Disgusted by BNI

Disgusted by BNI

We are a foreign-owned company (PMA) with an account at Bank
Negara Indonesia (BNI).

I have been totally disgusted by the actions of a senior
manager (second-in-charge) at the BNI Mataram branch.

He reported to us that for international incoming transfers,
we were now going to be charged provisi, or a provision, of one
rupiah for every Rp 1,000 sent, instead of the standard Rp
100,000 that we were previously charged -- no matter what the
amount.

As we are a good client of the bank and trust the management,
we fully accepted the "new fees" as official and went on with our
business.

Having recently checked our official bank statements and
Credit Notes, I noticed that nowhere in them did these new fees
appear. There are no official records of these fees anywhere. In
fact, what appears is the "reimbursement" of the official provisi
of Rp 100,000. Therefore, the fees that we were supposed to have
been charged have been taken out of our regular bank costs.

But I'm still confused. Where do the Rp 1/Rp 1000 transfer
fees show up? Are they being very nice to us now and not charging
us anything for incoming international transfers?

Having looked deeper into this problem, I was told by one of
our staff that occasionally when he goes to the bank to cash one
of our checks, the second-in-charge at the BNI Mataram branch
personally calls him aside and takes a portion of the cashed
check and says, "this is for the latest transfer that came in".

Therefore, there are no official bank transaction fees
recorded, as the "fees" are literally being taken in bank notes
right out of our hands and not being recorded in the account.

After having enquired the BNI main office in Jakarta regarding
the above, I was told that there are no such fees, that the
amount seemed excessive and that they would enquire into the
matter.

However, the person on the phone didn't seem too interested in
our story and although it has already been several weeks, I still
haven't been contacted by BNI. Not surprised.

Incidentally, since I telephoned the manager and asked him
about the fees, which he assured me were official, our staff have
not been asked for the cash anymore and now, as before, whenever
there is an incoming transfer into our account our bank
statements show a minus Rp 100,000 for "transfer fees".

FRANCESCO BRUNO, Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara