Hawala or .........?
Each employee of our department is given a corporate credit card. Previously the card had infinite limit and there were instances when I had swapped close to 3.5 lacs on it without the card getting blocked. Last years economic turmoil had many companies implementing cost-cutting measure to save on revenue outflow. The infinite amount of corporate credit card was also affected as the yearly premium was a significant amount. The credit limit was lowered to just 2 lacs and we were not intimated about this change. I was to find it out later .....
My trip to Europe was scheduled exactly one day after I returned from my vacation. I had my flight reservations, travel insurance, forex, airport drop bookings credited to my card before I left for my vacation. The visa fees had been credit few days before. When I checked the amount due on my credit card, it had already reached 1 lac 40 thousand bucks. The payable by date was 22nd of next month and I was to return on 12th of next month. This gave me only a week's time to submit my receipts, get the reimbursement and pay it off to the credit card co.
On 11th morning, I was checking out of the hotel. The bill amounted to EUR 2000 and I handed my corporate credit card. The fellow at the reception swipped it .... not one but many times and finally said that the card was not getting accepted. I did have my personal cards but with credit limit as low as 40 thousand. Fortunately my director was also staying in the same hotel and I dialled his room explaining him the problem. He came down and settled the bill through his personal card.
After coming back, I promptly entered my trip in SAP and waited for reimbursement to land in my account. A week passed and the credit card co. laid a nice 4% late payment fee. This late payment further delayed my reimbursement as approvals were required from different levels. It took a month before the company wired the amount to my account.
The very next day I went to my local bank to enquire about international fund transfer. They requested for the certain details of the bank where the funds had to be transferred. It took me less than 30 min for completing the formalities and in next three days, my director got EUR 2000 transferred to his name.
Sunday morning, wifey sarcastically remarked as I had forgotten to withdraw money. I got an excuse to get out of the house for my daily dose of nicotine. Standing in front of the Wincor atm machine, I was surprized to find my account balance in excess of 5000 bucks !
Epilogue:
Is this hawala? Or loophole to make legitimate money? I leave it up to you to decide :)
The exchange rate between EUR and INR can be found at link: http://www.exchangerates.org.uk/EUR-INR-exchange-rate-history.html
Indian rupee stood at Rs. 63.2322 to a EUR on Friday 12 February 2010
http://www.exchangerates.org.uk/EUR-INR-12_02_2010-exchange-rate-history.html
Indian rupee stood at Rs. 60.7649 to a EUR on Thursday 25 March 2010
http://www.exchangerates.org.uk/EUR-INR-25_03_2010-exchange-rate-history.html
I booked expense of EUR 2000 in SAP on 12th Feb 2010 and the exchange rate taken was 63.2322. This got Rs. 126464.4 credited to my savings account. When I initiated international fund transfer, the exchange rate charged was 60.7649 due to which only Rs. 121529.8 got debited which left the savings account in excess of Rs. 4934.6 !
posted by Amey Bhide @ 10:54 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
If you get the money, it's legitimate. If you are charged, it's hawala!!!!
Next time remember to monitor the exchange rates few days before and after transferring money/submitting bills. :)
I think this is not Hawala... It is just profit earned on account of exchange rate fluctuations... Hawala is something like transferring money without actual mopney trasfer... It also involves hawala brokers..and there is no documentary proof in hawala...its illegal.. Ani Wifey remarked sarcastically.. asa kashala lihayala pahije.. (:
You are basically a thief and deceiver Amey. And i dont feel good writing this. You are far too jealous and u r ready to bring people down anyway possible. And it doesnt matter whether they are friends or not. u r ready to take a small crack and break people down for no reason at all actually. If the person is much better than you than u do anything possible to deceive him. you are a worthless chap Mr. Bhide and it hasnt been good knowing you. Though of course u wont change....u'll find new ways to cover things up.
@Anonymous
Why publish a comment as anonymous? If you have problems, talk to me and sort it out. Doesn't make any sense putting such "out of context comment" on my blogs.
Grow up ! Waiting to hear from you.
-Amey
i have talked to u abt ur issues in the post....solve them....when the right time comes i'll meet you...You seem far more interested in your blog being de-cluttered than in changing yurself....change yourself....stop being a thief....everything else will stop...
and its YOU who has to GROW UP, not me.
and besides, I had published only one post in ur "self-reflection" thing...i didnt see any reply....so i did this...and even ur "self-reflection" is meant more for people than for urself....if u were so interested in changing urself u wud have rather than putting up posts on ur blog....even more funnier is that u like Ayn Rand's books....u r more interested in maintaing an image than anything else.
And I wrote it Amey. Prashant Totagi. There you have my name
Prashant Totagi ..... where in the world are you? I sent scraps to you on orkut ... no reply. I tried calling your cell number .... never got through. Once when it connected someone else picked it up. Your friend called me from Bangalore .... said even he is not able to get in touch with you. We were all concerned. You just disappear for years and return with this comment on my blog?
Give me your number dude .... we need to talk. The thief and deceiver stuff can be sorted out later. Waiting to hear from you.
This is profit earned out of exchange rate fluctuations at the time of credit to your account & at the time of transfferring funds from your account. You need to disclose this income as "income from Other Sources" if you have filed the Income tax retrun for that relevant financial year. Hawala transactions are adjustment entries for financial accomodation.
You think you are too smart , and feel that every one should appreciate your smartness. But the fact is your cunningness is evident when your writing about others. .
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