Getting the money to Haiti

Raising the money for Andre's family is only half the battle. Then we have to get it to them somehow.

When the earthquake first hit on Jan. 12, 2010, there was no electricity or communication with Haiti for three long days. Once we confirmed that his family was alive, we struggled to send them money so they could buy food and water, even though there wasn't much of either available.

The Western Union office in Port-au-Prince, where we usually send money to his family, was still without power. The closest functioning office was more than 20 miles away, but it would be impossible for Andre's family to travel. We even tried to find people who were going to Haiti, who could carry some cash for us, but the border crossing from Dominican Republic was full of desperate thieves and no one wanted to risk it.

On January 19th, a full week after the quake, Andre's family still didn't have any money and was running out of food. We heard rumors that a company called C.A.M. (Caribbean Air Mail) was able to deliver money to their Petion Ville office, a few miles from Andre's family. That sounded great, until we found out C.A.M. can only send money from six states, such as Florida, NY, and NJ where most of the Haitian immigrants live. So we had to call our friend Hubert in NJ and get him to set up an account and use his own credit card. They charged us their normal $44 fee to send $400, but at the moment we didn't care. We were so relieved and happy to know they had some money and could survive. We were the first of all our Haitian friends to succeed in getting money to our family.

A few days later, Western Union was able to open their offices in PAP. And the best news -- they weren't charging any service fee to send money to Haiti. Normally Western Union charges 11% for themselves. For the land that Andre's family wants to buy in the mountains, the cost will be about $12,500 plus another 10% to do the paperwork. At 11%, we would have spent $1500 in service fees before the quake.

But Andre's family didn't want us to send the money through Western Union for safety reasons. People had been beaten up and robbed after picking up money. And while most people were probably received $50 or $100, we needed to send thousands. According to World Vision, the average income in Haiti is $450 per year, so you can imagine that Andre's family could be targeted.

Fortunately, Andre's brother Johnny is a police officer and carries a weapon. He always accompanies his father when they pick up money. On Jan. 25 we sent another $500 for food and water via Western Union. While a friend in Florida said it took her family three days to pick up money due to the mob scene at that time, Johnny was able to step to the front of the line and get it quickly. Still, they said they preferred if we could transfer the money directly to their bank account.

When Josh Brown opened up an account for Action Santa Cruz at Bank of America, we found out that they do international wire transfers for a $45 flat fee for any amount. So, on Feb. 4 we sent $2500 from B of A to Andre's stpefather's bank account in Unibank in Haiti. Too late, I found out that it would take 2-10 working days to arrive. At least with Western Union it's there within an hour...for no charge.

Well, guess what? Today is Feb. 27 and the $2500 still hasn't arrived. After two weeks we put a tracer on it, which would take 3-5 days. The tracer said the money should be at the bank, so Andre had his stepfather and Johnny talk to the bank manager. Andre also spoke to him, through his stepfather's cell phone. They finally figured out that the main name on the account is Johnny and we had sent it to Mathieu because we were told the account was in both their names. So we had to go back to B of A and make an administrative change. We were told it would take 3-5 more days.

Meanwhile, Western Union ended their promotion on Feb. 12, the one-month anniversary of the earthquake. I wish I'd sent more before that date, but I only managed to send a few hundred more to Andre's family for food, plus some smaller amounts to aunts and uncles. At least for now Western Union is charging a reduced fee of only $15 to send $1000. But get this: it costs $125 to send $5000!?! Who does their math? And there's no chart of their rates, even when you go in person. I assumed that the more you send, the cheaper it gets proportionally, not more expensive.

I used to be able to send money online through Western Union, but I reached my limit. So I had to go borrow the money at the bank and walk the cash over to Western Union. At least it's safer here than in Haiti. Johnny and his father have been going to Western Union to pick up the money, $1000 at a time, and then walking it over to the bank.

The good news is, we finally managed to get them all the money they need to pay the 75% down payment of the $12,500 sales price for the 1/4 acre of land in the mountain village, and the 10% extra for the notary to do the title search and escrow. The bad news is, the office where the notary files the papers was destroyed in the earthquake. The Haitian government hasn't made any new provisions for real estate transactions. I can see that it isn't their highest priority right now, but it's important to us so we can get Andre's family out of the capitol and up to higher, safer ground before the rainy season floods Port-au-Prince and washes away the refugees and their flimsy tents.