jfchandler

OK, to all the ATM "experts" out there, think about some explanation for this result:

Yesterday (4:15 pm Thursday), I made literal back-to-back 1000 baht "test" withdrawals from the same UOB ATM within minutes of each other in Bangkok, with the following results:

U.S. MasterCard logo debit card. no 150 baht fee, $29.28 U.S. debit, exchange rate 34.15

only one debit amount to my bank account, being the $29.28

U.S. Visa logo debit card. no 150 baht fee. $29.51 U.S. debit, exchange rate 33.88

plus, a second debit to my U.S. account for $1.07 listed as "ATM transaction charge"

Now, I've used this same Visa debit card at BKK Bank, SCB, Kasikorn and GSB in the past right up to this week, and never had a $1.07 ATM charge show up for those transactions at other Thai banks. So I'm pretty clear it's not my home bank levying the charge. Rather, usually, this particular U.S. bank for ATM withdrawals using their Visa debit card here typically shows my withdrawal amount and then a separate 1% fee of the withdrawal amount (for example, 30 cents on a $30 withdrawal), which they refund to me at month's end as a perk of the account.

This was the first time I'd used any/that Visa logo debit card at a UOB ATM. In the prior week, I'd used the same U.S. MasterCard logo debit card a couple times at UOB ATMs and got no $1.07 ATM fee charged to my account, only the straight withdrawal amount.

So what the hel_l would be going on to create a situation where, in back to back identical UOB transactions, the Visa card withdrawal produces both a significantly lower exchange rate and adds an ATM fee, while the MasterCard withdrawal produces a higher exchange rate and no ATM fee????

Re BkkB, when I linked them online with Bank of America and E*Trade, I got the usual trial deposits to my BKK Bank account in both cases...

I've never tried to "pull" funds from my BKK Bank account into one of my U.s. accounts using online banking from the U.s. accounts. But, in theory, both accounts are set up in a manner that would allow that.

You had a second Bully's burger, after I left, to drown your pool playing sorrows????

Hope you left the bun behind!!!!

Of course, nobody knew what she used to do for a living, but it's nothing disgraceful if you knew how mature she really was as a person and how her head was screwed in the right places.

In future posts on this subject, you might consider making your choice of words a bit more carefully..... Lest people get the wrong idea about your GF.....

Bully's charges 90 baht for a very good sized basket of quite tasty french fries...

But they also charge 110 baht for bottles of San Miguel Light in the middle of the afternoon.

I'd go for the fries, but some kind of decent happy hour/drink specials there would be really nice...

That, and, they appear to not have a printed drinks menu... Every time I ask, they say...mai mee....

However, the waitress today quite admirably was able to recite from memory every beer they have on tap and started into a long list of their bottles, before I told her STOP.... I'll settle for a San Miguel....

Among the no 150 baht fee banks:

GSB only takes Visa, not MC

UOB takes Visa, MC and a variety of others

Ayudhya takes Visa and MC, but is doing dynamic currency conversion (which means lower exchange rates) when MCs are used with U.S. $ and Euro-based foreign cards/accounts. They give regular decent rates for Visa transactions, however. They also may not stay fee free for very long....

LM, thanks for doing the work and research on this. I was doing the same this morning, saving bookmarks for the different major Thai banks' exchange rate web pages.

What I can't figure from your post, however, is where the exchange rate you actually got came from. The actual 34.35 rate you got doesn't match any of the rates quoted on the BofA web page, nor could I get to it by adding or subtacting 1% (Visa cut?) from any of the posted rates...

I'd assume they would be using a "Buying Dollars" rate, not a "selling dollars" rate, because the bank is buying your dollars and giving you baht in return...

Do you have any idea how your rate got derived???

The Aussie bar mat fiasco probably has pretty much killed this golden egg...

Gloomy outlook for Phuket tourism

PHUKET CITY: -- The Phuket Tourism Association (PTA) has forecast that Phuket hotels will see average occupancy rates dip to as low as 25-30%, compared to 60% in the low season last year.

Only tourists from Australia, the Middle East and India are likely to be visit the island in strong numbers at this time of year, he said.

