Importing from Pakistan

Greetings & Salutations! Since 1977 I’ve imported goods from Pakistan, then was informed by the postal authorities of the United States Postal Service that I can not sent U.S.P.S. International Postal Money-Orders to Pakistan, but they did not say why? They said there are now three catagories of postal moneyorders, with the first being Domestic the second being International and the third is through a special section in Saint Louis, Missouri and this requires the U.S. Bank sending money to the Bank of Pakistan. The latter is costly and the alternatives are the Foreign Exchange of Los Angeles (California) which is expensive for their Cashier’s Cheques converted to Pakistan Rupee at the bank rate. Used to send personal cheques, but the banks I am told over there charge a large fee to convert from U.S. Dollars to Pakistan Rupees. Have also mailed cash (actual U.S. banknotes), but sometimes these are confiscated by the U.S. Customs and seized and I got letters saying it was illegal. How am I to buy from Pakistani exporters if I cannot pay them without going deeply into debt and losing whatever profits I’d make selling Paksiatn goods? Customs duty and tariffs are very high as it is, does the U.S. even want Pakistan to sell their products to us here in the U.S.? It seems as though the U.S. Government treats Pakistan like an enemy when we are told they are a valued friend and ally? If you know how I can send some form of payment without paying a huge fee, pray tell me? Thank you! Sergeant Booker :bism:

Actually its more to do with problems in Pakistan. They feel insecure, for instance recently Paypal put up a link warning people not to trade with customers from Pakistan, Indonesia etc because of the fraudulant credit card payments. I remember how Pakistan was also removed from the list of countries where amazon.com would deliver because of increased credit card frauds.

Please do not send in your cash notes to Pakistan, all international mail is routed through customs Karachi, and trust me, there are alot of crooks sitting there who would love to get their hands on that. A popular goalkeeper of Pakistan hockey (Mansoor Ahmed), worked for customs and was arrested for stealing goods amounting over 1 crore.

How about wire transfers? They charge $40 for any amount of money that you wire to Pakistan, and some private banks in Pakistan do not impose an additional charge, so if you were to send $10,000 and your $40 fee, your recipient in Pakistan will get the $10,000. The advantages are that it gets there on the same day and is very secure, all you need to know is the recipient's bank swift and wire code.

Sgt. Booker

you may also investigate the ability to open accts with banks like citi or and see if you could have there pakistani branch submit the payment there.

I dont know how th emechanics work exactly, but someone i know was doing it and it decreased their transaction costs significantly, this was back in 95-96 timeframe so i dont know if there have been any new restrictions that stop that.

If that is not possible look into setting up your own acct there with one bank, and just use it as a clearing acct if you are sending many payments to many merchants..you can save on transfer and tranbsaction fees by wiring money from your business acct into the clearing acct there,a nd then issuing the payments from that acct.