WARNING: The Great China Construction Bank scam

[foodtarget]

I posted the long rant a couple pages back (the one with lots of faces) and just wanted to follow up on my situation. After I realized that CCB was 扣ing my American bank account, I immediately contacted my bank (BoA) to file claims on the contested withdrawals. I also talked to the manager of the CCB branch where I had made all of the attempted withdrawals and provided her with a list of the dates and amounts of all failed withdrawals that showed up on my bank statement. Working from both ends apparently worked, because the money was returned to my account. But my claims might still be "under investigation" so I guess it's always possible that BoA could take the money back.

Anyway, for anyone who is having similar withdrawal problems with a foreign bank card, I would recommend taking the following steps:

1) file a claim with your home bank

2) provide the Chinese bank with your foreign account info and a list of failed transactions

3) if at all possible, don't make any more transactions from that bank, at least until the matter has been resolved

The manager at CCB told me that I should withdraw money from Bank of China. Apparently they never have this problem with foreign cards (at least not at my local branch). So even though I have to pay service fees (which I didn't at CCB), I consider that a small price to pay for a reliable source of cash and maintaining my sanity.

[Xiwang]

When I came to China last year, I was able to withdraw 2,000 RMB at one time from CCB ATMs. That was great because, as a Bank of America customer, I could take out money without any out-of-network fees.

I've since noticed that almost all CCB ATMs have been switched so that the maximum that can be withdrawn at one time is now 1,000 RMB, which means that I have to make two withdrawals at one time if I want the same amount of money. This means extra fees for Bank of America if I happen to exceed the allowable number of withdrawals in a month.

I would classify this as a scam.

[muyongshi]

I've since noticed that almost all CCB ATMs have been switched so that the maximum that can be withdrawn at one time is now 1,000 RMB

Still 2 grand at pretty much every ATM I've seen of the CCB.

[roddy]

Depends on the machine, I think. There are two new-ish CCB machines downstairs from me which only give out 1000Y at a time. I'd classify this as 'bad luck' rather than 'scam', but then it's not happening to me . .

[gougou]

When my sister and her friend were here a couple of days ago, they were only able to get RMB 1000 from almost every machine they encountered. I thought it was a problem with their card, as I had never encountered that, but that might be because I'm trying to stick with Bank of China ATMs (as that's where I have my account).

[Lugubert]

This month, some Beijing ATMs produced 3000. In Urumqi, an airline office accepted only Chinese cards, so to pay for my ticket to Sweden, I had to pull multiple 1000s from the nearest ATM. It worked for the entire amount, though. I haven't noted the bank names.

[gougou]

Update concerning withdrawal limits: when I used a Construction Bank ATM the day before yesterday (with a Bank of China card), it offered me RMB 5,000 in one go. Unfortunately, I didn't need that much, so I can't attest to whether it also would have given them to me.

[roddy]

I've noticed that - I think the new ATMs they have now which also handle deposits can manage larger chunks of cash. Someone in front of me the other day took out 5,000Y in one transaction.

Still won't get you round your bank's withdrawal limits, but if you're taking a quarter's rent out of a Chinese bank account it might be handy.