General Info

[AdamWl]

Yes, Davivienda started charging 15 k fee somewhere at the beginning of this month.

What's fucked up is they don't put any warning at the ATM and paper receipt says fee equals 0.

I have Visa debit card and I see the fee on my ATM statement in the app (Revolut).

Other people reported this too, check Medellin Expats FB group.

[Gabacho]

Your problems start with "ATM exchange rate". Decline the bank's exchange rate and let your credit card or US bank handle the exchange via their commercial rate.

I don't think that he's that stupid.

I think he is declining the Davivienda exchange rate and he is trying to say that Davivienda is somehow sneaking a 15 k COP into the mid-market rate calculated by visa or mastercard. This is evidenced by his original post when he stated he was charged 2 different rates of 3969 per dollar and then 3960 per dollar. What in fact happened is that each day during the week the rate changes at the ATM at around 3 pm and his firdt withdraw was before they changed for that day and his second withdraw (even if it was back to back) was most likely right after the rate had been changed for the day.

If you look at the screen shots I posted the closing rate on Wednesday was at 3970 per dollar and the day after that it closed around 3960.

[Fun Luvr]

Your problems start with "ATM exchange rate". Decline the bank's exchange rate and let your credit card or US bank handle the exchange via their commercial rate.

You didn't see this in my report "declining the bank exchange rate each time"?

[DiscoverFL]

In the past, it was rather consistent, the ATM exchange rate would follow the XE.com rate by two days and be almost the same as the Visa foreign exchange rate of the day of the transaction. That may not have been true today. The Visa rate is 3999.43. I went to a Davivienda ATM and withdrew 2,000,000 and immediately afterward withdrew 1,520,000, declining the bank exchange rate each time. When I checked my Schwab bank account, I received 3969.67/1 for the 2,000,000 transaction and 3960.21/1 for the 1,520,000 transaction. The receipt shows 0 transaction fee. Analyzing those transactions indicates that Davivienda is now charging 15,000 transaction fee. That wouldn't be a problem if they specified a transaction fee, since Schwab will refund any fee that is listed separately. I'm curious if anyone else has had a similar experience with Davivienda. I used the ATM on LA 70 in Laureles. I think Davivienda has been almost the last bank to not charge ATM fees. That may have changed.

Your problems start with "ATM exchange rate". Decline the bank's exchange rate and let your credit card or US bank handle the exchange via their commercial rate.

[Gabacho]

Looking at XE.com, at 3 pm on Wednesday, it was 3999.43.

Let's say for the sake of argument that you are correct and Davivienda is charging a fee of 15 mil pesos per withdrawal. Legally wouldn't they have to disclose the fact that they are charging a 15 mil fee and ask the user to accept or decline it?

Every other ATM that charges a fee such as Bancolombia and the others all disclose their fee and give the option to decline or accept it. If it wasn't required to disclose it, I'm sure the other banks wouldn't ask they would just hide the fee too. So how do you explain that Davivienda could legally hide a fee in their exchange rate and the other banks can't?

Furthermore, after doing some research I found that the exchange rate isn't even determined by the ATM owner, it is determined by either visa or mastercard (depending on the logo on your debit card) and it is based off of something called the midmarket exchange rate at 5:30 pm UTC time from two business days prior.

So with that being the case how exactly would Davivienda be able to sneak a 15 k hidden fee into the exchange rate if they aren't even able to control the exchange rate?

[Gabacho]

Looking at XE.com, at 3 pm on Wednesday, it was 3999.43.

Intraday rates mean nothing though. The way it works is at the end of each day whatever the closing rate is when the market closes, that will determine the ATM rate for the next business day (and it may be one business day behind).

If you look on Google (or I assume XE as well) you will notice the exchange rates start going up and down starting around 8 am (on business days) and it can peak and dip through out the day until around 5 pm. But those peaks and dips are called Intraday and mean nothing, only when it stops moving for the day around 5 pm that is the rate that will affect the ATM rate in the days that follow.

[Fun Luvr]

Also the exchange rate (according to Google) hasn't been 3999 at all this week since atleast Monday.

See attached screenshots.

Looking at XE.com, at 3 pm on Wednesday, it was 3999.43.

