Advertisement fee

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