In Reply to: what's even weirder is... posted by cliff on Wednesday, 17. August 2005 at 15:29 Bali Time:
After shopping around like good like consumers, we now go through the same agent each time and ask for and get good deals. Why would agents give the best deals to just anyone and not have something left for his loyal repeating regular customers? Now that we have developed an ongoing working relationship with our agent we get good deals and are very happy with the arrangement - I'm sure he is too. It probably helps that we also recommend our friends go to the same agent and mention that we sent them. Referrals are very valuable in any business.
BTW- I took my own advice re NZ Westpac credit cards - see older posts - and set up one card to take ATM cash from credit card account instead of cheque account - and made sure the credit card had a positive balance. All went swimmingly until one weekend we were doing some big purchases (for our container!) and the credit card account ran dry. I couldn't top it up until the Monday, using internet banking so had to grim and bear the $8 charge each time I took out cash. Sure enough the credit card showed no charges for the ATM cash until that dreadful weekend and wammo, the $8 started to pop up, proving beyond any reasonable doubt that you can avoid the $8 charge if you do things right, and if you stuff up, you pay. never again will I let that positive balance go negative with a weekend looming. Next time I'll take my own laptop and feel a whole lot better about using internet banking, still a high risk sport and getting worse, when done from public internet cafe. I have some useful info and getting on line in Bali that I will put up very soon. It is possible to have your own isp in Bali using hotel phone lines and only costs 200rp per minute, if the hotel plays ball. S