News - Buying foreign music CDs - Buying foreign music CDs

Does anyone know how you can do this? You live in the United States and you want to buy one or two music compact discs recorded by an artist in Europe and manufactured there. How can you pay for it?

    It seems nearly impossible for an individual in this country to purchase an item of any kind from another individual in Finland, for example, and to pay for it. I went to my bank and was told the wire transfer fee is now $50. I asked at the post office and was told that the USPS no longer sells international money orders that can be accepted in Europe, with the exception of one or two countries. European banks generally have stopped accepting personal checks written on banks in the US. Banks in those countries say it costs them too much to verify the validity of the foreign checks. And to send cash in an envelope by mail—what could someone in Europe do with “Greenbacks” anymore?

    It’s different if you are in business in North America, such as operating a giftware shop. Then you would usually buy products at wholesale from a national distributor for Finnish or Swedish products that is based on these shores to service shops across the country. Such a distributor then takes care of all the money transfers and currency exchanges between dollars and euros or crowns, etc.

    Some individuals who travel a lot between two countries might have personal bank accounts in both countries. If that person buys or sells something in one of those two countries, the payment can be made to the appropriate bank, and the seller can use the proceeds of that sale in the country where the bank accepted payment. But those are only incidental transactions for personal convenience. Most people can’t afford to keep bank accounts in both places. Few of us would just go there to buy a couple CDs, and even the postage for shipping them is getting outrageous! There has got to be a better way. Nowadays in our global market, there appears to be no way for two individuals to buy and sell an incidental item or two across the boundaries.