Losing dollars

Ever heard of losing dollars in a bank? Well it is possible. On May 18, I was in a rush. My embassy advised me to leave Indonesia because of possible unrest.

So I went to my, I thought reliable, bank BCA, here in Yogyakarta. I wanted to withdraw I had there, because I was going to Manila. Because of the rush and hurry, I later took a good look at the slip I got from BCA. I had only US$1,050.

I was sure I had more. I was right. The BCA dollar account is one big sham! You give dollars to the bank, but when you want them back, BCA first looks at the "exchange rate" of the day and then calculates from rupiah to dollars.

Altogether, BCA stole (I cannot name it anything else) $700 of mine. I'm sure I'm not the only one, but if this is the policy of a big bank like BCA, where is this country going to?

I was never informed about this when I opened my BCA dollar account in September 1997. Usually your money grows in a bank. Not so in BCA.

So now I only get my money in rupiah from ATMs. Not from BCA though, because even though the Cirrus sign is displayed on the bank's ATMs, my card from Postbank, The Netherlands, which bears a Cirrus sign, is not accepted by BCA.

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