Ouch, that stings!

OK, when you're transferring large amounts of money overseas, they can't tell you what the exchange rate is until it's done...

It seems that either I got a TOTALLY different rate for a large transaction (below $5000 it was 1.4034:1), or else the receiving bank charged an extra 5% handling fee (more probable).

And, of course, you won't find this out until after you look at your bank balance and see how much really got sent.

Something to remember when planning this sort of thing...