Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2012 December 5

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December 5

Business contracts

I am changing the name of my company. Will the contracts I have with my customers and suppliers still be valid or do I need to issue new contracts with the new company name? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.156.224.242 (talk) 09:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

You need to get your own legal advice about this. We are not permitted to give any sort of legal advice. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 09:54, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

And even if we were, the details described could very well have unique regulations within a given jurisdiction. So you need to see a local attorney. And keep in mind that businesses change names all the time, so there should be a well-oiled process for doing this - which your attorney can advise you on. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:24, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Bluetooth bust

Question moved to the computing desk here.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
For a few months now, my laptop bluetooth's not been working properly. I can switch it on, and detect the presence of other devices (my cell, for example), but I can't exchange stuff (cell to laptop or vice-versa). Everytime I try to do so, it says something like "Service not supported by other device"... When I go to the Devices and printers section in the control Panel, (I use Windows 7) there's a small notification icon at the bottom corner of my laptop's icon, which tells me to troubleshoot the bluetooth connection. When I do so, it says "Driver not detected".. I tried reinstalling the driver, but during installation, the installer notified me that the required driver is already installed. Any idea what's wrong with my lappy? 117.211.6.139 (talk) 10:07, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

international payments

I have a large amount in US dollars in my UK based paypal account, that I need to send to someone in america. Only trouble is, the paypal fees on sending this are rather more than I can afford at the moment. I know that my bank can send the money for a one off fee of £25, which is a lot more managable, only trouble is, I rather suspect they'll want to convert it into pounds to move it into my account, and convert back to dollars again right after, and charge a commission both times. Wondering if anyone here knows any other ways of sending money internationally without having to change the currency?

86.15.83.223 (talk) 11:05, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

And following on from this, would it be possible to get an account with an american bank whilst still living in england? 86.15.83.223 (talk) 13:19, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Transferring money overseas will always cost you money due to, as you stated, the commission fees involved with exchanging currencies and communicating between banks. You might look into using Western Union.--WaltCip (talk) 15:11, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Of course it will cost money, I never said it wouldn't, but seeing as I have the money in the same currency as it is to be recieved, hence no conversion commission, and I can send it for small fees such as my bank's transfer rate, there must be some cheaper methods. As well, I checked the western union website, they don't seem to accept payments in currencies that don't match my location, and their exchange rate is out by about 10% compared to other sites. 86.15.83.223 (talk) 15:41, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Can't you add a US-account to a non-US Paypal account? I got the impression that that was a general possibility. Check this on your paypal account. And yes, you can get a US-account, if you manage to deal with all the paper work. OsmanRF34 (talk) 15:54, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

so how does a US paypal account help, wouldn't they still charge the same amount for sending money? I'll look into the bank stuff, but it might take a while, and I need this one sorted soon 86.15.83.223 (talk) 16:00, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Nope, if you add a US-account, you can withdraw from your Paypal to the US bank account for free and then wire the money. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:03, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

fair enough, sounds great, though how long does creating a US bank account take? 86.15.83.223 (talk) 16:04, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

It's fast, if you are in London. However, you'll have to have a proof of address, source of funds, and identity. You'll also need some funds (some thousand). Try through Citibank, Barklays, HSBC. All of them have international accounts for expats or would-be expats. This is useful if you need to do that more than once. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:24, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

When I looked into this some years ago it was indeed possible at the banks mentioned above, but only if I could show proof of a US address. Since then, you can no longer walk into a bank with a fiver and open an account; you need to provide all sorts of id (address, passport, etc.) so they don't think you are laundering money. Astronaut (talk) 16:58, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

The best source is to ask directly there. I don't know how things look like right now. They won't certainly cooperate with anything looking fishy. OsmanRF34 (talk) 17:37, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Depending on what you're using the money for - can you get a PayPal credit card and just pay with that? I have no idea whether that helps - but it's another avenue to explore. SteveBaker (talk) 17:57, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

where would I get one of those, and what does it involve? 86.15.83.223 (talk) 21:35, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it's difficult to impossible to open a dollar account with a US bank unless you have a US address. However, I seem to recall that HSBC may allow people to open accounts in currencies other than those of the country where they reside. I'd research the internet to find a bank that allows UK residents to open dollar accounts. Many banks don't want to do this precisely because they don't want to allow you a way around those nice fees. Marco polo (talk) 19:57, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

