jfchandler

Speaking of foreign currency fees, there's good news in the long-running litigation against the mega American banks over their past foreign currency fee practices re American credit card holders...

See the update here...

Some of us may have some money coming...one day in the future.

BofA's usual practice, when listing foreign ATM withdrawals in BofA online banking, has been to show three separate line item charges for each ATM withdrawal:

1. --the actual amount you withdrew.

2. --BofA's $5 fee.

3. --BofA's 1% foreign currency fee.

Of course, anyone using a BofA card to withdraw funds abroad would need to add together all three of those debits in calculating what their real net exchange rate was.

To anyone reading this for the first time, this thread is about a long-running legal case in which most of the major U.S. credit card companies were sued over their past foreign currency fee practices, and a settlement was reached several years ago that calls for those banks to pay refunds to those individuals, mostly Americans I believe, who submitted their claims before the deadline in the case, based on their past foreign expenditures.

Well, it seems the last ThaiVisa post on this subject was almost two years ago by yours truly... And I happened to check back to the case settlement web site today, and find to my amazement that all the appeals have been resolved in this case, meaning the settlement terms and financial payments to claimants such as TV members should proceed... sometime... specific time still unknown...

The latest is here on the settlement page web site:

http://www.ccfsettlement.com/home/

So at least we know the money is coming... nothing should change that now... The web page says the case drew more than 10 MILLION claims filed....and a total settlement fund, including lawyer's fees and expenses, of $336 million.

A summary of the case on the web site includes the following:

The representative Plaintiffs in the MDL Action challenge how the prices of credit and debit/ATM card foreign transactions were set and disclosed, including a claim that Visa, MasterCard, their member banks, and Diners Club conspired to set and conceal markups and fees, typically of 1-3%, on foreign transactions. The Plaintiffs also claim that the amount of these markups and fees and the alleged failure to adequately disclose them violated federal and state antitrust, disclosure, unfair competition, deceptive practices, and consumer protection laws, as well as common law and principles of equity.

Who are the Defendants?

The Defendants are: Visa, MasterCard, Bank of America, Bank One/First USA, Chase, Citibank, Diners Club, HSBC/Household, MBNA and Washington Mutual/Providian, as well as certain affiliated and predecessor companies.

What is the settlement?(top)

Defendants have created a settlement fund of $336,000,000 to pay valid claims, attorneys' fees and expenses, any service awards to class representatives ordered by the Court, and the costs of administering the settlement and notice. This settlement also includes certain agreements relating to disclosures on billing statements and other documents about foreign transaction pricing (including foreign transaction fees).

What are the amounts of foreign transaction fees estimated to be covered by the settlement?

Plaintiffs estimate that the maximum total amount of foreign transaction fee revenues covered by the settlement is approximately $3.8 billion after reductions for fraud and for defaults on credit card obligations. This $3.8 billion amount includes relevant fees paid on both credit and debit card transactions by members of the Settlement Damages Class from February 1, 1996 through November 8, 2006. The $336 million gross settlement fund represents approximately 9% of the maximum total amount of foreign transaction fees so estimated.

That's good, sound financial advice offered above...

To open the Schwab checking account that reimburses foreign ATM fees, Schwab will automatically also open a Schwab One brokerage account for you.... You don't have to use it, and it has no activity fees or monthly charges... But it would be a fine vehicle for the long term investment approach mentioned above.

Skip all the ATM's and open a bank account in your name, set up a transfer.

Actually, if someone uses a no-fee ATM card and a no-fee Thai ATM, they're getting a better exchange rate on their funds than any bank transfer, including the online BKK Bank transfers via their New York branch.

So the smartest way to handle one's money is either to use a no fee ATM like AEON or use a home country account that reimburses foreign ATM fees, like the Schwab account mentioned above. And make sure your home country bank isn't charging their own foreign currency fee.

Dave, in the example you gave, the problem is with BofA....not with Citibank in Thailand.

BofA is one of the worst banks for ATM use abroad, unless you're in one of a handful of countries where they have reciprocal local banking affiliations, which they don't in Thailand.

