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Vladimir_Golovin comments on The Last Days of the Singularity Challenge - Less Wrong
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Speaking of trivial inconveniences, the processing fees are nothing compared to dealing with checks via Russian banks -- it's a huge hassle.
For example, if you want to cash in a foreign check, they can't just give you the money -- they send the check back to the issuer for 'approval', who will send it back with the approval letter -- and when it's back, the bank charges you about 25% commission. I learned it the hard way, and never dealt with checks again.
As for issuing checks, I doubt that Russian banks can do that at all -- at least I haven't heard of anyone making payments by checks issued by Russian banks.
I have an arrangement with an American supporter of the Future of Humanity Institute. Each month I send money to FHI, he sends it to SIAI, and each institute gets tax benefits they wouldn't get from donor's outside their own country.
If it's worth it to avoid the commission and for possible tax benefits, maybe you could find a trustworthy American supporter of a good Russian cause?
This is the main problem. Charities and other forms of centralized philanthropy are almost non-existent in modern Russia -- perhaps because most potential donors are wary of scams posing as charities. Almost everyone here has been a victim of some sort of scam. Most of the everyday philanthropy here is decentralized, flash-mob style -- someone posts a help request with a story and an address to send money, and others re-post it on their blogs if they feel that the request is genuine.
Even if I could find an American supporter (I think I can) and a charity (which will be harder), I still doubt that this will make me eligible for any tax benefits here.
Wow, the Russian banking system sounds horrible, much more than a trivial inconvenience.
I had another fun exercise when making this donation. I wanted to make it in January, but to transfer those $1450 from an e-payment system (thankfully not PayPal) to my bank account, I had to squeeze them through the daily transfer limits that randomly fluctuate each day from $1 to $450. That was kinda fun -- like gambling. As you see, it took me almost two months to complete, plus I lost another $27 to the transfer fees :)
Which e-payment system has transfer limits like that?
Moneybookers.