6529 Caveat transferor

I thought I'd let you all know about a little problem we've had with transferring money to the Banca Nazionale di Lavoro, though going by what we were told this could apply to any Italian bank.

Ahead of our house puchase, we had to transfer a largish sum into my wife's Italian bank account, so bearing in mind some of the warnings on this site about foreign banks, especially Spanish ones, taking commission on such transfers, we went to the bank to ask whether this would incur a charge. "Assolutamente no!" said the man at the counter.

No prizes for guessing what happened: when the money arrived via Custom House there was 258 euros missing from the amount. The current account online statement showed the correct original figure as having arrived from Custom House, but the lower figure was actually paid in.

We called the bank here in Gorizia, who referred us to the foreign exchange department in Trieste, who in turn told us that they take commission on sums above 50000 euros unless the transfer is marked AWARD (don't ask me what this means). They said the commission goes not just to Banca Nazionale di Ladri (sorry, Lavoro), but to the clearing house of all banks in Italy.

If the cretin in the Gorizia bank had told us this, we could have transferred the money in smaller amounts. Clearly he had never dealt with such sums coming in from abroad before.

Anyway, we are going to complain to the bank (fat lot of good that will do), but I think others ought to be aware.

Or has anyone had a similar experience?