[Bango Cheito]

In the past, it was rather consistent, the ATM exchange rate would follow the XE.com rate by two days and be almost the same as the Visa foreign exchange rate of the day of the transaction. That may not have been true today. The Visa rate is 3999.43. I went to a Davivienda ATM and withdrew 2,000,000 and immediately afterward withdrew 1,520,000, declining the bank exchange rate each time. When I checked my Schwab bank account, I received 3969.67/1 for the 2,000,000 transaction and 3960.21/1 for the 1,520,000 transaction. The receipt shows 0 transaction fee. Analyzing those transactions indicates that Davivienda is now charging 15,000 transaction fee. That wouldn't be a problem if they specified a transaction fee, since Schwab will refund any fee that is listed separately. I'm curious if anyone else has had a similar experience with Davivienda. I used the ATM on LA 70 in Laureles. I think Davivienda has been almost the last bank to not charge ATM fees. That may have changed.

I've suspected this myself, and usually use Servibanca for that reason.

Please let us know at the end of the month whether Schwab refunds it or not.

[Gabacho]

In the past, it was rather consistent, the ATM exchange rate would follow the XE.com rate by two days and be almost the same as the Visa foreign exchange rate of the day of the transaction. That may not have been true today. The Visa rate is 3999.43. I went to a Davivienda ATM and withdrew 2,000,000 and immediately afterward withdrew 1,520,000, declining the bank exchange rate each time. When I checked my Schwab bank account, I received 3969.67/1 for the 2,000,000 transaction and 3960.21/1 for the 1,520,000 transaction. The receipt shows 0 transaction fee. Analyzing those transactions indicates that Davivienda is now charging 15,000 transaction fee. That wouldn't be a problem if they specified a transaction fee, since Schwab will refund any fee that is listed separately. I'm curious if anyone else has had a similar experience with Davivienda. I used the ATM on LA 70 in Laureles. I think Davivienda has been almost the last bank to not charge ATM fees. That may have changed.

Also the exchange rate (according to Google) hasn't been 3999 at all this week since atleast Monday.

See attached screenshots.

[Gabacho]

In the past, it was rather consistent, the ATM exchange rate would follow the XE.com rate by two days and be almost the same as the Visa foreign exchange rate of the day of the transaction. That may not have been true today. The Visa rate is 3999.43. I went to a Davivienda ATM and withdrew 2,000,000 and immediately afterward withdrew 1,520,000, declining the bank exchange rate each time. When I checked my Schwab bank account, I received 3969.67/1 for the 2,000,000 transaction and 3960.21/1 for the 1,520,000 transaction. The receipt shows 0 transaction fee. Analyzing those transactions indicates that Davivienda is now charging 15,000 transaction fee. That wouldn't be a problem if they specified a transaction fee, since Schwab will refund any fee that is listed separately. I'm curious if anyone else has had a similar experience with Davivienda. I used the ATM on LA 70 in Laureles. I think Davivienda has been almost the last bank to not charge ATM fees. That may have changed.

It is weird though how you got 2 different rates on the same day unless if the first withdraw was before they updated the daily rate and the second withdraw was after they updated it. I think around 3 pm each day they change the rate except for on weekends and Mondays.

You can also try using Banco Caja Social but they only let you withdraw 300 mil at a time (but you can do as many fee-free withdrawals as need be) and have a bad habit of giving out 100 mil notes.

[Gabacho]

In the past, it was rather consistent, the ATM exchange rate would follow the XE.com rate by two days and be almost the same as the Visa foreign exchange rate of the day of the transaction. That may not have been true today. The Visa rate is 3999.43. I went to a Davivienda ATM and withdrew 2,000,000 and immediately afterward withdrew 1,520,000, declining the bank exchange rate each time. When I checked my Schwab bank account, I received 3969.67/1 for the 2,000,000 transaction and 3960.21/1 for the 1,520,000 transaction. The receipt shows 0 transaction fee. Analyzing those transactions indicates that Davivienda is now charging 15,000 transaction fee. That wouldn't be a problem if they specified a transaction fee, since Schwab will refund any fee that is listed separately. I'm curious if anyone else has had a similar experience with Davivienda. I used the ATM on LA 70 in Laureles. I think Davivienda has been almost the last bank to not charge ATM fees. That may have changed.

Davivienda doesn't charge any ATM fees. If they did charge an ATM fee they would have to explicitly state that there is a fee and how much the fee is and give you the option to decline or accept the fee as do all atms that charge fees.

