It's a long shot, but you never know around here...

I recently received a check drawn on a Belgian bank, in euros, reimbursing me for my expenses for a business trip I made to Belgium last year. I gave it to my local bank (J.P. Morgan Chase, one of the larger U.S. firms) to deposit. It's now a month later, and the funds still have not been credited to my account. I just called them to inquire about the status of the check and was told that the Belgian bank hasn't paid up yet. And, when they do, Chase will charge me a USD 75 service fee. Plus, the Belgian bank may charge me as well.

Now, I was moderately annoyed at the USD 3 charge every time I used a European ATM, but I figured it wasn't too onerous and was probably cheaper than dealing with the money exchangers. This check processing fee seems decidedly unreasonable. Has anybody else here had experience moving modest amounts of money internationally? There must be a better way to deal with this.

I end up moving money between the US and the UK normally once every two months. I have an account in each country and end up wiring money between the accounts, I think it costs $20 US->UK and around 15pounds UK->US however much you transfer.

The first year I was in the US I sent my sister a check for her birthday, she went to cash it at a UK bank (the check was from a US bank in $s) and they told her they could cash it but she would end up owing them money as it would cost more to cash than the value of the check, so it is not only the US banks that are screwing people:(

You know this really farks me off. If I want to use a (UK issued) VISA credit card anywhere in the World, I pretty much can. They have no problem giving me instant credit in just about any currency that I want. But when it comes to paying for said credit, they will only accept direct payments from UK-based banks, and US cheque payments take 4-6 weeks to process. This caught me out once when I let my UK bank account run low. What a PITA.

The whole concept of using checks in this day and age of electronic payments sounds crazy to me. Anyway, my money transfers between the US, UK, Netherlands and Finland all seem to go through in a day or two, without excessive costs. The US ones are the only ones I can't do electronically, they still require a fax to my bank...

The only sensible way to move money internationally is bank transfer, cheques just aren't worth the hassle (& cost)

I see. I'll soon have some Europeans reimbursing me for my latest set of travel expenses. Should I try to have them do a transfer directly to my U.S. bank rather than sending me a check?

Definitely, in my experience European banks can take anything up to 6 weeks to clear a cheque paid in a different country/currency and the charges can be amazing (in my business we've paid over £60.00 to have a European cheque cleared)

Paypal? *ducks and runs*

This check processing fee seems decidedly unreasonable.

I agree with the others that you should try to avoid checks whenever possible. If you do get a check however you might want to talk to your bank about their part of the total fee. Now, I don't know about J.P. Morgan Chase or any other American bank for that matter, but here in Europe almost everything is negotiable if you're a customer at the bank in question. With some manoeuvring, I managed to have my bank charge me nothing for my checks (except the fee from the foreign bank). Then again, they might just give me less than they initially would have when I go to negotiate the interest rates and we're even again.. who knows.