That Was a Close One...

After we thought we had paid the damage deposit on the place in Freiburg, we received a large foreign exchange wire transfer yesterday for almost the same amount. So, we figured it could be one of four options:

1. The place is rented to someone else, and they returned our damage deposit to us,
2. The money got transferred to a bad account (wrong account number),
3. Someone in Germany wanted to give us money for the deposit (like my work, highly unlikely, I know), or
4. A random bank error.

We went to our bank, and they told us that the account we wanted to transfer to was closed, so it turns out it was no. 2. Banks really make me mad. We paid around $150 in exchange when our bank bought euros to transfer, plus a $25 administration fee. Then, when the money came back, the bank exchanged the euros to Cdn dollars at a lower rate, and made another $100 or so. So, our money went no where and we lost $300 to foreign exchange transfers because our bank wanted to make money off of us for nothing. I realize this is how they make their money and euros are kind of scarce in Canada, but the least they could do was make the exchange at the current rates so that we wouldn't lose so much for a service that didn't work. Apparently, they are supposed to confirm too if the transfer was successful, which might have prevented this mess, and of course they did not. I think I am going to file a complaint, even though I know it won't do anything.

At any rate, after explaining the situation to our new landlords (through German translators at my work, which can be crazy in itself), they have agreed to let us pay the deposit when we get to Freiburg, which is a really nice thing to do. I think we will have to go through all this foreign exchange stuff again to get our money into a German bank account though, so we will have to find someone with the lowest rate, and I sure don't want to give more money to our garbage bank. Any ideas?

Jeff