Reporting by Naser Ali
(Eqtsad)- During the last 5 years of war, with the soaring prices and lack of job opportunities, most Syrians started to rely on moneys sent from their relatives abroad, to help them in managing the living cost.
However, the exchange offices in Syria are connected to regime’s intelligence, they question beneficiaries about the source of money transfer and reason for sending money. Many people were arrested in exchange offices under accusation of funding terrorism, especially if the money transfer comes from from one of opponent countries.
Due to that, many exchange offices started losing income because people stopped dealing wih them due to cooperation with the security and intelligence, therefore, some offices founded alternative that does not pass through the regime, for example they transfer money by a phone call as money is paid in a city then the same amount is given to the beneficiary in another city.
But this method costs more money, as the cost of transfer from Damascus to Aleppo for example reaches to SYP 1000 instead of 150, while the cost reaches to SYP 5000 for transfer from Turkey for example.
This method of transfer is not safe, as money many times get lost or claimed that no one was found to hand the money, and because there is no official documents, no claim can be done.
Due to high volume of money transfer before some occasions like Eids, offices take chances of that to humiliate people and blackmail them to pay the their money, under claims of system became down or stopping transfer from the central bank. Therefore, people are forced to pay extra money to receive their money.
There is no alternative to the Syrian people in regard to money transfer, either to deal with offices supervised by the Syrian intelligence like al-Haram, Al-Fouad, and Western Union agents, or deal with other unmonitored offices, and risk losing their money.
(Eqtsad)- During the last 5 years of war, with the soaring prices and lack of job opportunities, most Syrians started to rely on moneys sent from their relatives abroad, to help them in managing the living cost.
However, the exchange offices in Syria are connected to regime’s intelligence, they question beneficiaries about the source of money transfer and reason for sending money. Many people were arrested in exchange offices under accusation of funding terrorism, especially if the money transfer comes from from one of opponent countries.
Due to that, many exchange offices started losing income because people stopped dealing wih them due to cooperation with the security and intelligence, therefore, some offices founded alternative that does not pass through the regime, for example they transfer money by a phone call as money is paid in a city then the same amount is given to the beneficiary in another city.
But this method costs more money, as the cost of transfer from Damascus to Aleppo for example reaches to SYP 1000 instead of 150, while the cost reaches to SYP 5000 for transfer from Turkey for example.
This method of transfer is not safe, as money many times get lost or claimed that no one was found to hand the money, and because there is no official documents, no claim can be done.
Due to high volume of money transfer before some occasions like Eids, offices take chances of that to humiliate people and blackmail them to pay the their money, under claims of system became down or stopping transfer from the central bank. Therefore, people are forced to pay extra money to receive their money.
There is no alternative to the Syrian people in regard to money transfer, either to deal with offices supervised by the Syrian intelligence like al-Haram, Al-Fouad, and Western Union agents, or deal with other unmonitored offices, and risk losing their money.
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