• UK Buyers and Banks and Iraqi Dinar

This is only a short guide, purely my opinion and not a complaint, more a bit of friendly advice that I have found myself through buying Iraqi dinar and other popular currencies on eBay.

The best advice I can give, if looking for bulk amounts of dinar at competitive rates, is...don't look to eBay to provide that. For starters, you are subject to the whims of seller peer pressure on eBay. Sellers are here to make profit often (though not always) according to what others around them are pricing. When you look into actual live exchange rates, you will see that most bulk sellers of dinar of 500K-1 Million and upwards quantities are charging up to £50.00 MORE than the exchange rate, plus postage fees on top.

An example without naming names here...a dinar seller on eBay selling 1 Million Iraqi dinar for £568.00. Now, that is fine, that's the rate s/he has chosen to sell but it is NOT the exchange rate and there is a heck of a mark up gone onto this figure to get it to you, the buyer. I ordered the same amount of Iraqi dinar at my British bank in England at the same time (in fact, slightly over, £1,005,000 to be exact) for just £451.00. Incidentally, four days later, I could have got £1,020,000 for my £451.00 through the bank as this currency accelerates (an extra 15K more! within days). So the same product on eBay is going to cost you up to £100+ more than buying at your bank. Why would you do that? Why would you just give £100 of your cash away like that? Especially when you don't need to. Then, you are subject to postal costs on top of such an eBay price.

Several western banks sell Iraqi dinar and other currencies, both in the UK and USA and they can give you a far better deal than most sellers on eBay can. In the UK the Halifax (HBOS), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBOS), Barclays and Nat West all buy/sell Iraqi dinar. Hopefully more will follow soon. EBay sellers are selling their stock for a multitude of reasons and the people I have dealt with have been decent, friendly and professional individuals. But the fact still remains that buying bulk dinar on eBay is going to cost you a good slice more than buying it directly through a bank. You will get more for your money with a bank exchange rate, no P and P charges (that can sometimes be ridiculous on eBay) and most importantly, you will have a receipt to say the dinar came from that bank.

Therefore, if anything happens with a currency and you need to take it back to the bank, you can change it there with proof you got it from there. This makes it less hassle to change it or sell it back to a bank at the official rate. With eBay there is also a receipt but it is only an eBay receipt and is that seller going to buy them back off you if anything happens? Very, very doubtful. As in, forget it.

Like anything, the devil is in the detail and while I can attest to the fun and excitement of buying dinar on eBay from the few very nice and helpful people I have bought with, I would still recommend buying from a bank over buying at auction or BIN price on eBay.You might not get nice, crisp, uncirculated dinar from a bank (in fact, you won't, you'll get dinar in all kinds of states of use) but, it will be cheaper and the ability to sell it back hassle free with a bank receipt should give a person more peace of mind.

I would say just take care, buy from eBay if you want, but be aware there are better deals out there via UK banks. It is fuss free; you buy, you print an order form out, take some ID and pick it up in a day or two from your local bank, counted out in front of you, no questions asked.

I would only advise buying dinar from eBay if looking for single notes or small denominations of between 50 - 5,000. UK banks deal mostly in 25K and 10K Iraqi dinar at the time of writing. For bulk buy, use the bank.