Thus anytime you use a BofA debit card to make an ATM withdrawal in Thailand, BofA is going to charge you a flat $5 per transaction fee for using a non BofA ATM abroad and then a 1% foreign currency fee as well on the ATM amount withdrawn....

For debit card point of sale purchases abroad, they charge a flat 3% fee, similar to most of the other mega U.S. banks.

From BofA's web site:

Withdrawals, deposits, transfers, payments and balance inquiries made at ATMs in foreign countries outside of the Global ATM Alliance, China Construction Bank or Banco Santander will be charged a $5.00 fee.

In addition, an international transaction fee will be charged for ATM card and debit card transactions made for foreign purchases or ATM cash withdrawals in currency other than U.S. dollars, The international transaction fee will be 1% of the U.S. dollar amount for each converted ATM cash withdrawal.

For each debit card transaction made in a foreign currency, the international transaction fee will be 3% of the U.S. dollar amount. These international transaction fees will appear as a separate item on your banking statement for each international transaction.

The folks in the photo don't look like they have $400 million at their disposal...

$40 million might even be a stretch...

Now $40,000, that I could believe.... How far does that get one in Samui?

Ahh...I missed the two gold colored ones, kind of, hiding behind the small pile of dirt... I was only looking at the blue colored ones in the foreground...

I suppose it's silly to ask questions such as:

--Who owns and/controls the land on which the project is proposed?

--From where is the financing going to come to pay for any of this stuff?

--Do the local government/land officials know anything about any of this and/or have somehow given it their blessing?

--And just out of curiosity, does the location of this proposal happen to overlap at all with the former "The Peak" project for which the land supposedly has been for sale.... and/or the supposedly restricted forest land and/or illegally issued titles land that led to the unraveling of the other past projects there?

So the correct link for their web site is:

http://www.clubkohsamui.com/

And the site talks about:

...the Club Koh Samui Group is investing USD 400 million (THB 12 billion) into the island to develop the largest resort project ever built in Thailand.

The Club Koh Samui Resort

• A 250 key 5-Star Resort and Conference & Entertainment Center
• A comprehensive, world-class Stadium and Sports Academy including football and tennis academies
• The V Rezidences Collections - apartments and villas
• The Club Koh Samui Cable-Car – a modern high-speed gondola that rises from Chaweng Noi to the CKS Project and continues to the summit of Samui’s second highest mountain.
• The Club Koh Samui EXPO
• A Theme Park, Water Park and Manmade lake
• Ski Samui – one of the largest indoor ski slopes in the world.
• A 5-Star Suites Complex
• A 4-Star Hotel

• The Club Koh Samui Group is also looking into other high profile destination attractions such as a Luxury Marina and 18-hole Champion Golf Course

The groundbreaking photo looks like a bunch of locals getting ready for a Song Kran BBQ.... not the start of a $400 Million U.S. project.... But maybe I'm missing something....

This is all a big joke, right???

PS, thanks for the interesting and entertaining reading...

Not being a local there, I wasn't aware of all the past fun and games that have occurred... I must lead a very sheltered life...

Unfortunately, the various Thai Visa threads on these projects seem to go on and on for pages...and then suddenly die out with no current or final word on what's become of them.

Kind of leaves you hanging on the edge of your seat, wanting to know how the final chapter turns out...

http://www.cocoinvestor.org/home/

That link above is now dead...

Can anyone recap what's become of this project?

Re some of the posts above, the named company Gledhill, from what I read online, was the name of the Thai partnership behind the original The Peak project, that later was renamed to Himmapan.... But pretty much nothing ever came of either..

The original main party behind the development is a prominent Bangkok businessman who was described in news articles I read as a "property tycoon" and has current affiliation to this day with a prominent, well-known Thai hospital chain.

Quite a piece of work, that one....

Wonder if they'll leave his body to serve out his various prison terms.... after they've executed him.... assuming they actually do....

Skywalk between BTS Stations? So you walk for 2-3 blocks then have to pay to go through the station, platform pass is still 15bht I think. What's the point of that?

Oz

That was one of the apparent flaws in the original concept. The current BTS stations have no existing ability for walk-throughs... The only way to walk through is to pay a 15 baht fare to go in one gate and out on the other side...

