Bank Charges when traveling to Australia.
NOTE: Opps – this got stuck in drafts rather than getting posted, so should actually have been posted before the “What the Shysters at the Holiday Inn did next”.
Sorry for any confusion.
If there’s one thing guaranteed to get my blood boiling that is not anything to do with immigration – its bank charges. I read today that New Zealand is following Australia in taking a class action against the banks for overcharging on “special fees” such as dishonour fees: charging $30 when it actually costs them about $1 to process the thing.
However still no-one is shouting about the ridiculous amount we get charged to spend money on our New Zealand cards when we go abroad. Even more disgusting when you consider that all the New Zealand banks apart from Kiwibank are actually owned by Australia – so why the bloody hell are they charging us fees when we visit their country and try to spend our money. All the money they screw out of us in profits comes here anyway – so it really is beating the crap out of us when we are down.
This evening we ate in the Hotel Restaurant at the Holiday Inn. As we went to sign the bill (which was being charged to our room) we saw a notice on the bottom of the receipt saying that there was a 1.5% charge added if you paid by credit card. Now this just pisses me off!
Companies should not expect their customers to pay their bank fees. We pay our own for crying out loud. But this got us wondering: were they expecting us to pay this 1.5% charge on our room bill as well?
Oh yes – they were!
Unfortunately when we asked about it at the front desk we were pointed (literally) to a sign (single) on the desk what mentions the charge.
Ok – I don’t care – its not on the booking form when you book the room, we weren’t told about when we checked in– the (single) sign was not pointed out to us, and it was only that we actually tend to read receipts that meant we knew were going to be charged extra on our bill. We asked for a business card for the manager and were given a feedback form to fill in.
Um – I don’t want a feedback form – I want the charge taken off and I want to speak to the manager! Now we were severely peeved. Eventually I decided that I was not going to be able to sleep while I was this angry. This is supposed to be relaxing trip – a chance to get well after the last few years of stress and illness: so to have to greedy money grabbing hotel decide to screw us out of extra money was not something I needed to deal with right now.
We eventually managed to get hold of a duty manger, and asked for the charge to be removed. This went reasonably well in that the charge was taken off, but I don’t think she really ever got why I was so angry – she kept asking what else had they done to upset me or what else was lacking in the hotels service. It is completely lost on these people that screwing their customers out of even a cent more than they should be is just wrong. Its unethical, its dishonest and it relies on the customers not noticing. And it is the most appalling customer service.
Lets be clear on this:
They do it because they know almost none their customers will notice the extra charge, and if they do, they won’t say anything about it.
Those of us that object to it get the charge removed.
Be one of those people!
Please don’t give them the pleasure of treating you like a mug. You already pay extra bank charges to buy anything when you go abroad – so don’t be conned into paying the companies bank charges as well. It’s a cost of them doing business – just like buying toilet rolls for the staff toilets. They don’t ask you for an extra dollar on your bill so the staff can wipe their bottoms do they? So why do they feel they can charge you to cover their bank charges?
BTW – the same thing happened this evening at the Crowne Plaza restaurant- owned by the same parent company (Intercontinental Hotels Group- IHG). Again – no mention when we made the booking, no one told us when we arrived, we just spotted the (single) sign on the desk. We spoke to the maitre’d before we sat down and said we wouldnt pay it – and could he let us know if this was a problem as we would not take the table if it was. He immediately told us that there would be no charge, and confirmed that later in the meal.
They know damn well they are breaking consumer law by not making clear extra charges at the time of booking, and they know damn well that they have to remove the charge if people tell them to.
Is what I say to this behavior!
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Related posts:
- Bank Charges when traveling to Australia 2
- Argghhh – why all these “extra” charges???
- Avalon’s Money Thread: Banks and Bank Charges.
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