Today’s banking adventure

[poppysdad]

Thought you might like to hear of todays bank visit, you cannot really make this up. I have deleted the branch names as do not want to cause embarrassment to anyone as despite everything the girls behind the counter have been extremely helpful.

 

One of the reasons for visiting xxx last week was to cancel my credit card and get my 50,000 baht back, firstly and quite ridiculously you can only do it in the branch you obtained it in in the first place. So into my bank in xxx to find although I had brought my credit card with me I completed forgot to bring the bank book related to it with me. Should that be a problem, well in Thailand of course it is. However to the tellers credit she did her utmost to sort out this ridiculous situation and finally after signing untold amount of forms she said that the money would be transferred to the branch here in xxx  within the next 4 weeks. 

 

So yesterday Jit my wife got a telephone call telling us to go into the bank here to get my money, so off this morning we went. Firstly no one in the bank here has a clue about it so Jit phones the teller in xxx and then hands her phone to the teller in the bank here and the 2 tellers chat away to each other. Finally get back to us and it seems the teller in xxx missed one form that I was supposed to sign so now the whole process starts over again. Firstly xxx  has to transfer the money to here, then I have to open a new credit card account here and then they transfer that money to my new credit card account and close the xxx one down. Then I have to cancel the new credit card account that I’ve just opened to get my cash back and then transfer the cash to my everyday bank account. I hope you’re still following all this!

 

Then I sign a few more forms and get charged 253 baht for something or other and then she gives me back my passport and everyday bank book but not the credit card bank book. The teller thinks she has given it to me but we convince she didn’t so off she goes hunting for the book. Finally she finds it, somehow or other amongst all this paperwork she was doing the book slipped of the desk and found itself stuck behind the decorative wall covering of the bank, she cannot retrieve it so they have to get the odd job man to get it which means moving a desk away from the wall along with some machine and then poking around with sticks etc to hope it falls to the ground which eventually they succeed in doing and to everyone’s relief and a great many waiting customers totally mystified by what on earth is going on with this farang. We finally get a great many wai’s from the teller who even rushes to the door to open it for us and now have to wait on the telephone call to tell us that the money has been transferred between the banks and then return to the bank for more paperwork. 

 

Ironically I can on my phone here in Thailand with my uk bank accounts app and transfer money between accounts in seconds, send money to Wise to transfer it to Thailand in around 2 minutes and even the phone time is free because it’s all done with Wi-Fi. You really cannot make any of this up can you. 

[Crossy]

555 Love it ^^^

 

I've found the Thai banking system superb for 99.99% of the time, transfers (even international) are very rapid and I've had no major issues.

 

And then the 0.01% happens and the world explodes!!

 

[Gottfrid]

Oh my God! What an adventure! Geee, feels like I can´t wait for your next one. 

[Lacessit]

Do we have some kind of competition going on in ASEAN for the lengthiest post? Rooster, Gamma Globulin and poppysdad appear to be front-runners.

 

OP, you are reminding me of the guy who said " I'm so unlucky, if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying."

[timendres]

In my experience, if you act as though you really enjoy creating mountains of paperwork, you will be treated with the utmost respect.