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Recently a friend of mine in Surabaya wanted to place an
advertisement in The Jakarta Post' "Classified Ad" column. He
contacted The Jakarta Post advertisement section by phone to find
out the procedure and the mode of payment. He was advised to
contact a private agency in Surabaya.

When he duly approached the said agency, he was asked to pay a
fee of Rp 25,000 service charge over and above the cost to be
paid to The Jakarta Post. That means for the stipulated required
minimum three lines it would cost him Rp 38,200 instead of Rp
13,200 only, as per the prevailing rate of Rp 4,400 per line.

It seems very unreasonable to pay a middleman a service charge
which is nearly double the actual cost of the advertisement
itself. It is strange that The Jakarta Post, the leading English
newspaper in Indonesia, has not set up its own office or
correspondent, even in the second largest city of the country, to
take care of readers' such needs.

May I request The Jakarta Post through this letter, comment on
this issue and inform us if they have any plans to extend their
services to avoid such inconveniences in future?

A. KRISHNAN

Surabaya, East Java

Note: The Jakarta Post has contacted the agency and found the fee
of Rp 25,000 is meant to cover the cost of both handling the
order and transferring the money to Jakarta, regardless of the
volume of the order. However, The Jakarta Post has negotiated
this matter with the said agency and from now on our customers
will only be charged at cost (including fax and money transfer
costs), corresponding with the amount of advertisement orders.

-- Editor