And I never heard anything about how, if at all, BTS figured to address that.... It would kind of defeat their whole ticketing setup, given the way the stations are now configured, if people could just walk in and out through the gates.

Unless somehow someone had some kind of SkyWalk design idea that would bypass the existing Skytrain station gates but still allow pedestrian through access... I'm not sure how they could design that, though. Like going up and down the stairs/escalators every time you pass a station???

I don't understand the OP article here...

What does all this mean about what they're going to do with the so-called first phase.... Is it going to proceed?

And are the three segments they mention in the OP segments that are being canceled as part of the second phase, or they're going to proceed as part of the first phase...

I need another cup of coffee for the morning... Yikes!!!

It was a smart scam, right now its under investigation by the Scotland Yard and Thai DSI...

Considering this appears to be your first post here on TV, do you have some source for the information you've provided above... I hadn't heard or seen any indication that anything official was still ongoing in this case.

Likewise, from my cursory Internet search, I didn't find much/any information regarding whether the original prospective home owner/investors in the project ever got any of their funds/deposits returned....

Gotta agree with most of what you say above.... Welcome to your friendly local SRT in action...

In their defense, I suppose, IF they're going to continue to operate the Airport Express line, then they've got to deploy enough trains on some kind of barely reasonable schedule to accommodate it...

I don't think SRT has any great surplus of available ARL rail cars... nor the funds to operate them even if they did... (And of course those rail cars aren't the same design/style as any of the other trains the SRT runs, giving them no interoperability). So in the meantime, the City Line gets overrun and overcrowded, and the Express line cars run largely empty...

They could chuck the entire Express Line part of the operation and redeploy to the City Line, which probably makes good sense in a better world... But that would kind of be like admitting their whole original plan and concept for the line was a failure.... which I suspect they'd be loathe to do...

I've taken the ARL to Swampy quite a few times... And even though I live relatively close to Makkasan, every such trip I've taken the Skytrain to Phyathai and then the City Line to the airport... I didn't want to pay the previously higher fare for the Express Line coupled with having to pay a taxi fare to get from home to Makkasan... Or buy an MRT ticket and then have to walk from Petchburi MRT to Makkasan and lug whatever luggage I'm carrying.

Also, the price of a Skytrain trip to Phyathai combined with the City Line ticket to the airport is less than what the regular Express Line fare was... and maybe even less than what the current discounted Express Line fare is.

The 15 minutes or so I'd save on ARL travel time using the Express Line (15 mins to the Airport vs. about 30 minutes on the City Line) would be more than offset by the travel and traffic time that would be eaten up by trying to get between home and Makkasan with its horrible ingress and egress situation.

I think I read in one of the recent articles one of the Thai officials claiming that airport workers at Swampy are among the largest customers/users of the ARL... Something tells me... they're surely not taking the Express Line to and from work.

I have a US credit union account. I can go into SCB and transfer up to $3000 from CU into my account with no fee other than the 1% my CU charges when an ATM or debit card is used. The $3000 limit is set by my CU and not the banks here. It took me a long time before I tried it, but now do it regularly.

You might want to pay close attention to the exchange rate you're getting on those SCB transactions....

In the past posts on counter withdrawals here regarding SCB, it was reported that they, unlike most of the other Thai banks, were using a so-called DCC rate (Dynamic Currency Conversion) on their counter withdrawals -- which is a fancy name for a special, bad exchange rate that's below both buying TT and the card networks ATM rates...

One place, among many, where you can find the daily exchange rates that approximate the card networks ATM exchange rates for Thai baht is at X-Rates.com. That's general guide to the kind of rates a no-fee ATM withdrawal should provide.

Needless to say, you also could avoid your home CU's 1% foreign currency fee by using one of several other banks or credit unions that charge no foreign currency fee... Charles Schwab, State Farm Bank, Capital One and others among them. Schwab and State Farm also reimburse Thai bank ATM fees if they are charged to your account.

As for your home CU, they're taking about 1000 baht (roughly $30) out of your 100,000 baht ($3000) withdrawal. Hmmmm......

