Illegal fee

Illegal fee

As a regular visitor to Indonesia and other countries, I
sometimes use my credit card to obtain some cash money. I have
done it in different places around the world and have never
encountered any problems with it. Also I have used it several
times in different banks in different cities in Java without any
problems except that most of the smaller branches do not provide
this service.

Much different if you want to get the same service in a bank
in Bali or Lombok. There the employees charge an "administration
fee" of between Rp 20,000 and Rp 100,000. This is illegal and the
employees must know it, because they always refuse to give a
receipt for that fee. If one insists on being given a receipt,
they can get quite rude.

Recently I was in need of some money and I tried two banks in
Mataram, Lombok. At the BCA they wanted to charge me Rp 20,000,
without a receipt; on my insistence they told me to go to
Surabaya to get my money.

After that I tried Bank Danamon. There the fee was Rp 50,000
and after some discussions, I got a receipt for it, but the
clerks were afraid to print their names on the receipt, but
finally I got the names from the two signing managers.

By the way, many other people are struggling the same way
every time they want to get cash and this is one of the many
reasons why the number of tourists on these wonderful islands has
dropped dramatically in the last three years If tourists feel
cheated every day, they will not come back to the same
destination again.

I would appreciate getting a comment on this matter by
executives of these two banks.

M. SCHWYN

Beringen, Switzerland