It's not rare, happens every day. How else are you going to buy it from another private person safely? You want to have an instant transaction. You give somebody money and get a car, thats the safest transaction for both sides. Are you going to wire somebody 10k+ for a car you can't have instantly? (note real time bank transactions are only now becoming a real widespread thing around here in Germany)
> How else are you going to buy it from another private person safely?
SEPA transfers take 30 seconds to clear.
> You give somebody money and get a car
or you give them the money and get back nothing, because "what money are you talking about?"
> thats the safest transaction for both sides
that's literally the less safe!
> Are you going to wire somebody 10k+ for a car you can't have instantly?
If you are buying something worth more than 10k and you need it now, something's obviously not right.
Keep in mind that to actually have more than 10k cash immediately available it means you only deal with cash and keep them somewhere they are less safe than a bank or cost you a lot more than a bank.
Which, again, is already very suspicious.
And no, it's not about regular people, median account balance in Germany is less than 5.000 euros but suddenly there's a need to pay 10k in cash to buy cars that you need right now and you casually had the money in your pocket, because it's a common thing to do.
not entirely true, there are several countries in europe in which a SEPA transfer is shown in the beneficiary the next day, the most famous one being Italy.
Italy also being the one with specific laws against mafia and terrorism, therefore such transfer would require you to add some additional papers.
> > thats the safest transaction for both sides
> that's literally the less safe!
well so it's a bank transfer because once the money has been sent you cannot get it back, the bank acts only on specific cases.
there's literally a million of cases of scams via ebay or similar that involved bank transfers and for which the bank was just "sorry".
> If you are buying something worth more than 10k and you need it now, something's obviously not right.
you are confusing "out of the ordinary" with "not right" and i'd like to remind you our legal systems in EU are still based on "innocent until proven guilty" principle.
I don't think I have ever paid for anything over a few hundred in cash. Criminalising the use of cash seems a bit authoritarian, but I don't think there is any legitimate reason to pay for anything in cash with that amount that couldn't be done by a BACS transfer.
In the UK you have to register with HMRC under money laundering supervision regulations if you are a business or trader that takes in cash payments over 10,000 euro.
If I'm transferring €10k to someone I don't want it to be anonymous. I want to know who got my money so I can go after them if it turns out to be fraudulent.
It's free in most EU countries. I've never paid for a bank transfer. The third party doing the transaction gives me some protection that I wouldn't otherwise have.
Can't argue against the anonymous part of it but when the transaction is between me, the seller and the bank, I'm not sure why it would need to be anonymous.
unless you print the money at home, it always gonna involve three parties.
I believe that by anonymous you meant secret.
It's not anonymous, the person who sold the item already learned a lot of things about you and you about the buyer, including your faces and what was the transaction about, which is often more than enough to identify people.
What difference does it makes if the bank knows about the transaction?
And why you wanna hide it from the bank?
There's probably a good reason, but it raises more questions than it's worth, so the reason must be veeeeeery good.
Do you not think that straight up robbing somebody requires a different level of commitment than fraud?
The guy using a fake app to pretend that they didn't receive a wire transfer isn't going to end up in a fight, the guy robbing someone of their cash might.
Not only that, bank transfers do not protect you from robbery. You can be forced to make a wire transfer, just as you can be forced to hand over cash.
I don't know what kind of prehistoric banking system exists in the US, but that just won't happen. The buyer has a bank transfer id and both parts can check the status with their bank.
There are also instant transfers that cost around 1€ of fixed commissions. They complete in about ten seconds after which the other side can check their account and the money will be there.
And finally you can use a money order if you really don't want to do a bank transfer and prefer paper.
>I don't know what kind of prehistoric banking system exists in the US
I wouldn't know, given that I am European.
> The buyer has a bank transfer id and both parts can check the status with their bank.
Generally there is no quick and easy way to verify that the beneficiary has actually received their funds.
>There are also instant transfers that cost around 1€ of fixed commissions. They complete in about ten seconds after which the other side can check their account and the money will be there.
So what? There are lots of banks which do not support instant transfers, sometimes instant transfer money just doesn't show up instantly and there's very little visibility that end-users would have into that.
How could that work? There's no way to tell if the sender or recipient is being dishonest.
Another common scam involves the buyer using a fake bank app to pay for goods, seller sees the money transferred right in front of them but never receives it.