BTW, one of the reasons people here speculated on why SCB seemed to have a much higher bank limit on the amounts of their counter withdrawals is that they were more than happy to dole out whatever funds the farang before them wanted at a DCC rate much lower (and better for the bank) than they'd get via ATM or elsewhere. A nice tidy profit for them.

I see from this website http://www.samuiprop...s.com/index.php that the name has changed to Himmapan Beach Gardens and more information can be found at:

http://www.top-inves...e_79_120273.php

I liked the comment:

"Himmapan is the mystical forest of Thai mythology, populated by an array of mythical creatures and located close to paradise. Himmapan Beach Gardens have been created to take you into a World of pleasure on the Paradise island of Koh Samui."

mystical forest - is that some reference to the alleged illegal deforestation

Still seems to be rolling along.

I should add... re this subsequent version of the proposed project, as best as I can tell from searching elsewhere on the Internet, it likewise never came to fruition.... There was talk a couple years back about it being abandoned due to running out of funds and/or being unable to get financing...

It's funny.... when I visited Samui in the past, I remember going up a hill on a very well paved road with sidewalks and gutters and everything.... But as best as I could see... nothing else was around and the road didn't appear to lead to anything it particular.

It has me thinking I may have been on the road mentioned earlier in this thread that was developed as a prelude to the project that never came to be...

The original developer, meanwhile, appears to be continuing on a a prominent individual in Bangkok circles....

you can avoid the 150 baht fee by using any bank exchange booth with your passport and usa debit card

u just tell them to swipe your debit card like a cash advance

they will only do 20k baht per transaction

Yep, that's commonly called a "counter withdrawal." And the Thai banks have not been charging the 150 baht ATM fee on those...

The problem is, as has been reported here by various TV members, in some cases when they've tried to do those at their local bank branch, the bank staff have refused and told them to use the bank's ATMs instead... I'm not saying that happens all the time...just that it's been a sometimes problem reported by members here.

The other downside to counter withdrawals is the risk, however minimal, of carrying around one's passport and the potential for losing it... Again, normally a small risk.... but a hassle should that befall someone.

Also, the practical limit on a counter withdrawal may not come from the Thai bank, but from the daily limit on a person's ATM card by their home country bank, which in the U.S. often is set by default at $500 in each 24 hour period.

Likewise, in past discussions here about counter withdrawals, the limits that people reported hearing from Thai bank staff on what they could do did vary quite a bit bank to bank.

See this chart http://bankexchanger...t/default.aspx. When you use this chart choose the TT rate.

The link above you posted is broken...

But if it were to show the banks' buying TT rates, that's what they pay at the exchange counters and such... It's not the rate Thai bank ATMs charge for foreign card ATM withdrawals.

On a more or less regular basis I still receive some emails from the 'mother'-company* who's also involved in the Peak Project on Samui.

They promote, amongts others, property in Macau and Dubai.

* called propertyfrontiers.com

Interesting... the Property Frontiers organization still seems to exist at least in name and still has the web site listed above with a UK phone contact number... But its web site at present seems to mention no projects or developments in Thailand at all....instead dealing with such garden spots as Brazil, Nicaragua and Turkey....

http://www.propertyfrontiers.com/

Meet their team....

http://www.propertyfrontiers.com/who-we-are/meet-the-team.aspx

Happened across this recap in a recent article on the Thailand Law Review web site regarding fraud in Thailand...

One of the most infamous cases of fraud in Thailand occurred on Koh Samui in 2006. It involved not only land fraud, but allegations of gang activity, drug smuggling, extortion and money laundering. This hornet's nest was shaken by ads placed by a foreign run sales agency, in local trade magazines and on the web selling land in The Peak development. They were offering 514 rai of land on Khao Dang Mountain at 8 million baht per rai.

The subsequent outcry by locals who suspected that the land may have been obtained illegally, combined with the fact that hundreds of real estate companies, including some owned by reputed gang members, had been established in Samui since the middle of 2005, led to an investigation by the Department of Special Investigations (DSI) into the legality of title deeds for land owned by all land holding property companies on the island. The shareholding structure of these companies was also investigated, as companies must have a majority of their shares owned by Thais or Thai juristic persons to purchase land in Thailand.

