautifulmonument, as I said above, Transferwise do not include Dominican Pesos.

We use Remitly, there are no fees to pay for your first transaction. Not sure if they transfer to Dominican Republic but might be worth checking out.

Stay away from thieving Moneygram.

Can I just make sure that this friend is someone you know well, and that you’re not sending any more than you can afford. I don’t mean to cause offence, but a close friend’s sister was conned into sending quite a lot of money abroad because of a “friend” going through hardship (and I imagine covid has given the con artists a brilliant story to manipulate), so if there is even the smallest chance that I can save you some pain that she went through, I wanted to speak up.

Thanks, Acrasia, no offence at all, a very sensible warning.

We have known this person for about five years. She is the head housekeeper at our favourite hotel, and has been very generous to us in terms of fantastic upgrades, restaurant reservations etc, just out of kindness.

All staff were laid off in March. No pay. No state aid. Fortunately she has no small children and is single.

We should have been meeting her this month but of course our holiday was cancelled.

She has not for a second hinted that we should help her, but if I could just send her around £200 I think that would be of immense benefit. .

How about HIFX? I use it a lot to send money between Ireland and the UK. I’m afraid I don’t know about the Dominican Republic but it’s with having a look.

Elopelo, Remitly is possible! Thank you.

You could also have a look at xe.com as it offers money transfer & could be better for more unusual currencies.

Please to hear that @TrickyD, and what a wonderful, thoughtful person you are. Hopefully it won’t be too long before you can get back over there and see her in person