Nope, nope, nope. Big red flags. I would be very suspicious of international wire transfers that were not going directly to her account. Seriously, I cannot stress enough how closely international wires are monitored. Even more if this is happening on a regular basis.
Nope, nope, nope. Big red flags. I would be very suspicious of international wire transfers that were not going directly to her account. Seriously, I cannot stress enough how closely international wires are monitored. Even more if this is happening on a regular basis.
What country are they coming from?
Australia. I think this may be the last time. But I'm 100% positive her money is being used for spending/entertainment/travel on her trips and not illegal activity. She's been staying with us and I see where the money is spent. She has very expensive hobbies.
That doesn't mean it's not coming from an illegal source...
Nope, nope, nope. Big red flags. I would be very suspicious of international wire transfers that were not going directly to her account. Seriously, I cannot stress enough how closely international wires are monitored. Even more if this is happening on a regular basis.
What country are they coming from?
Australia. I think this may be the last time. But I'm 100% positive her money is being used for spending/entertainment/travel on her trips and not illegal activity. She's been staying with us and I see where the money is spent. She has very expensive hobbies.
I am glad it is likely the last one.
Money Laundering isn't how money is spent, it is how money is "earned" and then placed into a legal banking system. So for example: drug dealers sell drugs. They can't exactly just come in and drop in tens of thousands of dollars into their personal accounts without people getting suspicious. So, the set up real businesses (car dealerships, retail stores, etc) that they can then put this money into those accounts. So now the money is in the banking system. And again, they can't just go pull the money out, or transfer to their personal accounts - so they have to move it in other ways. Wires (international wires especially) are a very common avenue for money laundering (think of international crimes - drug cartels, human trafficking, etc).
So, while Aunt Betty might be using her money to legally gamble and shop, your bank (and the government) see money coming over internationally to an account that does have her name on it. Red flag.
Post by adeliepenguin on Aug 6, 2014 11:02:40 GMT -5
Lurker with a random.
My IL's give us $ for the holidays. It is a fairly large gift and they feel more comfortable wiring it rather than sending a check. Fine. There is always a $15 fee. Well apparently, some other family member who gets the same gift told them that their gift of $1000 was really $985. They were mortified that we weren't getting the "full" gift. They now wire $1015. I still side eye the relative that told them about the fee.
I think it's going to make you sound cheap if she does spend a lot of money on you. Unless you'd rather live without her generosity I would not mention the fee. I would worry more about whether or not it looks like you are laundering money.
well crap. I already told her now. and she probably thinks I am cheap. Well... I am cheap in reality. I don't care if she spends a lot on us or not...I'd actually prefer she not, but she just does it. And this all started when I wrote her a check one day. She had my routing number and acct number and transferred money without telling me in advance. Then sent a nice email asking me to transfer it to her account and gave me her info. I had no choice so I was just super nice about the whole thing thinking it was a one time deal. Now that it's on a regular basis, I understand I should probably say something but I don't want to cause any issues (long story but we have some financial related history with her that causes a tad bit of tension). So I decided to text her that I deducted $15 from the transfer to cover the fee. I really hope she doesn't take that in the wrong way. I'll treat her to a nice dinner.
I wonder if she transfers money because of the $10,000 reporting rule. If a US citizen has more than 10,000 in an overseas account it has to be reported to the IRS. They don't get taxed extra, just big brother paying a visit.
She may be dumping money into your account to get around that.
Dual Citizenship doesn't matter. I'm toying with giving up my US.
Plus now the IRS is demanding that foreign banks report all US account holders $10,000 threshold or not. Again, not to tax them, just to big brother them.
I know nothing about international transfers. Is it obvious one would have an incoming transfer fee?? If I knew that she was aware, I'd have zero issues with just covering it each time. I'm overthinking this haha.
Charging for incoming transfers is (as I understand it) pretty unique to the US. I remember being a bit shocked that some of the American banks we were looking at when we moved back charged for them since it's not the norm internationally. ETA: Maybe it's not as widespread as I thought, but none of our Swiss, Czech, or Malaysian accounts charged for incoming transfers so I always thought that was the norm.