Thanks
Can you get cashier's checks at the bank (or post office?) here? If so, what are they called?
I guess your better bet is to tell us what you want to achieve, and someone might be able to outline the 21st century process?
I need a cashier's check in the amount of 110 USD or 110 CHF.
Hi,
Der Bankscheck.
I am also puzzled at to why as I have never paid with this type of check - I suspect it will have out of proportion costs involved
Called a banker's draft in the U.K. and a Banks Check here.
UBS do them if you ask. Info here
The clue is in your user name. If you were AmericanSteve, your numbnuts embassy staff would have just changed the payment requirements for renewing a passport by mail to: I'm hoping it's a mistake as I've never heard of such a check outside of the greatest country on earth.
Cool. Thanks. Unfortunately I don't have a UBS account so I'll have to see if my hick-bank will issue one for me.
Any ideas if I can buy such a thing at the Post Office? A quick look on the website leads me to believe no.
I don’t think so. Switzerland doesn’t do checks to start with, it’s all direct debit/cash or credit card and I think only an international bank like UBS or Credit Suisse will be able to do a bank draft for you. PostFinance unlikely.
Can you not send the money via a bank transfer? Assuming you actually want to send it somewhere outside of Switzerland.
This is the post office means to transfer money.
A Transfer on Paper is 9 CHF. Not sure whether it's suitable for your recipient.
France?
Tom
Sorry, I wasn't clear. Uzbekistan.
Wrong. Thankfully here they know how to spell cheque correctly.
If you happen to be making a trip to Zurich or Geneva, you can go to the consular agency there and pay in cash or credit card. The embassy in Bern accepts those plus cashier's checks in US dollars, and cash US dollars (but only post-2006 ones. )
Or in more simple terms, Americans abroad are regularly told by their government: "F••k you with a pinecone the wrong way around." (Americans abroad get spit on by everyone: other Americans, the US government, locals wherever they live... :ð: )
Looks like either the US embassy in Switzerland hasn't been around long enough to know that any kind of check is considered mid-20th-century, or the whole thing is just a new trick of the US authorities to find out where American expats have their Swiss bank accounts.
Looks like you have your French spellchecker activated. Yes, thankfully here they spell check correctly.
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm bilingual. Aren't you?
There is a story circulating about an American who decided to pay the $2,350 renunciation fee at the embassy with cash. To show his disgust with the US government, he wiped his arse with the bills at home. Some of this dirty money were the old-design notes and the embassy cashier refused to accept them. Because he didn't have enough new design notes he then had to pay with a credit card and take the smelly cash home.
His wife was thoroughly annoyed for turning their home into a "hazmat" site. He ended up laundering the dirty money in the washer.
Moral of the story: don't try to pay cash at the embassy with old-design US currency. It will be rejected.
I'm going through the same thing, needing a cashier's check drawn on a US bank to renew my passport (the amount gives it away). Credit Suisse informed me it was not possible for them to issue such a check. My local Raiffeisen branch didn't know what the hell I was asking for. It doesn't make any sense to me that a Swiss bank could issue a check drawn on a US bank, unless they call their correspondent bank in the US and ask them to issue the check and mail it over.
The embassy staff suggested that I ask "family or friends" back in the states to send me a cashier's check. Right ... I'm nearly 60 years old, and haven't lived in the states for some 40 years. My parents no longer have bank accounts ... in the US or anywhere else. I phoned the embassy several times and pressed them to tell me where I could get a cashier's check that would meet their specifications ... "Can you tell me if anyone here has been able to do this??? Where did they get the check?" The only reply was "I can't answer that. You'll have to ask your bank where to get a cashier's check drawn on an American bank."
The most likely answer seems to be "From an American bank!"
Every time I have to deal with the US government as an expat, I feel abused. Why can't the Swiss embassy accept payment in a manner that is feasible for residents here in Switzerland? Unless they change their policy, the only option seems to be to go there in person and pay in cash in US dollars ( and make sure they are freshly minted ) - unless you can call your parents and ask them to send you the money for your passport renewal. Absolutely humiliating ...
I don't think this will work, as it says on the UBS webpage "UBS bank checks are checks issued by UBS." According to the US Embassy staff and instructions , the check needs to be drawn on a US bank.
Only a few years ago I worked at the visa section of the US embassy in Bern, and almost every day we had someone arriving with this problem. The local Bern Post Office knew the answer, they do indeed sell a bankers cheque type thing, "Cash International" which is accepted by the US Embassy in Bern. (But most post offices seem to be ignorant of this cheque)
https://www.postfinance.ch/en/priv/p...sh/detail.html
you need to produce a valid ID. It costs CHF 6,--