What's the best way to send money to a friend in China?

Hi. A check will not work. Ask your friend if they have  a westernunion in the city where your friend live. All bigger cities in China have this. This is a very quick and safe way.

Thank you! I have heard conflicting report about US checks...that sometimes they can take months to clear.

Checks in China is a bad idea. even when people buy bigger thing they pay with cash and the biggest note here in china is equalavent to about $ 17.00. But many places you can now use a credit card.

flemming wrote:

Checks in China is a bad idea. even when people buy bigger thing they pay with cash and the biggest note here in china is equalavent to about $ 17.00. But many places you can now use a credit card.

Credit card works. you can transfer money to our friends via ATM.

Hi Carol, you can try Western Union. You just need the exact and complete name and address of your friend. All the spelling including the hyphens and symbols should be exact as shown in your friend's IC or Passport. Your friend should be aware of your complete and exact details as well. Other than Western Union, you can try a bank to bank transfer of funds.

I have had a ton of trouble in China transferring money..I don't live near a western union, I used to be able to do it via paypal online..but for some reason, now something in Chinese pops up and I cant get into my online banking.  I have tried to transfer bank to bank eg..Bank of China to a bank in the Philippines...cant seem to get it done...any suggestions.  I just bought a house...and the down payment was over 300,000 rmb...ever see that much money in a shopping bag.  Yep...we are dealing with the worlds second largest economy and that's the way business here is done...Laurence

Hi. I live in China and have an account in bank of china. I can transfer money from my Danish bank to my account in bank of china.
Do you use a VPN?
since you get something in chinese popping up it seems not.

You can use one of the online money transfers which are pretty good. I used world remit twice which just took a couple of days. Since then I've opened an ordinary bank account in the UK in my name and sent the bank card to the friend. Now I just transfer the money to that account and they take it out of the ATM. Other than exchange rates there is no fee.

Yes: I can bring money in from Hong Kong and Canada but its when it has to go the other day.  Language barriers within the bank, cant find anyone who can explain things to me in English.  As far as the VPN is concerned, once i downloaded it...thats when the problems began.  I lost my yahoo messenger, my online banking, paypal, etc.  Laurence

Hi axemenbasketball, it seems that you don't have anything good to say about China, and yet you bought a house and plan on staying here. Are you helping to make this Country a better place for everyone? Sorry you are having so much trouble living here. I have lived in Canada and it's a lovely country with well supported welfare system. Should be a good country to go back to, with good medical care.