Customers Say Bank Is Stalling Fee Repayment

Kookmin Bank is getting complaints from its customers that it is not keeping a promise to repay fees which customers were forced to pay to other banks for services during a strike at the bank last December.

"I thought the bank already paid the fees through online processing," said one of bank's top customers. "I didn't know that we had to go to the bank to file an application to receive the money directly."

Kookmin Bank demands that its customers show their bank books or receipts received from other banks as evidence to show evidence of three types of transactions: cash withdrawals from other banks' automated teller machines, money transfers, or remittance sent from other lenders to Kookmin.

In normal times, Kookmin does such transactions at no charge.

"There is no way to verify through online networks whether the bank customers went to other banks because of the strike or if they were also other lenders' customers before the strike," said a Kookmin Bank official.

In sharp contrast, H&CB, whose union staged a joint walkout with Kookmin's union to protest a planned merger of the two banks, paid its customers 470 million won ($367,000 ) in fees incurred for withdrawing money from other banks' cash dispensers in January.

But H&CB will pay for the other two services only when demanded by its customers, saying it cannot process the data online.

by Kim Won-bae