Costomers confused and upset by bank closures

Costomers confused and upset by bank closures

By Stevie Emilia

JAKARTA (JP): The government told people not to worry about
the closing of 38 ailing banks last month. But not only were
customers worried, they were confused and upset as well.

Fiolita, a manpower consultant, was confused when she learned
that Bank Papan Sejahtera, where she obtained her house loan, was
one of the banks being closed.

Her first reaction was to urge her husband to rush to the bank
the next day to get more information about their remaining debt
and the documents for their house.

"I was really worried that we wouldn't get the documents.
Things were not clear and I was confused. I did not want to lose
the money that we had spent and saved all this time," the mother
of a 14-month-old daughter told The Jakarta Post.

Fiolita, 28, also was worried upon hearing rumors she would be
required to pay the rest of her debt at once, not every month as
was her usual practice.

"I keep hoping that it (the rumor) was not true. How could we
get that amount of money?"

She usually pays Rp 900,000 a month, and she still has 14 more
years to pay off her loan.

She applied for a loan to buy a house in Serpong, West Java,
in December 1997, a year after her marriage. Bank Papan was the
first bank which approved her application.

"I bought the house because I was tired of renting houses,
moving from one place to another. And my husband agreed. At that
time, we thought that it would be better to spend our money on
the house instead of continuing to spend the money renting. It's
like having a savings account that we never touch," Fiolita said.

But she is afraid that her hopes have turned sour.

"When my husband went to the bank the next day, after the
closure, the bank employees said they could not serve customers
because they were on strike demanding better compensation,"
Fiolita said.

A few days later, Bank Papan officials agreed to serve its
former customers, issuing verification letters to allow them to
take care of their financial matters at an appointed bank.

Unfortunately, the letters were issued only to customers
wishing to close or transfer their savings accounts, not to
creditors.

Last week, Fiolita finally received a verification letter to
take care of her banking business at an appointed bank, in her
case, Bank BNI.

There was a long line at her new bank. And when she reached
the front of the line, although she was not fined for her late
loan payment, she only was given a simple payment receipt.

"I was surprised. The receipt was not like the one I was used
to receiving when paying my debt. There were no details of the
remaining debt. The receipt was just like one you receive when
making a savings deposit," Fiolita said.

"How can I feel reassured or calm down. How can I prove that I
have paid my loan with such a receipt," she added.

That was not the end of her worries.

A Bank BNI official said that the bank was "temporarily"
appointed to handle Bank Papan's former customers and another
bank eventually would handle Fiolita's debt payments.

"And as of today, there's no guarantee that we'll get our
documents as promised, and no information on what bank will take
care of us," Fiolita said. "We need to be certain about this.
Until then, we won't stop worrying."

The government closed 38 banks on March 13 in a bid to clean
up the country's banking sector.

When it announced the closures, the government said it would
guarantee people's deposits, savings accounts and other accounts.

Bank BNI is among five banks appointed by the government to
handle customers of the closed banks. The other four banks are
Bank Central Asia, Bank Rakyat Indonesia, Bank Dagang Negara and
Bank Danamon.

Many customers have had unexpected experiences in this whole
unusual process.

Utari, an accountant living in Depok, south of Jakarta, said
she never suspected her bank would be closed, not until she was
told by her parents two days after the announcement.

"I knew the government would close some banks. But I did not
read any news hinting that my bank would be one of them," the
former Bank Mashill Utama customer told the Post.

The first thing that came to her mind was not her savings
account, which the government fully guaranteed, but her unpaid
credit card bills at the bank.

She went to the bank's branch office in Margonda, Depok, to
pay her credit card bill and transfer her money to a savings
account in another bank. But when she arrived at the office,
there were no bank employees there.

The next day, after taking the day off from her office, she
went to Bank Mashill's office on Jl. Sudirman, South Jakarta,
only to be told that she had to go to BCA to take care of the
matter.

So, she went to BCA's branch office in Depok.

At BCA, Utari was told to get a verification letter from Bank
Mashill in Jakarta.

The BCA official also told her that after getting the letter,
she still had to wait because at that time BCA only was handling
the deposits and accounts of Mashill's customers, not their
unpaid bills.

"Why didn't anyone tell me in the first place that I should
get a verification letter? It's weird," she said.

However, she did not give up.

The next day, she went back to Bank Mashill in Jakarta to get
the letter. There, she was told the closed bank only was giving
verification letters to customers wishing to transfer or withdraw
their deposits or saving accounts, not those wishing to pay their
credit card bills. However, she could not withdraw her money
because she had not paid her bill.

"I was really upset. I wanted to get my money and pay my
bills, so why was I being treated like that," Utari asked.

She called the bank's office almost every day to find out
whether she could get a verification letter. But she was simply
told to wait.

"I don't want to be charged for late payment," Utari said of
her efforts. According to her, customers are charged up to 4
percent of their debt anytime they fail to pay their credit card
bill on time.

And it was not until March 30 that she finally got her
verification letter.

"Finally, I got it, after sweating and wasting my energy ...
surprisingly, it took me less than an hour to pay all my bills --
without any late charges -- and transfer my money to my savings
account in BNI," said Utari.

"But after having all of these experiences, I swear I will
never put my money in a private bank again. You never know ...
what will happen," she added. Apparently she based her reasoning
on the fact that the government allowed state banks to continue
operating even though they are not much better off than some of
the private banks which were closed.