Buyers Beware - International Transactions

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
I learned just today that my financial institution charges me for what is called an IAT transaction at a rate of $10 per transaction. I will not be making any more purchases from banggood anytime in the future due to this reason. They said it takes them about 45 minutes to run checks required by the federal government which is why they now charge the fee.

Best to contact your bank and see if they charge for this type transaction.

It has to do with OFAC. https://www.treasury.gov/about/organ...s-control.aspx
 

D.O.G.

Goblin 380 Supporter
So you got screwed by Banggood too. I didn't by IAT transaction but by Banggood the company it self. I'm really tired dealing with over sea company's. If I can't get in the USA anymore, even if I have to pay more, I'm not getting it then. It's been 3 month now and PP is still arguing with them. I consider it lesson learned.
 

Tony

Staff member
I have never even heard about that before. I will be keeping an eye out. Oh, and I pay for everything with paypal anyway so I may never see this issue.
 

Tony

Staff member
I will definitely be keeping an eye on this. It seems in the last 6 months that Banggood in particular has kind of starting falling off quite a bit. First with not shipping out the correct products and then not sending the correct product (Ivan) and now with this tax which to be fair, may be completely out of their hands. But still, If you are just ordering a $5.00 box of props or something and you get $10 tacked onto it, it tends to make you a little mad. And we all know they are not going to refund you the $10....
 

Tony

Staff member
I have been doing a little research on this subject, and this actually doesn't seem to be a banggood issue at all. This will apply to ALL transactions from over seas if you are using a VISA credit card. Yes, that means linked cards with PayPal as well (and PayPal is a complete other issue that I would like to cover....).

The way it works is no matter what, PayPal will ALWAYS tell your bank if it is an overseas purchase. So your bank will ALWAYS charge you the $10 fee if you are using a VISA card as your backup funding source.

You want to know the reason I have never seen this? I don't have a VISA card in my name, period. My bank dropped VISA about 6 years ago because of the issues people had with them back then, and they never looked back.

Not defending Banggood, but in this case, it is actually not their fault.
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
I used a mastercard... PayPal mastercard. But it's a debit and comes out of my checking account anyway. Amazon from here on out.
 

D.O.G.

Goblin 380 Supporter
I and probably others, thank you much for doing that research Tony Also Jared for bringing up that incident that happen to him. It's all about making a buck and screwing the american consumer anyway they can.
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
I would buy from my local hobby shop but he is so expensive that I simply can't do it. Amazon and US based online retailers are where I will be shopping from now on.
 

RandyDSok

Well-Known Member
He wants $150 for a 60A castle creations ESC.

Castle has a couple of 60a ESC's for air vehicles.... one is about $60 and the high voltage one is $160 retail ( both can be found for less if you look around ). So I suspect that was for the high voltage one which would be in line with the retail price. That isn't bad when you consider they have to also cover their overhead for having a brick and mortar shop.
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
Not in the market for one just know someone was looking at it when I was there and that's how I found out about the price.

On a lighter note, my first plane came...second plane came from there. First plane was a cox single channel foam with. 049 glow engine. I still have everything but the plane.
 

RandyDSok

Well-Known Member
Correction.... just noticed that I posted the price for the lower cost CC 60a ESC ( the Talon ) wrong... it's going for $69 most places I checked... not $60 as I posted. I'd seen and meant to type it as $69 but my fingers just did what they wanted... lol

I always liked the Hobbywings ESC's I've gotten... but I'd pay a little more for a CC Talon considering the minor differences in cost.
 

Tony

Staff member
Okay, so it seems this is a Debit Card issue with the fee. I will need to dive further into this for all the answers.
 
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