BDO Credit Card Overcharge

jaceejoef · December 2018

I recently lodge my visa, and I paid for it using my mom's BDO credit card.

Smooth naman ang transaction sa payment until we got the billing statement.

At the time of writing this post, the visa lodge fee for subclass 489 (invited pathway) is 3,755 AUD but there is a surcharge of 49.57 AUD so the total payment is 3,804.57 AUD or about 143k-145k PHP.

When using a BDO credit card they have this "style" where all foreign currencies will be converted to USD. So when we got the credit card billing statement from BDO, the converted value of 3,804.57 AUD is 2,827.94 USD.

I use Google's exchange rate to get to know how much is it in PHP, and it's amounting to 149k-150k PHP.

I was surprised. Bakit anlaki ng tubo. Again, using Google I tried to convert AUD to USD here's the converted rate
3,804.57 AUD = 2,708.65 USD

Given that, san galing ang 100+ USD na nakalagay dun sa billing statement?

My mom asked them and sabi nila wala na daw silang magagawa kasi system generated na daw yung conversion na yun.

Sana tinuloy ko na lang ang pag overpay sa BPI credit card ko. I do a lot of online foreign transactions using my BPI credit card and I haven't experienced any of that.

We also had an incident before with a airplane ticket. Mas mahal ang nakalagay sa billing statement so we report it to them and they told us to pay for processing fee so that we can get a refund. I forgot how much is it but the processing fee is bigger than the excess amount that should be refunded to us. And on top of that, it's possible na ma-cancel ang plane ticket kasi mag investigate pa sila.

Sirang sira na ang image ng BDO sakin. May mga rumors pa ng ghost withdrawals for accounts that are own by OFWs. And they'll let you wait for 1-2 months before you get your money back.

Bagay na bagay ang motto nila: "we find ways" to legally steal money from you.

PS. I know Google and bank exchange rates are different. I just check it with Google first to at least have an idea of the conversion.

athelene · December 2018

@jaceejoef Conversion rates are really annoying, that's why it's better to check with the exchange rates of the banks itself instead of Google, because can be really big differences in the exchange rates on the day you charged the fees and the day you receive the billing statement. That's the risk of purchasing/paying for something in foreign currency kasi lugi ka talaga sa rates.

jaceejoef · December 2018

@athelene you're right but I check the rates within that week and the conversion rate from AUD to USD is only between 0.70 to 0.72

I tried computing it using 0.80 (just to exaggerate it) but it still won't reach 100USD.

oh well... I'll just charge it to experience. I don't want to pay their processing fee if I push this case with them. Worst case is they might hold the payment to my immiaccount while they investigate.

I really can't do anything about this but to suck it up. I just posted this so that other people will be informed of such schemes of BDO.

maguero · December 2018

@jaceejoef I used my Citibank credit card to pay for my 489 visa last September. AUD 3,804.57 din naman yung siningil and the converted amount is P155.6k. Pero from past experience malaki naman talaga conversion rate ng mga banks.