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Comment by sangnoir | Hacker News Reader

> Then they send the money back home. But if they send cash back it gets stolen 90% of the time. If they transfer the money it from one bank account to another, they don't lose their money. Making transactions more customizeable/

WTF are you talking about? No one[1] uses bank transfers to send money to their families in the SADC region: it's quicker and cheaper to use formal and informal money transfer agencies where the recipient gets cash, which is not stolen "90% of the time".

I swear HN seems knowledgeable on all subjects except those I am deeply familiar with...

1. SWIFT transfers do get used for big transactions or paying corporations, but no one I know will be sending amounts less than monthly income this way

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> I swear HN seems knowledgeable on all subjects except those I am deeply familiar with...

You can make a fairly valid extrapolation about the other areas where HN seems knowledgeable from this data point.

> I swear HN seems knowledgeable on all subjects except those I am deeply familiar with...

I started discounting what I read here about when I realized that.

Yes you are correct.

When I said, "transfer the money from one bank account to another", I actually meant not sending the money physically, but by using various other means. I didn't know how to word this, and it came out wrong.

And I was talking about the cash being stolen 90% of the time, if you do choose to physically carry it with you back home. (Or trust someone else to do it)

> And I was talking about the cash being stolen 90% of the time, if you do choose to physically carry it with you back home. (Or trust someone else to do it)

This is also not true. 17,000 Zimbabweans[1] travel into South Africa daily by road, most are destined for Musina (nearest South African town to the border) where they buy goods with cash[2]. If theft rate is 90%, that would result in 15,300 cases of theft per day (5.5 million per year) which (a) just can't go unreported, even if you think Zimbabwe is some undeveloped backwater and (b) where do I sign up to join this very effective Thieves Guild? It has to be well-paying.

1. As of 2015, numbers are seasonal. http://www.702.co.za/articles/10509/31-000-people-cross-bord...

2. Because of depleted nostro accounts, most Zimbabwean banks have a maximum international withdrawal of $20-$50 (US dollars) per day

>I swear HN seems knowledgeable on all subjects except those I am deeply familiar with..

Good old Gell-Mann amnesia.

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