What you experienced is the exchange rate being applied to your transaction being slightly different than the exchange rate you saw online. I don't use XE or Visa exchange rates but I will look up "usd to cop" on Google and this will show an exchange rate for the current day as well as previous days.

Usually if you take the Google rate from the previous day or 2 days before, this is what you will get from Davivienda ATM machines, however sometimes it's about 50 COP per dollar higher and sometimes it's about 50 COP lower than what Google says (a negligible difference considering it currently takes 4000 to make one dollar, or 3960 LOL).

I have noticed that when the Google rate tends to be going up higher for the past cpl days before using the ATM then Davivienda will give about 50 cop per dollar over Google and when usd / cop is trending down Davivienda will give about 50 cop under Google.

The only logical explanation is that Davivienda uses a different exchange rate. It's not a fee because they legally have to ask you to accept it if it is a fee.

[Fun Luvr]

In the past, it was rather consistent, the ATM exchange rate would follow the XE.com rate by two days and be almost the same as the Visa foreign exchange rate of the day of the transaction. That may not have been true today. The Visa rate is 3999.43. I went to a Davivienda ATM and withdrew 2,000,000 and immediately afterward withdrew 1,520,000, declining the bank exchange rate each time. When I checked my Schwab bank account, I received 3969.67/1 for the 2,000,000 transaction and 3960.21/1 for the 1,520,000 transaction. The receipt shows 0 transaction fee. Analyzing those transactions indicates that Davivienda is now charging 15,000 transaction fee. That wouldn't be a problem if they specified a transaction fee, since Schwab will refund any fee that is listed separately. I'm curious if anyone else has had a similar experience with Davivienda. I used the ATM on LA 70 in Laureles. I think Davivienda has been almost the last bank to not charge ATM fees. That may have changed.

[JohnnieCash]

Your statistics are flawed. You stated that 11,816 criminals were prosecuted (that means 11,816 people were arrested and prosecuted, not 11,816 criminal acts being prosecuted). Then you go on to say that there were 1,648,388 criminal acts reported and do some simple math to come up with and percentage (0. 7%) prosecution rate.

However you fail to take into account that many of the 1,648,388 criminal acts that were reported were most likely committed by the same people committing multiple crimes. It's not like its one crime per one person, then they just stop. I'm willing to bet that there are groups of people committing many crimes per person before they get caught and prosecuted and if that is the case then the percentage of people commiting the crimes in respect to the total amount of crimes being reported would be a different percentage than the 0. 7% that you stated.

Also what about crimes that go unreported in the first place?

What about organized crime syndicates that have the police in their pockets?

What about police themselves who are committing crimes?

As you can see the issue is not as cut and dry as you suggested.

True, all valid points. The statistic doesn't say how many of the reported crimes were 11,816 prosecuted criminals responsible for, which would be better info.

[Gabacho]

According to the statistics, the Prosecutor General's Office successfully prosecuted 11,816 criminals in 2022, which is 0. 7% of the 1,648,388 crimes reported by citizens.

So it seems that a criminal has about 99% chance of not being prosecuted.

https://colombiareports.com/colombia...stics-suggest/

Your statistics are flawed. You stated that 11,816 criminals were prosecuted (that means 11,816 people were arrested and prosecuted, not 11,816 criminal acts being prosecuted). Then you go on to say that there were 1,648,388 criminal acts reported and do some simple math to come up with and percentage (0. 7%) prosecution rate.

However you fail to take into account that many of the 1,648,388 criminal acts that were reported were most likely committed by the same people committing multiple crimes. It's not like its one crime per one person, then they just stop. I'm willing to bet that there are groups of people committing many crimes per person before they get caught and prosecuted and if that is the case then the percentage of people commiting the crimes in respect to the total amount of crimes being reported would be a different percentage than the 0. 7% that you stated.

Also what about crimes that go unreported in the first place?

What about organized crime syndicates that have the police in their pockets?

What about police themselves who are committing crimes?

As you can see the issue is not as cut and dry as you suggested.

[Zeos1]

According to the statistics, the Prosecutor General's Office successfully prosecuted 11,816 criminals in 2022, which is 0. 7% of the 1,648,388 crimes reported by citizens.

So it seems that a criminal has about 99% chance of not being prosecuted.

https://colombiareports.com/colombia...stics-suggest/

They don't catch many of them.