Category: Office Tech

The other day I compared the cost of sending an international bank wire using Afex or using Western Union Globalpay (WUGP).  On a ten thousand dollar wire to Switzerland, I saved seven hundred dollars for the client by using Afex instead of WUGP (blog article).  Today I did a couple more bank wires, one to Canada and another to Japan.  This blog article compares the costs. Continue reading “Two more data points on international wire transfer costs”

With the fast pace of technological change, one of the biggest problems has been the “last mile” problem.  High-speed internet has little difficulty reaching a node that might be a mile away from your home or office.  But that pesky “last mile” is the challenge. (For example our Westminster office is far enough from the phone company central office that DSL is not very fast.)

It’s not only Internet connectivity that suffers from the “last mile” problem.  For package delivery, in desperation Fedex devised the misnamed Smartpost, a service in which Fedex hands off your package to the Postal Service for that last mile of delivery.  And UPS devised the equally misnamed Surepost which works the same way.

So I was fascinated to be reminded of a “last mile” solution for internet access that Google proposed a few years ago, called TiSP.  The idea was that you would drop a weighted fiber-optic cable down your sewer line and it would reach an internet node.  Continue reading “Solving the “last mile” problem”

If you are going to have someone send you funds by means of an international bank wire, what instructions should you give to them?  Thirty years ago my firm did what I suppose most firms do.  We went to our bank we asked our bank what to tell the sender.  Our bank very promptly and cheerfully provided detailed “incoming bank wire instructions” including a Swift code and an ABA routing number.  We then dutifully provided this information to all of our foreign associates for use in paying us for the work that we do for them.

It turns out that this is approximately the stupidest thing to do.

Our patent firm has changed banks from time to time over the years.  But what has not changed is that each bank has charged us some amount of money for each incoming bank wire.  Our most recent bank (Wells Fargo) usually charges us at least $16 for each incoming foreign bank wire, or as much as $33 if it feels the wire required “repair” (whatever that means).  I cringe now to realize that during these decades our banks over the years have charged us many, many thousands of dollars in bank fees for our incoming foreign bank wires.

And the same is true for incoming foreign bank wires to my personal bank account.

Imagine how stupid I feel to have discovered only in recent days that there are common-sense ways to receive foreign bank wires that do not incur bank fees, for businesses and for personal accounts.  Continue reading “Yet another smart way to receive international bank wires”

In which the writer reminisces about the early years of his patent firm and eventually getting a clue about how to send bank wires to foreign associates.  Continue reading “Getting a clue about bank wires”

Recently I blogged about Western Union Edge, a service for foreign wire transfers.  Alert reader Andrew Berks commented that he uses AFEX.  So I decided to open an account with this service provider.  Having used the service now for a short while, I think it’s possible that AFEX is the best choice these days for foreign wire transfers. Continue reading “Yet another foreign wire transfer service”

Seemingly almost every industry is disrupted these days by the Internet and other technological changes.  Over-the-top distribution of streaming media allows the consumer to bypass legacy cable or satellite gatekeepers.  Voice over IP services allow telephone customers to bypass legacy landline telephone companies, saving lots of money.

Yet every time we get paid by foreign patent or trademark counsel, we get charged by our own bank to receive the bank wire, even if the sender pays all of the bank fees at their end that they are able to pay at their end.  I recently asked for a detail billing from our bank and found that our bank was also charging us an additional fee for many of our incoming bank wires to “repair” some of the wires because of real or imagined flaws in the bank wire instructions received from the foreign banks.

Frustrations like these had often reminded me that I keep hearing about various ways other than bank wires that people can send money to each other.  Venmo.  Zelle.  Paypal.  Wechat.  But most of these systems are no good for international transfers, and most of these systems are unavailable to businesses.

Are there smart ways to save money paying foreign patent and trademark counsel?  Is it possible to bypass banks, avoiding the bank wire transfer fees that normally get charged to both the senders and the recipients of wire transfers? Continue reading “Western Union Edge”

We are all accustomed to the phenomenon that a person might mishear a song lyric or other publicly recited phrase.  “to the republic for Richard Stands.”  “scuse me while I kiss this guy.”  It turns out there is a name for this.  It is called a Mondegreen.

What got me thinking about this, of course, was my recent blog article that mentioned Bad Moon Rising.  “There’s a bathroom on the right.”

Anyway so now you can save up this really good word “Mondegreen” and put it to use in just the right setting.

Some years passed during which I considered it and considered it.  Finally a couple of months ago I closed my Facebook account.

I don’t miss it a bit. Continue reading “Shutting down my Facebook page”