In Reply to: banks accounts and cars? posted by Timeout on Friday, 19. January 2007 at 06:47 Bali Time:
Commonwealth Bank was very good - but you do require a letter of introduction from Australian bank or an email or fax. Our biggest hurdle because we did not have this was to get a line out of Denpasar to call the manager in Perth and get them to email details. Then two accounts are set up - one in Rupiah the other in Aus dollars. This is so you can decide when is a good time to convert from one to the other to avoid currency exchange losses - you could probably use this to make money too if you had time and patience! We needed $1000 to open the account. After finding out that the public internets in Denpasar were dial up (!) and still unable to get through to Australia we left for Ubud and half way there ther phone sudenly worked! I think it has to do with congestion in Denpasar. So a call to our manager followed up by a confirmatory email menat the required money was in the new account within 48 hours.
Our friend and driver Putu was on the happy position of buying a new car and had chosen the 2007 Toyota Innova G - 7 seater. I am loathe to use the words "price fixing" but there was little room for movement between show rooms. These cars are extremely popular adn often need to be ordered as they are out of stock. After gettinga price at Gianyar, we proceede to Denpasar and met a "Mr Dewa" who was recommended by a friend. He was in the show room with another customer when we arrived. The upshot of this enquiry was the "Mr Dewa" is actually a free lance agent not employed by the show room but he gets a good price and halves the savings with the customer. When he asked that the money be trabsferred to his account before issuinga receipt with details of the car, Putu decided that the Gianyar car was probably the best price! He negotiated a slightly better price after giving the "dewa" special offer. There were to be several extra - side steps, tinting and window shields adn we amazed to hear they woudl take only two hours to do when the car arrived! The purchase of Tourist plates is another story! The car cost around Rp190 million.