Withdrawal From Public Bank Visa Electron Debit Card: NO Charge
October 22, 2007 – 12:06 pmFor all who have been wondering if there is a service charge withdrawing from your Public Bank Visa Electron Debit Card, I can now confirm that there is NO charge.
I went to withdraw my money through the ATM because I do not yet have a Public Bank savings account. I only have the option to withdraw “Fast Cash” so I selected that and it says “Request Accepted”. Guess what? All it gave me was a miserable RM200! I did not get to key in the desired amount that I wanted to withdraw! I don’t know whose idea that was to dictate how much we withdraw.
It was my plan to withdraw RM1000 from the machine. Boy, I felt myself GROWING OLD standing there withdrawing over and over. I wanted to vomit! The queue was piling up behind me and people were getting impatient, understandably. The other machine (there are only two) was out of order. So what else is new???
I gave up after the fourth withdrawal and only managed to get RM800. Can you feel my frustration?
In retrospect, I should have selected the option “Cash Advance” and perhaps I would then be able to enter the amount that I wish to withdraw. Anyway, that’s history now as I will be getting my Savings account open within this week.
The only saving grace is that there is absolutely no charge at all which means to say that what we lose by withdrawing our money from PayPal to our Public Bank Visa Electron Debit Card is just the US$5 PayPal charge and the lower currency exchange rate when the money clears into our card.
The time I withdrew to my card, I was given an exchange rate that was approximately 0.036 lower than published rates.
Based on my experience, I have no escape but to open a savings account with Public Bank. I really do not relish another account because I am already overloaded with sensitive user IDs and passwords. After the above episode, I came home to double check my balance online, entered my password incorrectly for three consecutive times and promptly got my online account locked. I had to call in to the Customer Service help desk to get it unlocked but I will leave that story for another day.
My immediate concern is whether to withdraw to my Public Bank Visa Electron Debit Card then transfer to my Public Bank Savings account, losing US$5 and 0.036 in currency exchange OR transfer to my US Bank account for free but get charged 3% upon withdrawal from the ATM but based on current or higher (up to 0.02 based on experience) currency exchange rate.
The amount may be minuscule but not when we multiply it.
[Update: Public Bank called me up to confirm if I was the one who made the multiple withdrawals. Thumbs up to them for being vigilant even though the total was only RM800]
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