Friends, let me tell you a story about banking in the country of Madagascar. This story begins in April before KP’s dad came over with the rest of the FTC group and we needed to hire a car to take us from Tuléar to Fianar. We found one (it turned out to be a rolling Superfund site, but that’s another story) and to seal the deal I had to transfer money from my account into the account of the person renting us the car. I had never done a wire transfer before, but I went to my bank, was given a form to fill out, and le voilà. It was easy and quick. But, reader, I assure you it was a false sense of security because it was here that things went pear-shaped on the whole deal.
Fast forward to May and KP and I are balancing our account with the most recent statement. We’re reconciling the account and I see that my bank transferred about 30 bucks more to the car rental dude than supposed to. Okay, shit happens; it was probably an honest mistake. A quick trip to the bank should sort things out. Right. Wrong.
The next morning I go to the bank. With a false smile, I calmly explain to my bank what happened. They’re dubious. Could they have made a mistake like this? They tell me that I’ll have to come back in the afternoon so they can go back and cross-check the original transfer order. Okay, no problem. Afternoon arrives, and, what do you know? Golly, they made a mistake and transferred too much. Then the banker puts on a solemn face to tell me that it’s going to be up to me to contact car-rental dude and ask him to return the excess amount. I don’t know how he was able to tell me that with a straight face, but he did. No “I’m sorry we made a mistake, and because we value you as a customer and want to make things right, we’ll eat the cost and credit your account.” More like, “Yeah, we’re dumb-asses, but we’re going to make you spend your own valuable time cleaning up our mess.”
So now with the onus on me, I email car-rental dude and explain the situation. A week goes by with no response to my email. I call him and he doesn’t pick up. Now I’m pissed. Letter #2: I pull out the big guns and explain that if he doesn’t respond to me the next time he hears from me will be through my lawyer. (Thankfully, if there’s one thing in abundance in Fianar, it’s lawyers.) My bluff worked. Next day he responds and he says he’ll return the excess money.
It’s July now and I’ve been away for a month, but today I picked up my mail and looked at our bank statement. True to his word, car-dude paid the money. But here’s the kicker: the bank charged me a 10% on the transaction—for the mistake they made in the first place. This afternoon, somehow I calmly explained that I didn’t think I should have to pay this fee. In a span of 5 minutes I made it up two links in the chain of command before I had to explain my story for a third time to the bank manager. He was very sympathetic and understood perfectly my complaint. He explained the fee was automatically assessed when the transaction took place. He also explained to get my refund I was going to have to write a letter to regional director explaining why my bank should refund the transfer fee. Miraculously, he managed to do all this with a smile. Prick.
Thankfully, I’m getting off the island for a while and can shrug this off as just another one of the little quirks that make living in Madagascar such an adventure. It also demonstrates why the Millennium Challenge Account is working to reform the Malagasy banking system. Where the average time to process a transaction is 24 days, my problem seems insignificant in comparison. Still, a little customer service would have be nice.
Fast forward to May and KP and I are balancing our account with the most recent statement. We’re reconciling the account and I see that my bank transferred about 30 bucks more to the car rental dude than supposed to. Okay, shit happens; it was probably an honest mistake. A quick trip to the bank should sort things out. Right. Wrong.
The next morning I go to the bank. With a false smile, I calmly explain to my bank what happened. They’re dubious. Could they have made a mistake like this? They tell me that I’ll have to come back in the afternoon so they can go back and cross-check the original transfer order. Okay, no problem. Afternoon arrives, and, what do you know? Golly, they made a mistake and transferred too much. Then the banker puts on a solemn face to tell me that it’s going to be up to me to contact car-rental dude and ask him to return the excess amount. I don’t know how he was able to tell me that with a straight face, but he did. No “I’m sorry we made a mistake, and because we value you as a customer and want to make things right, we’ll eat the cost and credit your account.” More like, “Yeah, we’re dumb-asses, but we’re going to make you spend your own valuable time cleaning up our mess.”
So now with the onus on me, I email car-rental dude and explain the situation. A week goes by with no response to my email. I call him and he doesn’t pick up. Now I’m pissed. Letter #2: I pull out the big guns and explain that if he doesn’t respond to me the next time he hears from me will be through my lawyer. (Thankfully, if there’s one thing in abundance in Fianar, it’s lawyers.) My bluff worked. Next day he responds and he says he’ll return the excess money.
It’s July now and I’ve been away for a month, but today I picked up my mail and looked at our bank statement. True to his word, car-dude paid the money. But here’s the kicker: the bank charged me a 10% on the transaction—for the mistake they made in the first place. This afternoon, somehow I calmly explained that I didn’t think I should have to pay this fee. In a span of 5 minutes I made it up two links in the chain of command before I had to explain my story for a third time to the bank manager. He was very sympathetic and understood perfectly my complaint. He explained the fee was automatically assessed when the transaction took place. He also explained to get my refund I was going to have to write a letter to regional director explaining why my bank should refund the transfer fee. Miraculously, he managed to do all this with a smile. Prick.
Thankfully, I’m getting off the island for a while and can shrug this off as just another one of the little quirks that make living in Madagascar such an adventure. It also demonstrates why the Millennium Challenge Account is working to reform the Malagasy banking system. Where the average time to process a transaction is 24 days, my problem seems insignificant in comparison. Still, a little customer service would have be nice.
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