B150 Charge Applied To Your Thai Acct As Well

[JimGant]

More than likely, the Thai $5 fee is simply a rip...

It's all relative, I guess. Lemme see -- if I used a Chase card, and withdrew 25k in baht, that would cost me 900 baht just to Chase ($5 plus .03x25k) -- or 6 times the Thai ATM fee. Talk about a turd in your wallet.

[GreenSnapper]

I don't pay those fees in Singapore or Japan.

And in Vietnam they charge 1$. .

So yes, Thailand's 5$ is a rip-off.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

More than likely, the Thai $5 fee is simply a rip...

It's all relative, I guess. Lemme see -- if I used a Chase card, and withdrew 25k in baht, that would cost me 900 baht just to Chase ($5 plus .03x25k) -- or 6 times the Thai ATM fee. Talk about a turd in your wallet.

No doubt about that, Jim... And the same with similar cards and fees from the other U.S. mega banks....

But, it's not a pertinent comparison with the Thai 150 baht fee at all...

Those fees you repeat are ones a U.S. bank charges its own customers when they use their U.S. card outside the U.S.

That would be comparable to (and higher than) the 100 baht or so flat fee plus 2%+ foreign currency fee that Thai banks charge their own customers when they travel abroad.

As I've noted before, the U.S. banks charge exactly the same ATM fees inside the U.S. to both U.S. folks using a non-network ATM for their cards and a foreign visitor using their foreign country bank card. No discrimination there, unlike the Thai banks' practice.

Plus, in the U.S., there are plenty of different banks and credit unions to choose from that don't charge those kind of extortionate fees, so you're not forced to use those kinds of cards. In Thailand, with the exception of AEON (which isn't actually a bank), there is no choice in that every single Thai bank charges the same excessive 150 baht fee against foreign card users.

It's apples and oranges, but you're still trying to make juice out of it... Stop trying so hard.

If a U.S. domestic ATM transaction costs maybe 37 cents, as the info I posted above states, then how much more could a Thai bank be paying for a foreign card transaction... maybe $1 in total... and that's probably way high for the Thai banks' actual cost.

So for them to be charging a $5 fee on every foreign card use, ya, I'd say that's definitely heading into "RIP" territory.

There's a certain irony here that U.S. banks, regarding ATM fees, will treat foreign visitors the same as their non-network domestic customers... But they'll screw their own U.S. customers when they travel abroad.

The Thai banks, regarding ATM fees, then turn around and double screw U.S. citizens and other foreigners when they use foreign banks cards here. But they charge either nothing or almost nothing for Thai customers who use a Thai ATM other than that of their own Thai bank.

The bottom line is: After all this time, I still don't believe anyone has ever posted here any info on any country, and especially tourist oriented ones, where all the banks charge a higher foreign card user ATM fee than the $5 amount charged by Thai banks.

[ajarnpot]

no, but I shall be sending this plan to my employers - this will get me a nice big bonus- Lets start taxing the customers more for their money

[LandOfSmileys]

Monopoly, as TallGuy said: "every single Thai bank charges the same excessive 150 baht fee against foreign card users." As I first posted, I said I would be willing to pay a "reasonable" fee, of a few Baht/transaction, but not the RIP of 150Bt. There "seem" to be many competing banks in LOS, just NOT on the 150Bt gouge.

Banks are businesses. Businesses exist to make money for their owners by providing goods or a service that people are willing to pay for.

At reasonable prices or have a choice to go shop elsewhere. Without choice, it is "forced" to pay for.

Nobody forces you to use any bank

The "banking" system worldwide has insinuated itself, like a nasty, greedy infection, so deeply into society that, YES, you are FORCED to use banks in many situations. I remember when the "wall" fell East/West Germany, Greedy, Rich, Drooling Bankers were sooooooo salivating to rip-off a whole brand new group of victims (former East Germans) that they couldn't even stand the thought of how long it takes to build a bank and let all that lucre slip through their slimy little fingers during construction. So, the Slumgullion thrashed and gnarled through the night till they had a scheme to get every last Euro they could as soon as possible from the poor E. Germans. They sent their operatives into the East, swindled some locals out of their homes for paltry sums, demolished the homes till they quickly had flat cement pads and used helicopters to fly in ready-made shipping containers to drop on these swindled pads. I figure they had the "container banks" planned well in advance, sitting at border airstrips, ready to vulture over the now gone border the microsecond it was officially dissolved. I walked by some of these container banks, windows and doors cut into them, about 4 or so welded together, painted and ready to rip the locals. They didn't do anything to the outside, still had corrugated metal and the hoist holes at the corners.

I have nothing against a "business" selling overpriced garbage to gullibles, as long as there is a competitor I can do business with where I can buy the garbage I am forced to buy at reasonable prices.