These investigations opened a Pandora's Box of fraud throughout the island. Thousands of plots were found to have illegally issued title deeds and a number of officials were investigated for accepting bribes and falsifying land documents. It was also discovered that while Koh Samui is comprised of only 150,000 rai, there were deeds issued for 200,000 rai. Encroachment on protected forest

reserves was found to be a related problem, as thousands of rai of

protected forest had been illegally issued titles and cleared for

development. One of these plots housed a small resort owned by a

Swiss businessman. Although he claimed to have gained legal title to

the land in 2003, he was arrested and fined 30,000 baht. It was ruled

that the titles were illegally issued and his land was reclaimed as

part of a national park.

As for The Peak project, it was found that part of the development encroached on public lands and as a result, foreign clients were loath to lease plots. The project was later abandoned.

http://thailawforum.com/Defrauded-in-Thailand-2.html

I was doing some reading on a different subject and just happened to stumble across this interesting article on the Thailand Law Forum web site talking about a particular famous forest encroachment case as part of a longer article about fraud in Thailand:

One of the most infamous cases of fraud in Thailand occurred on Koh Samui in 2006. It involved not only land fraud, but allegations of gang activity, drug smuggling, extortion and money laundering. This hornet's nest was shaken by ads placed by a foreign run sales agency, in local trade magazines and on the web selling land in The Peak development. They were offering 514 rai of land on Khao Dang Mountain at 8 million baht per rai.

The subsequent outcry by locals who suspected that the land may have been obtained illegally, combined with the fact that hundreds of real estate companies, including some owned by reputed gang members, had been established in Samui since the middle of 2005, led to an investigation by the Department of Special Investigations (DSI) into the legality of title deeds for land owned by all land holding property companies on the island. The shareholding structure of these companies was also investigated, as companies must have a majority of their shares owned by Thais or Thai juristic persons to purchase land in Thailand.

These investigations opened a Pandora's Box of fraud throughout the island. Thousands of plots were found to have illegally issued title deeds and a number of officials were investigated for accepting bribes and falsifying land documents. It was also discovered that while Koh Samui is comprised of only 150,000 rai, there were deeds issued for 200,000 rai. Encroachment on protected forest reserves was found to be a related problem, as thousands of rai of protected forest had been illegally issued titles and cleared for development. One of these plots housed a small resort owned by a Swiss businessman. Although he claimed to have gained legal title to the land in 2003, he was arrested and fined 30,000 baht. It was ruled that the titles were illegally issued and his land was reclaimed as part of a national park.

As for The Peak project, it was found that part of the development encroached on public lands and as a result, foreign clients were loath to lease plots. The project was later abandoned.

http://thailawforum....Thailand-2.html

Gotta love this place....

If the above account is correct, nice to see they arrested the farang... Haven't heard the authorities have arrested any of the Thai folks involved in the current ruckus.... Wonder why?

And here's some ancient history on the Koh Samui deal courtesy of ThaiVisa:

Interesting... I checked my memory... According to this article, the first change lowering the deposit protection amount occurred yesterday and in one year the amount is set to drop to 1 million baht...which ain't much...

The concern is going forward from 11 August 2012, just a little over a year away, when only 1 million baht will be covered by government protection. The implications of this change are significant, especially when one looks at how the coverage will apply. Multiple branches of the same bank will count as one deposit and will be lumped together. Though married couples will receive protection on a per person and per account basis of up to 1 million, separately, in the event of their owning a joint account, protection will not be separated out for that account. In most cases, the money will be split and counted against the individual account of each spouse. This means that management of funds across varied institutions may become a need for many depositors.

A further issue is the whole idea of who has claim in the event of a bankruptcy proceeding. In Thailand , the Bankruptcy Act B.E. (A.D. 1940) provisions would apply here. Sections 94 and 95 of the Bankruptcy Act provide that a secured creditor, meaning one who has a legal claim to an asset of the bank as part of the debt for security purposes, would receive prior consideration. Depositors, who are considered as unsecured creditors of a bank, would receive a lower priority and may not be re-imbursed depending on the gravity of the bank failure. Again, as noted above, this process would be time consuming, and it may be years before a depositor saw his or her funds, if ever.

http://www.thailawforum.com/thai-deposit-insurance-law.html