Banking in Malaysia

Banking in Malaysia is a lot different than it is in the USA.

In the USA, for the most part, banks are more than happy to take your money and put it into your account. They'll let you do this during business hours at the counter, out of hours via deposit boxes or even the ATM.

This is not the case in Malaysia.

We changed our money from USD to Malaysian ringgit on Wednesday.

On Thursday we went to the bank to put the money into Siew's account, or to create an account with both of our names on it.

When we asked about closing her account and opening a new account we were told we cannot. Siew opened the account in another city. To close the account we would have to make a 4 hour trip to Kuala Lumpur in order to closer her account. Furthermore, we would have to go to ANOTHER bank in the same chain to open a new account.

Apparently they do not have an updated system within the banks that make them all inter-linked and people have used this to scam the bank. I'm not kidding.

People would close their account at one location, drive to another and close it again, doubling their money to the bank's loss.

So, we decided, for the time being, to just put the money into Siew's account as it is. We had a fair amount of cash after all. Well, guess what? Another annoyance. The banks here in Malaysia CHARGE you to deposit money at the front counter. It's really like they want to do their best to discourage your from using the bank. Why would you charge someone to deposit money?

The staff member at the counter pointed us to a machine that would accept deposits.

So, we go to this ATM like machine. Instead of giving you money though, you put money into it.
So, we proceed to start depositing our money.

The machine sometimes has a hard time reading bills so we would put some in, let it take what it would, finish the transaction and then do it again with another batch, setting aside the money it would not accept.

This went fine until our last batch of "fresh" money. This batch locked the machine up with a warning that the machine had an error, to contact bank staff and that it's now out of service.

Siew goes to the counter to inform them that the machine just gave an error and ate our money. I stay with the machine to make sure no one else touches it until we get our money.

Siew comes back saying they'll have someone out shortly. We wait for several minutes before 2 people come out to look at things. This is where things get REALLY interesting.

The 2 people who come out, a Chinese man and woman, start off with a nasty attitude and are SCOLDING us because their machine had a problem.

At one point the lady, rather than asking what we did and what the machine did, scolds us saying we shouldn't keep putting rejected money into the machine. . . We had done that, but not on this last batch we had not!

Then they wanted us to leave and they would let us know TOMORROW what happened to our money. We were like "What?!" There was no way that I was going to leave the money in their already nasty hands to inform me about it later. Who knows if we'd ever see that money again!

After arguing with them about this for awhile we went into the lobby to wait.

I complained to Siew about their behaviour and suggested we go back to the front counter to complain.

The guy at the front counter was a bit shaken that we wanted to complain, and tried to get us to lay off, without being rude himself (he was always polite). I asked for contact information for the manager. He said he'd try to find us some information and left the counter.

After a bit the other 2 nasty people came back from the counting machine and went into the back. Very shortly the lady came back out with a bit of a panicked look on her face asking us why we wanted to speak to the manager and explaining that she really had not behaved in such a rude manner. She even brought out papers with other people's information that apparently had similar problems with the same machine recently. She was blaming their behaviour on the machine messing up so much recently and stress.

I don't care who you are lady. That is NOT a professional way to behave!

She tried to apologize to us, but it wasn't very sincere, yet. The guy. . well when he came out he straight away started trying to make excuses, but the lady cut him off multiple times. He tried to put his hand out to Siew to shake and apologize, but his eyes and his voice didn't show ANY sincerity at all and she refused to touch his hand. Lucky for him he didn't offer his hand to me. I do not have a weak grip and would have enjoyed the look of pain on his face, especially with my anger level at that point.

I need to note that Siew and I both remained calm during all of this somehow. We did not lose our cool despite their behaviour and the amount of money involved. More so for me, the culture shocks in banking here in Malaysia didn't rattle me enough to raise my voice or show much of any emotion.

I then dropped what I thought was a reasonable request, that apparently was a bomb.
I asked for their business cards.

I thought the lady might faint. She Asked me why I wanted their business cards. I explained that I may need to contact them again after this is settled, in case we have any other banking needs. She didn't believe me.

I asked several more times, while we were waiting for them to sort out the money problems still, for their business cards. I was firm, quiet, but insistent. She was refusing, without doing so directly, to give me her card, instead asking why I wanted it, assuring me that she'd get everything sorted out, would we like something to drink? Are you sure you don't want something to drink? We have some cold coca-cola's in the bank. Damn it lady, I don't want a fucking drink. What I wanted was my money and your head and the asshole's head on a fucking silver platter for my amusement!

One thing of note that almost set me off. Once when I asked for her business card and she asked why I explained that it is normal in a professional setting to offer your business card. She replied with "May I have your business card?" to Siew and I both. What the fuck? We're CUSOMTERS you bitch!

Finally, they managed to get our money out of the machine and we went back to the same machine (because NO you can't put it in over the counter without a charge, even though we fucked up) to finish putting money into the bank.

This time, however, the lady put the money in while we stood and watched. During this process the manager bothered to show up.

After we finished putting the money in Siew needed to have her bank book updated with the deposits we'd made so she went to do that with the lady while I talked to the manager.

By this point I wasn't as mad with the lady because she had made earnest effort to straighten things out and finally managed to be more sincere in her apologies. The asshole, however, had not.

I explained this to the manager, and complained very heavily about the lack of professional behaviour from the asshole (no, I didn't use this kind of language with him!). Then chatted with the manager for a little while before he needed to leave again.

I went over to Siew, who was still talking to the lady. Apparently the lady freaked out a bit when I pulled the manager aside to talk. Siew had been trying to distract her, asking about investments and mentioning that I was only going to complain about the asshole.

I hope that banking in Malaysia improves, that's not any way I would like to do my banking that's for sure.

If it stays like that, maybe a huge heavy safe would be a better sort of bank?

Just remember, when in doubt in Malaysia, just ask for their business card and they'll freak out that you're trying to get them into trouble and start bending over backwards for you.