I decided to take out a twelve month contract with HIFX to transfer most of my pension monthly to Oz at the agreed rate.

Last month I found the payment had not been made into my account: since I had plenty of cash in it anyway it was not embarrassing and it also meant that I didn't find out for several weeks. After phoning HIFX in a bit of a paddy I got the explanation that the chap who does the transfers had been sick.

I have to say that this does not strike me as a satisfactory reply! Probably quite a few people on this arrangement will be relying on a regular payment for their expenses, and for one or more to be significantly delayed by staff unavailability is just not on. Surely the system is more robust than this?

Did they offer a good rate fixed or variable for the year?

I agree with that this occurrance is not acceptable - but did they offer compensation?

Regards

The rate was fixed when I contracted in Aug/Sept: I got $2.5 for the 12 months.

Compensation? No! The loss of interest was only around £10 I think but that's not the point of course. If I had been relying on my regular income to pay my monthly bills I could have had all sorts of problems such as debt, bad credit rating, etc. I rather got the impression that HIFX agreed the whole thing was unfortunate, but just one of those things that happen.

I will definitely be monitoring the remainder of the 12 month contract carefully before I sign up again!

Rog,

Was your transfer being dealt with through the UK, or the office in Sydney? Let me know and I'll follow up ...

Best regards.

The Windsor office, Alan.

I was just surprised that such transactions appear to depend on an individual being present - not very robust