While BidPay might be nice to use for USA-USA money transfers, for a more international they have failed me for three times now. First time around they were 'verifying' my eBay payment for over two weeks. Now I've been not carefull enough to pay two more (small, but very needed) eBay purchases with BidPay. Both checks (one to U.K. and one to HongKong) have been in transit for allmost three weeks now.
The best thing is that now that the U.K. seller has recieved the check, he cann't cash it in any Western Union office. When I called to the USA office, they recommended him to send the check back to me so I can mail it back to BidPay so they can refund me the money or resend him the check in pound sterling :P. Another option is to go to a local bank and wait for a week for the check clearing procedure (it also will cost a few extra pounds). And that is after I paid them more then 10 bucks for the service. Silly.
On the other hand I've had a good experience with the moneybookers.com service - instant money transfer between electronical accounts for a fixed amount of 0.5 eur (that is the maximum fee). You can upload money to you account via a bank transfer (local in most EU countries, 2-3 days) or a credit card (instant). They require to fax in proves that you really are the person you claim to be and that you own the accounts you claim, but that is only needed to increase the transfer limits and prevent fraud. Withdrawal of money can be done either with a local bank transfer, check or a SWIFT transfer. Local transfer takes 2-4 days. Had no problems with them. It is a pity that not many eBay sellers accept payments trough moneybookers.
That would surely spare me that agony on three week of waiting for a check to arrive to seller and a 'unpaid strike' from the other seller. He has not recieved his cheque yet. :P