Dealing with verifying U.S. trial deposits amount put into a BKK Bank account is easy.

Use your access to BKK Banks Internet banking to look into your BKK Bank account and see when the trial deposits (which will be listed online in Thai baht) have arrived. Then just call their main customer service number, go for the English language option, give them your account information and verify your ID, then they will look into your BKKB account history and tell you the U.S. $ amounts that were transferred into your Thai account for those two small baht deposits. I've done it numerous times, and never had any problem getting the correct information from them via telephone.

"Would be curious to hear if others have had success with any of the ABA #s above, and if so, which from US institution your funds were transferred"

It would be interesting if you could post info on the specific linking problem with Fidelity. ( or error message )

I have a friend who set up a link from ING to BKK Bank/NYC without problems and is currently setting up another link from E-Trade to BKK Bank/NYC --

There can be a minor glitch in the linked account verification process, where two amounts of a few US cents each are deposited to the linked account and you must verify the actual amounts and the deposit date with the sending bank.

Since the verification deposits arrive two days later in your local Thai BKK Bank account, already exchanged into Baht, it is impossible to guess what the original US$ amount was and what date it hit the NYC account.

One way around this problem appears to be setting up an option that BKK Bank offers to send an SMS message to your mobile phone whenever a transaction hits your account.

It's a free service and will give you the amount in US$, the exchange rate, and the amount of Baht that ended up in your Thai account.

You first need to set up their Bualang Banking ( Internet banking - no charge, but you have to fill out paperwork at the Bank Branch - they send to Bangkok, and you get your log-on password info by mail).

TiT

I believe that's correct about UOB Thailand functioning as a Thai banking company....however they accomplished it.

Otherwise, they'd be hamstrung by the same Thai banking law that limits HSBC, Citi and all the others to just a single location inside Thailand.

That said, we can at least be hopeful that UOB won't go down the road of charging the 150 baht fee. They have a lot of branches in pretty high traffic, accessible locations, which make them relatively convenient.

Based on my experience today, I think folks can add UOB to their fee-free list, at least for the time being.... And they take both Visa and MC...at a decent exchange rate.

See the post of my experience today with a UOB ATM.

Any additional info, please chime in....

I mentioned above that GSB ATMs only take Visa logo cards, not MasterCard logo cards...

I had a photo showing their ATM network affiliations, but was delayed to upload it. So here it is now. The Visa symbol is obvious. But I don't recognize whose the other symbol is (the blue and red swashes of color), or is that some kind of Visa logo?

Here is a photo of the GSB currency counter and ATM located on the second floor of the Asoke BTS station, just before you go down the escalator toward the adjoining MRT station.

I believe I have good news for everyone, in terms of UOB ATMs continuing to be fee-free, and also accessible via both MasterCard and Visa logo cards.

Contrary to my report below, which was in fact accurate for that ATM, I went out hunting for another UOB ATM today, and found one within the Nana BTS station. By the way, UOB's Thailand web site is great, fully English capable and the ability to search for branches and ATMs, shows you location maps in English and Thai for the branches, hours of operation and more.

Today, I found a very new UOB ATM that had a full range of ATM network affiliations listed on the front. As you can see from the photo below, their ATMs say they pretty much accept all kinds of cards. And indeed, this time, the machine took my U.S. MasterCard logo debit card without any problem.

Then, I did a withdrawal of 2,000 baht. The ATM receipt had a line for a fee, but no fee was charged. The single and only withdrawal from my U.S. account was $58.36, for an exchange rate of 34.27 baht to the $, which I believe is pretty good for today. En route, I saw the local SCB exchange booth was offering something like 34.07.

So, at least for the time being, UOB does indeed seem a good bet: many branches and ATMs, good web site info, accepts VISA and MC and others (whereas GSB only takes VISA cards), and no sign of usurious exchange rates that someone here had mentioned. Just hope it lasts, unlike Kasikorn.

CMMCB, Thanks for that info re your experience using UOB ATMS....

