banking woes
I recently ordered online for some goodies to be sent to friends in Manila for Christmas. I didn’t have any problems with placing my orders, both of the shops that I dealt with were really good with their customer service, answering my emails quickly and updating me with the progress if needed. What I was terribly disappointed and frustrated about was that when I transferred the payments online to their bank accounts, I got charged P150 each for the two transactions that I did. This was not the charge imposed by my bank (which charged me P10 each for the online transfer) but a charge by BPI the receiving bank. I don’t mind any additional charge for the transfer if it was only minimal but a P150 for receiving an online transfer? I find it a big amount to charge. Considering that this was a local bank to bank transfer and not an international remittance. I don’t know what the difference is with how the banks in Manila do local bank to bank transfers to how banks in say Singapore and Australia do it. In both Singapore and Australia, where I have experienced doing domestic bank to bank transfer we don’t get charged for both outgoing or incoming transfer. Or in the case of Australia you get charged depending on your account type and only if you exceed the allowed number of electronic transactions. Hay, I really can’t understand it. I think it should be a basic service that should be part of online banking, I would think that it costs less for the bank to have their account holders do their transactions online than have them all go to the branches to do their banking where the bank would have to put more people to man the counters. Oh and when my suppliers asked their bank about the transaction BPI told them that the missing amount were charges made by my bank. They don’t tell their account holders that they charge for the incoming transfer. Grrr! In the end, I had to ask a favor from my brother to go to the bank and deposit the balance when it should have been covered to begin with. Good thing both of the suppliers still went ahead with the deliveries while waiting for me to settle the balance.
Tags: bank charges, philippine banks
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By ej
, December 18, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
Hay naku it’s things like this that really, really irritate me with regards to living in the Phils! I can’t help but feel taken advantaged of most of the time. When I went to pay my real estate tax the other day, I was surprised with an “official statement” for P400 from the condo admin. For what? Special Assessment for Christmas Gifts for the Condo Personnel for 2008! Moreover, the tax charged was twice as much because we also had to pay for the “Special Education Fund” of the City Government. Grrr…
By mich
, December 19, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
@ej: hahaha!! kailangan pa talaga na special assessment for christmas gifts! what’s the special education fund for? well, at least it was itemised.