Kojo96 wrote:
There is an app called Xoom. It is part of Paypal and it works flawlessly for sending money. All you need is for the recipient to send you a photo of their debit card which has the routing number on it. You also need a copy pf their cedula or the information on it. The cost is a bit higher at $9 per transaction but to me well worth the extra buck to do it from the convenience of home and avoid the many hassles of WU and MG. On the receiving end no more trips to a money vendor and the risk of being mugged on their way home as it is in the bank account of the recipient. I have done as little as $50 and as much as $2000 without issue. So far very happy with the whole process.
If your recipient has Paypal and a CR bank account, you can send them money Paypal to Paypal and they can use a "free" digital wallet called Wink to transfer the money out of Paypal into a local CR account (in dollars or colones) for $4 per transaction. This is how I pay my rent (including electric, water, cable).
The things I like about this approach.....
1. I don't need a local CR bank account.
2. No exchange rate issues (landlord receives dollars or colones).
3. I don't give routing numbers to my landlord, nor does he give his to me.
4. I pay $5 for the Paypal transfer, my landlord pays $4 if and when he transfers the money out of his digital wallet into his BAC account. (I happen to know he receives other rent payments this way so he aggregates them in his Wink digital wallet and then transfers the funds $2,000 at a time, reducing his per-rent transaction costs)