Maybe I got a bad/down ATM that day (Sunday) on Silom Road. Or maybe there is some difference in using a U.S. based card, though my MasterCard logo debit card also is a Cirrus logo card, same as yours.

I'll find out today...going out, and will try a different UOB location in BKK and will report back here...and also what if any stickers I see on their ATMs re network affiliation.

PS - Some other posters have said UOB is giving a bad exchange rate... What was your experience with the rate, CMMCB???

Bully's burger is pretty good... If it is marinated (with some kind of seasonings), it's not overdone to spoil the hamburger taste.

Lately, I like the ground steakburgers at Chok Chai Steakhouse on Suk Soi 23/Soi Prassamit. Good flavor... good beef, cooked to order, about 160 baht including cheese, grilled onion and good bacon. A bit stingy on the french fries. A very good deal and burger at about half the price of many of the other premium HAMburger places.

Also, as I reviewed here lately, the hamburgers at the Outback Steakhouse at Siam Discovery are a very pleasant surprise. Good food and service, and the burger patty there is one of the biggest, and best tasting, hamburgers I've eaten here.

Either place makes a good/great hamburger meal for BKK.

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[quote name='ohdearohdearohdear' date='2009-05-20 17:34:22' post='2749005'

Probebly they were thinking that the beer mat belonged to the owner of the bar and that it was being stolen !!

Yes...the woman clearly had the mat in her purse. But who put it there (who stole it) is the unanswered/unclear question. You seem content to ignore that issue.

I assume next time you have a hang nail, you'll remedy it by cutting off your hand....or better yet...your entire arm.

Two young Thai girls were hanged to death by house robbers the other day. Guys who shoot people to death are running around the country free. Influential people do their best to rob the country blind.

And amid all this, the Phuket police and an Australian owned bar decided to turn the tiniest molehill into a ridiculous, embarrassing mountain--all over a bar cloth. Even if the woman knowingly took the mat (and there seems to be very little evidence so far that she had any knowledge of this), the case doesn't deserve the treatment she received.

As others have pointed out, if the Thai police did the same for everyone who broke some law to that extent (and again, there's not much evidence produced so far that she did), I think virtually the whole country would be in the lockup.

How the Australian bar could let the situation get so far out of hand is hard to understand. This is definitely the kind of attention and reputation a business owner doesn't need at any time, and especially now. Whoever was in charge that night at the bar, you really gotta wonder, what were they thinking???

Your opinion of the article and your grasp of the facts are right on. However, you can be too hard on the so called journalists in Thailand. They are tightly controlled by the government and usually don't have the requisite schooling or training necessary write a news story. The best you can ever do here is three or four of the five things we want to read in most new articles: Who, what, when, where and why. We cannot set our expectations too high or we are almost guaranteed to be disappointed. You may find, like me, that news sources are serving there masters and not the public. Most news here is manipulated in some way and may be total fabricated in some cases.

Grant, I don't expect it (better/good journalism) here...knowing the realities of the country. But, if we and Thais don't aspire for better, we and the country will never get it.

I'm not an Aussie, so I'll leave it to them to sort out... But...regarding the lead of the article, I'd argue that the case IS a laughing matter. The rest of the world is laughing at Thailand for handling this case in such a ridiculous manner. Even if she really did it, it doesn't deserve 4 days in jail and two weeks or more stuck in Thailand sans passport... all for a bar mat...

To the various posters who are posing the view...do the crime...do the time, etc etc...

I've seen scant little evidence of any kind presented publicly to suggest that the women involved played any active, knowing role in the "theft". Maybe she did, but I haven't heard or seen any evidence in the media reports or accounts from police to back that up...

Perhaps she didn't handle her dealings with the Thai police in the smartest manner...or maybe she did. But underneath it all, where's any proof that SHE actually committed any theft??? To the contrary, most of the accounts presented thus far suggest she was an unwitting dupe.... not a thief.

Speaking as a longtime professional journalist, the original article above from the Phuket Gazette is a pure piece of C**P.....

I have no idea what the lady really did or didn't do. But.....

