150 baht fee to be charged to foreign ATM cardholders

Post by **Mr T** » Sat May 16, 2009 6:46 pm

Ah! I was thinking it was just Abbey being a real pain.
They told me I would have to let them know every 3 months but I told them only a month and a half ago and had to do it again.
Seems like the fraud dep dont talk to the bank directly, drives me nuts sometimes.
You wont belive this one.
We were in Phuket a couple of years back now on the Sat of easter weekend, went to use my card and it was blocked, Grrrrrr!
So called the bank and they tried 3 times to get me through to the fraud dept, after almost an hour and a half on the phone and them calling me back I spoke to the supervisor and she said "Iam very sorry but it seems the fraud dept are on holiday until Tue" I was shocked and angry I asked if that meant that everyones accounts can be frauded freely until the dept come back from their holidays, she replied " I am very sorry but it looks like it". Shocking eh!
After even longer on the phone she was able to get a Bulgarian woman from the lost and stolen card dept to lift the block.
Man I was not happy, I had plenty of cash in my Thai bank but wanted to make a point.
Anyway after a complaint letter they refunded the cost of the UK telephone bill.
This I believe and hope was a one off, never had that answer again anyway.

Post by **mrh79** » Sat May 16, 2009 7:03 pm

I hate paying these silly ATM fees. I can live with it as a one off, but on a month long holiday it can cost upto £50. GGggggrrrrrrrrrrr! Must be even worse, if your an ex pat who is relliant on these bloomin cashpoints... no other way i guess... For my forthcoming holiday im considering bringing a wad of uk sterling, isd this the best course of action still you think. Any other ideas?

Post by **Mr T** » Sat May 16, 2009 7:15 pm

I would bring cash or if you can get sterling Travellers checks that would be safer, not sure if you can get them in sterling though.
The banks over here give you a better exchange rate that the UK banks, when I transfer money into my Thai bank I have my UK branch send over sterling and let the Thai bank change it, works out the best for me anyway.
One thing if you do bring cash dont bring any Scottish money or damaged/written on notes, they wont change them for you. Been there done it, DOH!

Post by **BaaBaa.** » Sat May 16, 2009 7:28 pm

mrh79 wrote:For my forthcoming holiday im considering bringing a wad of uk sterling, isd this the best course of action still you think. Any other ideas?

Not really because the exchange rate isn't as good.

Post by **hhfarang** » Sat May 16, 2009 7:28 pm

Scottish money? It's been decades since I was there but I didn't realize Scotland had it's own money separate from the pound sterling. I thought the pound was the coin of the realm...

Post by **BaaBaa.** » Sat May 16, 2009 7:45 pm

BaaBaa. wrote:
mrh79 wrote:For my forthcoming holiday im considering bringing a wad of uk sterling, isd this the best course of action still you think. Any other ideas?
Not really because the exchange rate isn't as good.

Just done the sums.

Using Bangkok Banks rate today. Notes=51.13 TT=52.0325

15000 baht with cash would cost £293.36

15000 baht + ATM fee would cost £291.16

So £2.20 saved and you wouldn't have to bring large amounts of sterling.

Post by **Mr T** » Sat May 16, 2009 7:46 pm

Scottish money is still sterling but it is printed in Scotland and says bank of Scotland instead of England on it. Its far more accepted now, used to be a hassle even to use in England.
The Thai banks thought I was trying to pull a fast one on them, think they were ready to get the police. lol

Post by **STEVE G** » Sat May 16, 2009 10:52 pm

There you are HH;

Post by **BaaBaa.** » Sat May 16, 2009 11:05 pm

Is that from a scottish themed monopoly?

Post by **Big Boy** » Sat May 16, 2009 11:21 pm

I must admit that whenever I work in Scotland I am amazed at the multi-versions of Scotish money. Every now and then somebody throws a fast ball and gives you a bank note that you've never seen before - when that happens you really do wonder if you're being conned with some Mickey Mouse currency.

Fortunately for me I've always been given genuine tender. I was going to say genuine Legal tender, but they still use English Pound Notes, which should have gone out of circulation years ago.

Post by **niggle** » Sun May 17, 2009 7:32 am

There's a guy works the 1st class slepper train from Bangkok to Nong Kai who is always trying to change scottish notes. I checked one of them and it was a fake anyway. Maybe he's got a stash of them

Post by **Big Boy** » Sun May 17, 2009 1:58 pm

niggle wrote:There's a guy works the 1st class slepper train from Bangkok to Nong Kai who is always trying to change scottish notes. I checked one of them and it was a fake anyway. Maybe he's got a stash of them

There are so many variations of the same thing, how could you tell what was real and what was fake?

Post by **BaaBaa.** » Sun May 17, 2009 3:20 pm

Big Boy wrote:
niggle wrote:There's a guy works the 1st class slepper train from Bangkok to Nong Kai who is always trying to change scottish notes. I checked one of them and it was a fake anyway. Maybe he's got a stash of them
There are so many variations of the same thing, how could you tell what was real and what was fake?

It would have been obvious it was fake, the Scot was actually going to spend it!

Post by **mrh79** » Sun May 17, 2009 4:45 pm

cheers for the info , ta very much. My stay is only 2 weeks, so i'll bring a lump of sterling and use atm's for the remainder. At least the baht is crawling slowly back up. On my visit in Jan it was only 46, now it's 51 to the £. Not as good as my stay in 2005, when it was nearly 70bht to the £, so i recall!!

Post by **BaaBaa.** » Sun May 17, 2009 4:55 pm

mrh79 wrote:cheers for the info , ta very much. My stay is only 2 weeks, so i'll bring a lump of sterling and use atm's for the remainder. At least the baht is crawling slowly back up. On my visit in Jan it was only 46, now it's 51 to the £. Not as good as my stay in 2005, when it was nearly 70bht to the £, so i recall!!

This is the best site for up to the minute rates from all the banks. http://bankexchangerates.daytodaydata.net/default.aspx
Change the currency type to TT for ATM rates.