It isn't uncommon for banks to offer foreign currency accounts (a simple search for 'foreign currency account' in UK finds a lot of banks who seem to offer the service) and of course the US dollar is likely to be one currency offered. The question is whether this would actually help the OP or make it worseor be no better. My guess it would be the later. I have a NZ Paypal account and have Euros (also USD but they're currently hidden) in my Paypal account. The info when I attempt to withdraw Euros isn't entirely clear but it suggests to me Paypal will be doing the conversion and there doesn't seem to be any option to change this (unlike when you are making payments from a credit card). This help page [1] used to [2] say that PayPal converts the money, it doesn't anymore I don't know if that is because they changed or just decided to rewrite the policy. It wouldn't surprise me that Paypal automatically converts the money, I'm not sure if it's the norm that bank accounts accept money in foreign currencies transferred to the account particularly not if the transfer is whatever local transfer system rather then an international telegraphic transfer or similar. It may be that PayPal will somehow know the bank account is in USD but I doubt it. In other words, what's likelywhat may to happen is Paypal will convert the money to GBP and the bank will convert it back to USD. (actually I'm not sure if this will happen, (N.B. I originally said suggested you'll be worse off it Paypal first converts to GBP and your foreign currency account then converts back to USD but I wasn't thinking properly. Unless you get poor rates for the conversion from your foreign currency account you'll be no worse off since you can simply transfer the money out as USD to whereever you want to you're no worse off.) Alternatively since I think most foreign currency accounts allow multiple currencies so I suspect the amount will stay as GBP until you ask the bank to convert it and you're not better off). Similarly while you could try and convince PayPal to transfer it in USD, unless they actually let you select the bank account as a USD one (which from what I can tell you can't in NZ) I wouldn't entirely trust that. Even if you can convince them which I doubt, if they screw up don't be surprised if they give you no good recourse. I also doubt you will be able to add the UK foreign currency account as a US one even if it is USD, as far as I know such bank accounts are basically just like local bank accounts.

However I'm not sure if opening a US bank account is really as out of bounds as suggested. [3] provides some suggestions and a search for 'non resident us bank account' or similar finds plenty of suggestions. Commonly banks which deal with migrants will be able to do that provided local (i.e. US) laws allow it. US laws may be strict but are they really that strict? The US HSBC [4] seems to suggest it may be possible. The UK HSBC doesn't specifically mention the US [5] which may seem strange but perhaps it's just less common than the other examples. Of course if you are not an intended migrant this may be more difficult, but it may be possible provided as Osman said you don't sound like you're up to something fishy. Note that while it may be possible, you may have to pay a fair amount for the service, particularly if you're not a customer considered by the bank to be high net worth.

One thing the OP may want to check first is they can even add a US bank account. Here in NZ, I seem to be able to add both NZ bank account and US bank accounts (no other options) so this shouldn't be a problem. If Paypal in the UK allows the same thing, the OP should have no problem if they can actually open a US bank account. (I know PayPal often does not allow you to add a foreign credit card. While the security reasons for this are perhaps somewhat understandable it creates problems when you legimately have credit cards from different countries. Particularly since PayPal does not allow multiple accounts except for one business and one person one and have been known to close accounts with any money ending up in limbo if they find out.) If you can't add a US bank account to your UK PayPal account, you will need to either convince PayPal to let you (again I doubt they will be able to. Although at least in this case if you convince them you'll know if they screw up before it causes too many problems). Alteratively convince PayPal to change your PayPal account to be a US one. I have heard it is possible if you've migrated (when reading about the problems with foreign credit cards) but I'm not sure how well it will work if you haven't and don't have a US address. BTW to be clear, opening a new US PayPal account, even ignoring the fact that's likely to be in violation of PayPal policy isn't likely to help here, you're still going to get high fees for transferring from one to the other.

Nil Einne (talk) 12:27, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

P.S. [6] [7] both relating to Australia and last year seem to agree PayPal will always transfer the money as the local currency of the bank account, including one which is an answer from PayPal staff and which suggests it's a general case rather then Australia specific. I should add that if you add 'paypal' to my earlier search you'll see people discussing opening a US bank account as a non resident for PayPal although the more common reason for this is because they can't add a local bank account at all as it isn't supported in their country yet. Nil Einne (talk) 12:52, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

What about if I register as a company in america, and set up a paypal account linked to an american based business bank account, would that be possible? seeing as when I do get arround to setting up my official company one of the partners and a lot of the work would be american based. I want to prevent this from happening again next time around. 86.15.83.223 (talk) 20:54, 6 December 2012 (UTC)