Planning a trip to Bali anytime soon?
When preparing to go, be sure that you are aware of the current scam being run by many currency exchange outlets in Australia (well, Perth certainly, where this has become prevalent in the last year).
The ‘deal’ is that the currency exchange outlet will package up a Bali Visa wallet for you, which contains your visa on arrival fee ($25 US dollars for 30 days, $10 for up to 7 days), and well, a plastic wallet.
For this service you will be charged around AU$3.50 per visa pack (so a family of 4 will pay a total of $14 in processing fees to receive US$100).
Compare this to any regular processing fee for a normal currency transaction – which can be anything from free to around $5.50 within the normal exchange limits (which is a couple of thousand dollars at a time – not sure exactly) , and you can see that you are being ripped off by the currency exchange shop to the tune of at least $10 per average family.
I argued this vociferously the last time I went to Bali with three other people, with my point being that if I exchanged AU$1000 into US currency for a trip to the States, then I would be charged only $3.50 – so why does fee increase to $14 (for 10 times less cash) just because I am going to Bali?
Their argument was a funny-if-it-didn’t-cost-me-money point of: “because of the corruption in Bali, you have to make sure that you arrive with mint-condition banknotes, only printed in the last 12/24 months, with no creases or dirt on them”.
Well, I’ve been to Bali/Jakarta at least once a year for the last several years, and have never had any such problem as this at immigration, and have always just undertaken a regular transfer of Aussie dollars in multiples of US$25 or US$10 as needed.
So after arguing the point I paid a regular transaction fee (that was $3.50) to exchange my money into a total of US$100, which I received as two US$50 banknotes of very-acceptable quality (you tend never to get really bad notes from the exchange joints anyway). This saved me $10.50 over what the exchange counter would otherwise have charged me for their crappy plastic wallet alternative.
The upshot is that there is no reason for this ‘service’ from the exchange counters – they are playing on peoples fears of Indonesian corruption to partake in their own version of the very same thing – taking money off Aussie travellers for no good reason. It’s just part of the drumbeat of racism and fear that is pushed at us constantly from the government and the media, and which is being picked up on for commercial gain (remember the rush to wrap all of our suitcases in plastic after the Schapelle Corby debacle – Aussie shysters made a killing on that fear campaign too).
So in short I recommend fighting back – don’t be sold a Bali visa deal – just undertake one transaction to meet all of you US currency on arrival needs (and you can pay by credit card or local currency equivalent if you arrive with no US dollars – you are not going to be turned away!).
And on the point of ‘new/clean’ notes, just use common sense. The US redesigned most of its banknotes in 2004, and you should insist on receiving these more recent notes during your currency exchange wherever you are planning to travel to – that’s just good security as the old notes were too easy to counterfeit. A case perhaps of the Indonesian authorities being more pro-actively anti-corruption that we are prepared to give them credit for?
