Arcooda announced their pricing!

[GUSHandGO]

I paid in full today rather than making the $1,500 deposit. I'm not up on phone money apps, and this didn't seem the time to start dabbling. Since $50 is wasted for each wire transfer I decided to cut that loss to $50 rather than $100, which is better than the 11 cents I'd get a month in interest until final payment is due.

That's a good idea... my only caveat would be if they miss their target ship date or something catastrophic happened, you'd be out the full amount and not just $1500.

 

[zdjh22]

With transferwire, are you using ACH debit? Does that still work? Should we do a wire transfer instead through transferwire? Interested in hearing about your results!

Correct, with TransferWise an ACH debit is used to move money from your account, in whatever currency, into one of their accounts that is local to you (in your country). In my case, from their paperwork my $1500 was moved via ACH into their Wells Fargo corporate account in the US. Once received, they move the equivalent value from their Hong Kong corporate account into Arcooda’s account. For me that will happen tomorrow (my June 28, June 29 in HK). The exchange rate they give you is the mid-market rate (the rate between banks). Presumably they maintain big pools of money in various countries and do much larger exchanges in order to get the mid-market exchange rates. I saw very good reviews, e.g. https://www.howitravel.co/transferwise-review/ and a similar review at Forbes.

With respect to GUSHandGO’s question, I hadn’t gotten the impression from their emails to me that they were insisting on USD, and maybe I falsely assumed that the equivalent value in HKD was OK. Supposedly TransferWise can also do USD to USD for some destinations, including Hong Kong, but it isn’t immediately obvious to me in their web interface how to request that. I did adjust my ACH Debit such that the amount that TW reported would be given to Arcooda was slightly higher than $1500 USD equivalent. If I get a response back tonight from Arcooda regarding this issue I will report back, as I sent them the transfer receipt this morning. At worst I suppose I might have to kick in more on a later payment to compensate for their HKD to USD exchange (although surely they are doing HKD to AusD).

Depending on which bank you use, the ACH setup can take a business day. I get the impression that it can be faster for some banks. So if you might want to use TW you might want to sign up and get the ACH registration started. They are headquartered in Europe so that’s a possible delay in that process.

 

[GUSHandGO]

With respect to GUSHandGO’s question, I hadn’t gotten the impression from their emails to me that they were insisting on USD, and maybe I falsely assumed that the equivalent value in HKD was OK. Supposedly TransferWise can also do USD to USD for some destinations, including Hong Kong, but it isn’t immediately obvious to me in their web interface how to request that. I did adjust my ACH Debit such that the amount that TW reported would be given to Arcooda was slightly higher that $1500 USD equivalent. If I get a response back tonight from Arcooda regarding this issue I will report back, as I sent them the transfer receipt this morning. At worst I suppose I might have to kick in more on a later payment to compensate for their HKD to USD exchange (although surely they are doing HKD to AusD).

Depending on which bank you use, the ACH setup can take a business day. I get the impression that it can be faster for some banks. So if you might want to use TW you might want to sign up and get the ACH registration started. They are headquartered in Europe so that’s a possible delay in that process.

I just got this response from Arcooda:

"In reply to your email, pay only in $US not in Hong Kong $$, this is a ploy by the bank, so they can charge more money in conversion fees and we get less. This account is a US account.

Please confirm that you have paid in $US."


Let me know what Arcooda says about your TransferWise transaction. I'm really curious know because when I tried it on TransferWise, it specifically said "We can only pay out to HKD accounts in Hong Kong."

 

[shutyertrap]

Hey guys, Arcooda themselves started a Q and A thread about purchasing here http://digitalpinballfans.com/showthread.php/13468-Arcooda-Pinball-Factory-Discussions

Please no commentary, but feel free to ask civil questions especially regarding purchasing so that truthful information can be given to all.

 

[zdjh22]

I just got this response from Arcooda:

"In reply to your email, pay only in $US not in Hong Kong $$, this is a ploy by the bank, so they can charge more money in conversion fees and we get less. This account is a US account.

Please confirm that you have paid in $US."

Let me know what Arcooda says about your TransferWise transaction. I'm really curious know because when I tried it, it specifically said Transferwise currently only supports Hong Kong Dollar accounts (HKD).

I will get back to the thread with their reaction to my receipt. I re-read the emails to me from both Josifovski's (Valentina and Steve) and neither explicitly advised about US$ vs HK$, so I am very curious although I am willing to make up any difference in a later payment. My deposit is in HK$ determined at mid-market rate (that is, the midpoint between asking and selling prices) so I have maximized as best I can the quantity of HK$ they will receive. If HSBC is pulling something on them, I would ask that they be much clearer in their emails, or perhaps they can arrange with HSBC for us to send our deposits to an HSBC branch in the US (or wherever their customer lives, assuming HSBC has a branch there).

I've never gone through a purchase quite like this, with an international wire transfer required. So my apologies to Arcooda for any ignorance on my part about the fine points of arranging for such a transfer.

 

[Arcooda]

Hi Guys - we need USD payments please.

Please do not sent Hong Kong dollars as its a way banks make more money from all of us. The reason why they want to convert the funds is that they will earn an exchange rate % when they convert USD to HKD (your bank makes an additional profit, sends us less funds), and when we receive, we will again need to convert HKD to USD (our bank makes an additional profit).

