How can I pay someone a small award, internationally?

March 9, 2017 10:11 AM

I am planning a contest. I live in Puerto Rico (American dollars). How do I best pay the winner if he or she is overseas and uses a different and as yet, unknown, currency?

One hundred dollars prize money. I don't know if the winner will be foreign, but I'd like to have the contest open to anyone. I would like to avoid PayPal (never liked it even before learning about Thiel).

Should I just offer the prize as a check in U.S. currency (or Postal Money Order) and allow the individual to take care of the transfer and fees? Do I need to wire the money? Are Amazon gift cards accepted from pole to pole?

posted by dances_with_sneetches to Work & Money (7 answers total)

I would avoid Amazon gift cards. Paypal is kind of gross, but it's pretty much perfect for this sort of thing because it's pretty currency agnostic. If you want to avoid Paypal, I think that a money order in US Dollars is something that can be cashed pretty much anywhere in the world (I've had no problem cashing them in Canada, Mexico, or Europe).

And there's always Bitcoin....
posted by 256 at 10:20 AM on March 9, 2017

I have never wrestled with this, because there are many other issues with holding a contest open to international participation that are more serious , and therefore any contest I've won (like a drawing for a Fitbit in exchange for filling out a survey, for example) has been open to participants from the United States alone. Even in the US, you may have to issue 1099s to winners, depending on the value of the item. Multiply that level of complexity by the number of countries you plan to allow participation from. Then add import/export compliance! All this to say, thar be dragons.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 10:23 AM on March 9, 2017

Response by poster: Now I'm a bit concerned.

Specifically, I was going to make it a short story contest (no fee to enter, so I don't have to worry about currencies coming this direction). Wouldn't this just be like paying $100 for a short story? How do magazines do it?
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:39 AM on March 9, 2017

Best answer: Although there may *technically* be rules around $100 prizes, unless you are a large corporation I would not stress about it. I have definitely won smallish prizes in the $50-$200 range on blogs, in drawings, etc. and have never filled out a tax form for them. I would simply pick how you want to do the prize, and be upfront with people that this is how the prize is being offered and they enter at their own risk -- for example: "Prize is $100, you must have a Venmo account and be able accept Venmo funds to receive the prize" or "Prize is an Amazon.com gift card in the amount of $100 (US currency). Contest is open to anyone, but you are responsible for determining how to use the Amazon funds in your country" or whatever for how you want to deal with the funds. You could also do an option like "Prize is $100 in U.S. funds. You may choose to receive funds via either Paypal, Venmo or an Amazon.com gift card, and you are responsible for determining how to best receive funds in your country/situation."
posted by rainbowbrite at 12:53 PM on March 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

The rumor that PayPal is connected to Trump through Thiel persists, but Thiel no longer is an officer or director and his shares were purchased in eBay's 2002 acquisition. If that makes you feel any better.
posted by mama casserole at 4:16 PM on March 9, 2017

As someone living in a country without Amazon, I would hate an Amazon gift card (or one for any shop that doesn't have a free shipping option for me.) Purchases from Amazon for me cost about $30-40 in shipping, so a $100 gift card is worth much less than that. And Amazon won't ship just about anything other than books to Australia anyway.

I would probably be cool with a contest that offered the prize in a choice of formats, e.g. my choice of Amazon, iTunes, Steam or Google gift vouchers would be cool. Paypal would be my preference, though.

Definitely not a cheque, though - banks here commonly charge about $25 in fees to cash an international cheque.
posted by lollusc at 5:15 PM on March 9, 2017

Oh, and wiring the money is pretty random with regard to fees too. Sometimes the banks charge the original sender the fees; sometimes they take it out of the amount wired; sometimes they don't seem to charge much in the way of fees (I think it depends on the relationship between the two banks) and sometimes it's the same as a cheque ($25 or so). So I think that's probably a no-go too.
posted by lollusc at 5:18 PM on March 9, 2017