--the article totally fails to have the police even minutely address the key issue in the case: that friends of the woman claimed then and are reinforcing now that she knew nothing about it and it was a joke they played on her. True or not, the police commander doesn't even touch that subject in the article.

--the article quotes the police commander as saying his men did what they did originally because the owner of the bar insisted on pursuing the case. Then later, the article directly quotes the owner of the bar as saying he doesn't want to pursue the case. So which is true? The owner originally wanted to prosecute and then changed his mind later? Or the police commander is misrepresenting the original position of the owner. The article doesn't give you a clue.

--the first paragraphs of the article says the police detained the woman for stealing the bar rag... Gee, I don't believe she's admitted guilt or been found guilty in any court. So how about, for ALLEGEDLY stealing at least.... unless innocent until proven guilty got lost somewhere along the way.

Any way you cut it, all of this over a bar mat is a ridiculous overreaction -- unless the woman involved really did something to hack off the local BIB.... There were some hints of that originally, but the latest accounts seem to suggest that wasn't the case.

My verdict is... Phuket Gazette.... crappy journalism, if you can even call it that.

CMMCB, Thanks for that info re your experience using UOB ATMS....

Maybe I got a bad/down ATM that day (Sunday) on Silom Road. Or maybe there is some difference in using a U.S. based card, though my MasterCard logo debit card also is a Cirrus logo card, same as yours.

I'll find out today...going out, and will try a different UOB location in BKK and will report back here...and also what if any stickers I see on their ATMs re network affiliation.

PS - Some other posters have said UOB is giving a bad exchange rate... What was your experience with the rate, CMMCB???

SurfTrader, since I now qualify for a fee waiver with ETrade thru other accounts I have with them, I also applied for their Visa card and Max Rate checking account today...

However, it's not clear to me, and I don't recall hearing here, whether anyone has tested whether E*Trade will actually reimburse the 150 baht ATM fees here in LOS if incurred while using their debit card???

That seems to be the situation, regarding MasterCard logo cards, at present in Thailand.

GSB definitely doesn't accept MCs in their ATMs, neither does UOB ... And Ayudhya definitely is doing Dynamic Currency Conversion (meaning a bad exchange rate) on MC cards denominated in U.S. $ or Euros.

I had been using a U.S.checking account with a MC logo debit card for most of my finances here. But now, even though that account is a very good one in terms of service and features, I'm having to set it aside in favor of a Visa logo card/account.

But it's also hard to know what the future will be with GSB and Ayudhya.... Other posters here reported being told by Ayudhya bank staff that they also will begin charging the 150 baht fee soon... So who knows...

The main feature I'm looking for in new Visa based accounts is that they reimburse ATM fees worldwide...hoping that that will cover me even if the 150 baht fee comes to Ayudhya and GSB at some point....

I am told UOB does not charge and has a good exchange rate. Can anyone confirm this?

There haven't been a lot of user reports here about people dealing with UOB...and what has been said has been mixed and sometimes vague....

One thing I can say for certain. I tried to use a UOB ATM on Sunday with my U.S. MasterCard logo debit card, and the machine wouldn't take it... That, and I noticed, at least at the Silom Road ATM, there were no stickers on the ATM saying what network cards it would accept... (Plus, Star, Cirrus, etc). So MasterCard logo cards are a definite no-no for UOB...

I didn't try my U.S. Visa logo card with them, that day...

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately my ATM card has the Mastercard logo, so it looks like I'm not going to get cheap ATM withdrawals in Thailand. I'll look up that Bangkok Bank customer service number.

One of the very good accounts I have been principally using here in Thailand also has been a MC-logo debit card. But now, the way things are going, that card and account are headed for the shelves. Fortunately, since we saw these ATM changes coming some time back, I've added some fee-free U.S. Visa cards/accounts to my portfolio.

They have the advantage of working better with GSB and BofAyud as long as those two remain fee free. And even if either begins charging a fee, the new Visa debit cards I've added reimburse for others ATM charges. So I should be OK regardless... Gotta change with the changing times.

Others here on TV have reported a myriad of problems with using Paypay for international funds transfer...

You should do a search on the subject. There were enough bad things said that I never pursued it further.