 

[zdjh22]

How to pay in USD via TransferWise

I know we are close to the deadline, but in case this helps anyone, I talked with TransferWise and figured out how to do a transfer to Arcooda's Hong Kong bank in USD, rather than HKD. Note that I used TransferWise both because physically getting to my bank this week was not possible and they wouldn't accept instructions for a wire transfer over the phone, and TransferWise is cheaper (about $14 for the $1500 wire transfer, vs $50 at my bank, vs $100 at my broker - ouch!).

Here's how. You have to access TransferWise via their web pages, not their app. I am assuming that you have already setup your account, gone through ACH validation, etc. (and if not refer to my posts above). Note that you can initiate a transfer without first doing the ACH validation, but there will be a delay of a business day or two. The super nice folks at Arcooda are allowing a delay in the money arriving, however, so I gather you just have to send a receipt of the transfer being initiated prior to the deadline, and your ACH validation can be done as part of this wire transfer.

OK, on the TransferWise web page after you login, on the left hand side click on "Recipients". That will take you to a new page, click on "Add Recipient". The top box is "Currency", so just choose USD (the fourth entry, easy to miss as the rest of the list below that is alphabetical). Then, enter Arcooda's e-mail and address in Australia. Then choose "Hong Kong" in the bank account country. At this point TransferWise will warn you that USD to USD transfers are allowed but you have to enter the appropriate SWIFT code (which the email from Arcooda has provided you). Also, the destination bank and banks in the sequence of transfers might add SWIFT fees. I believe the additional SWIFT fee added by TransferWise is $2. In any event, enter the SWIFT and account numbers Arcooda provided you. Next, click on "Activity" on the left hand side, then click on the green "Send Money" box. You'll specify the amount to send, and you need to choose the Recipient (Arcooda) that you defined above. That's it. The only warning TW gave me is that the additional SWIFT fees won't be known up front, so you might want to kick in an extra $10 to make sure you get to $1500 on the receiving end. Oh, and I almost forgot, you also have to specify more than $1500 to send, because the fees are taken from that total. The web page will show you the known fees and the amount that will be delivered to Arcooda so you can iterate on the "send" amount until the amount they show they'll deliver is what you want.

It turns out that when I did my transfer I didn't select USD, but HKD, in which case they only asked for the name of the bank and the account. From my receipt and from https://www.business.hsbc.com.hk/-/media/library/business.../inward-payments-2018.pdf I can tell that it should have used "SWIFT MT103" rather than the "104" that TransferWise selected automatically for me. So I'll need to reimburse Arcooda for the 3% (or whatever) exchange loss from HKD to USD.

I initiated my TranferWise account two days ago, and the funds will arrive at their bank on June 29. So, roughly two days accounting for the dateline.

 

[Arcooda]

I know we are close to the deadline, but in case this helps anyone, I talked with TransferWise and figured out how to do a transfer to Arcooda's Hong Kong bank in USD, rather than HKD. Note that I used TransferWise both because physically getting to my bank this week was not possible and they wouldn't accept instructions for a wire transfer over the phone, and TransferWise is cheaper (about $14 for the $1500 wire transfer, vs $50 at my bank, vs $100 at my broker - ouch!).

Here's how. You have to access TransferWise via their web pages, not their app. I am assuming that you have already setup your account, gone through ACH validation, etc. (and if not refer to my posts above). Note that you can initiate a transfer without first doing the ACH validation, but there will be a delay of a business day or two. The super nice folks at Arcooda are allowing a delay in the money arriving, however, so I gather you just have to send a receipt of the transfer being initiated prior to the deadline, and your ACH validation can be done as part of this wire transfer.

OK, on the TransferWise web page after you login, on the left hand side click on "Recipients". That will take you to a new page, click on "Add Recipient". The top box is "Currency", so just choose USD (the fourth entry, easy to miss as the rest of the list below that is alphabetical). Then, enter Arcooda's e-mail and address in Australia. Then choose "Hong Kong" in the bank account country. At this point TransferWise will warn you that USD to USD transfers are allowed but you have to enter the appropriate SWIFT code (which the email from Arcooda has provided you). Also, the destination bank and banks in the sequence of transfers might add SWIFT fees. I believe the additional SWIFT fee added by TransferWise is $2. In any event, enter the SWIFT and account numbers Arcooda provided you. Next, click on "Activity" on the left hand side, then click on the green "Send Money" box. You'll specify the amount to send, and you need to choose the Recipient (Arcooda) that you defined above. That's it. The only warning TW gave me is that the additional SWIFT fees won't be known up front, so you might want to kick in an extra $10 to make sure you get to $1500 on the receiving end. Oh, and I almost forgot, you also have to specify more than $1500 to send, because the fees are taken from that total. The web page will show you the known fees and the amount that will be delivered to Arcooda so you can iterate on the "send" amount until the amount they show they'll deliver is what you want.

It turns out that when I did my transfer I didn't select USD, but HKD, in which case they only asked for the name of the bank and the account. From my receipt and from https://www.business.hsbc.com.hk/-/media/library/business.../inward-payments-2018.pdf I can tell that it should have used "SWIFT MT103" rather than the "104" that TransferWise selected automatically for me. So I'll need to reimburse Arcooda for the 3% (or whatever) exchange loss from HKD to USD.

I initiated my TranferWise account two days ago, and the funds will arrive at their bank on June 29. So, roughly two days accounting for the dateline.

We will absorb the fees, so please do not worry about this. But if anyone is making payments please help to send USD and also please make sure you list your invoice number and name (we have few people with no names/invoice numbers and makes it very difficult for accounts dept to allocate against your invoice). Thanks.