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New ATM fees -- who's charging them?


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Regarding your statement about the Aeon ATM's--do you know if you can use a standard Bank/Credit Union ATM card (not a Visa/MC advance) to withdraw money from your own bank--i.e., you are not an Aeon customer?

 

I have resisted opening a bank account here for the longest time, but with the fees my CU charges (1 percent on all foreign transactions) and the recent 150 baht fee, it may be time to do that and do larger transfers to a Thai account.

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'lime dude',

the thing many seem to overlook is that this fee concerns 'only' foreign cards on the visa & master system thus leaving 'atm cards' on plus/cirrus supposedly even those are (partly) run/owned by master/visa respectively if I'm not mistaken?

 

so for sure you can use your foreign atm card in any worldwide atm as long at that atm is linked up to the system that your card is e.g. 'plus', 'cirrus' etc :)

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WF, You are wrong in your assumption. The fee hits, imho, all ATM cards that are tied to non-Thai banks. I have a pure, simple ATM card from a credit union in USA that I have been using here for the last 10 years. It is not a debit card and NOT connected to Visa or MC in any way, shape or form. It is on the Cirrus, etc. networks so that it can be used around the world. My ATM card is getting the 150 baht charge as well at all the banks mentioned above.

 

That is just one more proof point that all these BS protestations by the bank people that they are recouping charges by Visa/MC is pure BS. But no one ever accused the Thai Banking System of speaking the truth.

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The 1 ~ 3% is a fee charged by the credit/debit card company.

 

This 150 baht is unique to LOS...just a farkin scam to pull $$$ out of the farang!

 

Fark 'em' date=' we will find a work around!!![/quote']

 

Sorry Cav here was me thinking that you were a long term expaxt who actualy understood the Thai banking system and had set up transfers via SWIFT from offhore accounts to your local Thai accounts and could therefore take advantage of the minimal / no fees utilising local ATM's as and when FOREX rates and loss of interest could have been absorbed.

 

[edit Mod3]

Yes, I have wired over money to my local Thai bank account and at the time got a crap exchange rate. In the past, it has always been more cost effective (cheaper) to pull money from my USA bank account when in LOS, keeping an eye on exchange rates.

Plus the wire xfer can cost $25 USD on the sending end and often a tad at the receiving end.

 

So this long term x-Pat (Cheap Charlie) has looked at ALL the angles and finding that the banks continue to close the freebies...

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Did you wire over in your home currency? I thought the exchange rates given by most thai banks was pretty decent... well anything would be better than my domestic bank.

 

I think you should look into moneybookers and let us know how good it works.

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Since the 150 baht is a flat rate, not based on the amount you take out, I have started to raise the amount I ask for in cash. Used to be 10,000 baht at a time, have upped it to 15,000 (which gets me to a 1 percent hit, instead of a 1.5 percent). The problem of course lies with your home bank and whatever daily limit they set.

 

The other side of the equation is the cost of foreign atm transactions that your bank charges. My credit union charges 1 percent, which they instigated only this year (before it was a flat $1.00 hit, which was not bad). When the fee hit, did some research and there are a few (very few) that don't hit you for foreign transactions (here I am talking purely ATM, not VISA or MC cash transactions), and some of the bigger banks charge up to 5 percent.

 

Given all this, you can set up a "breakeven" point on the "wire transfer" (let's say it's $25.00). In my case, $2500 would be breakeven just on my local bank, ($25), and, in addition, to extract that same $2500 would have cost me 6 transactions (15,000 baht each time, approximatly $440) at 150 baht or 900 baht (let's call that $25 for rounding sake. So it would cost me approximately $50 in fees for every $2500 I take out. Guess it's time to make a decision on this wire transfer unless someone finds a clever way around this.

 

I had previously only used bank transfers for large amounts (buying a house, a car) and, by the way, the exchange rate given by the bank was good at the time. Haven't done this in the last 3 years or so, so I don't know how things have changed.

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