jstar
Mr. 10,000
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2016
- Messages
- 5,305
Since the elections had not take place yet, and the € had dropped quite a bit, 'she who is in control' instructed me -after some testing at ATM machines in my home country which gave very positive rates- to take quite some euro in cash directly from the Indonesian rupiah accounts, using a debit card. Monkey see, monkey do.
So perhaps a bit overconfident, yours truly though it would be a good idea to use the card also to fill up the empty gas tank of the car with a 70 liter capacity at a liter price of more than €1,45.
A day later I asked her what the amount was that was subtracted from the account. And it was .......... over 4,8 Juta !!??? Which is almost three times the euro amount with the average rate. Of course something had to be wrong with rates or costs; or was it?
She called the Indonesian bank. They stated they had nothing to do with it, and said I would have swiped my card three times. I yelled to her over the phone: "Idiots! Do they even know how a payment terminal looks like? There is no swiping whatsoever!" And no terminal at gas stations ever had this problem, unless visited by Rumanian DIY-ers. So I decided to call the helpline of Maestro / MasterCard in Europe, to ask their opinion. Obviously they wouldn't/couldn't assist me since it seems to be continent specific, but they advised me to contact the merchant (Shell) first. They had never heard of this before.
When I called the customer service of Shell, I was interrupted even before I fully explained. "Ah yes, it's the bank. For safety reasons they allocate a larger amount with foreign cards and that will be refunded later." ? Wouldn't it be the merchant though who takes a larger 'deposit' to make sure the amount was fully covered? For currency fluctuations or stolen cards? "No no, it's the bank! It can take days or sometimes even weeks but you will get the money back."
Indeed, three days later the surplus was refunded. Still, a weird story.
So perhaps a bit overconfident, yours truly though it would be a good idea to use the card also to fill up the empty gas tank of the car with a 70 liter capacity at a liter price of more than €1,45.
A day later I asked her what the amount was that was subtracted from the account. And it was .......... over 4,8 Juta !!??? Which is almost three times the euro amount with the average rate. Of course something had to be wrong with rates or costs; or was it?
She called the Indonesian bank. They stated they had nothing to do with it, and said I would have swiped my card three times. I yelled to her over the phone: "Idiots! Do they even know how a payment terminal looks like? There is no swiping whatsoever!" And no terminal at gas stations ever had this problem, unless visited by Rumanian DIY-ers. So I decided to call the helpline of Maestro / MasterCard in Europe, to ask their opinion. Obviously they wouldn't/couldn't assist me since it seems to be continent specific, but they advised me to contact the merchant (Shell) first. They had never heard of this before.
When I called the customer service of Shell, I was interrupted even before I fully explained. "Ah yes, it's the bank. For safety reasons they allocate a larger amount with foreign cards and that will be refunded later." ? Wouldn't it be the merchant though who takes a larger 'deposit' to make sure the amount was fully covered? For currency fluctuations or stolen cards? "No no, it's the bank! It can take days or sometimes even weeks but you will get the money back."
Indeed, three days later the surplus was refunded. Still, a weird story.