Here There and Everywhere

Expat wanderer

Holiday Greetings from your Bank

Can anything else go wrong? Fortunately, I have a great sense of humor. But here is my worst nightmare come true.

Money is protection, right? Credit is money where carrying cash could be dangerous or inconvenient. Living overseas, we use our credit cards often, because it is easy to pay it off every month from the bank.

I am a little obsessive, I pay the bill, and then I check to insure that the bill has been paid. I saw my credit card register the recent payment, and then, a couple days later, to my astonishment, I saw the payment disappear. It was “reversed”.

Long story short, the credit card bank refused a BANK CHECK from my bank. The credit card bank said it came back saying “unable to find account” but the bank says the credit card bank failed to endorse it. Everyone agrees this is not my fault but meanwhile – I have a large check that is neither in my bank account nor has it paid off the credit card.

The credit card company says they submitted the check again, with their endorsement (they agree that they didn’t endorse it) and that the bank sent it back again. The bank says that didn’t happen, that the check was only submitted once. I believe some clerk somewhere made one little mistake and created this problem, but meanwhile, it is tying up MY money!

Meanwhile, snow storms hit Denver, and the credit card company has been unable to do any customer service for days, since all the banks, etc. were unmanned – people couldn’t get to their jobs. And now starts the Christmas holiday season when . . . the banks will be closed for at least three days.

And my father dies, and I need to quickly have an airline ticket, car rental, all the usual expenses of travelling.

Fortunately, we have stashes here and there we can draw from, and are not too worried about this. We know it will be resolved eventually, but I am insisting that the two banks work it out and make sure I don’t have to pay any charges on the amount that I PAID with a BANK CHECK. The bank calls daily to keep me up to date – up to date meaning that there is no progress.

Happy Holidays to you, Uncle Scrooge!

December 23, 2006 - Posted by | Christmas, Communication, ExPat Life, Family Issues

4 Comments »

  1. It’s this kind of thing that annoys the hell out of me. There’s alwys these little glitches. I had to hand in a check from an American bank account into my Kuwaiti Bank and it took them maybe 3 weeks to put it in! Annoying as hell.

    Inshalla you’ll hear an actual decent update soon habeebty.

    1001 Nights's avatar Comment by 1001 Nights | December 23, 2006 | Reply

  2. I’m sorry for your loss.
    Keep calling the CC company, one way or another you’d be able to talk to a manager and explain. Insist on what’s rightfully yours. They done that to me a lot. They always managed to discover their mistake and return my money. Unfortunately, they deduct few points from my credit score.

    coolfreak's avatar Comment by coolfreak | December 23, 2006 | Reply

  3. oh my goodness ya khalti.

    as my father says, “no virtue goes unpunished” :-).

    adiamondinsunlight's avatar Comment by adiamondinsunlight | December 23, 2006 | Reply

  4. Thank you, dear friends, for commiserating with me. The good news is that both banks agree I am not at fault. They are just dickering now over how it will be resolved. And I will not know until Wednesday or so because of the holidays and travel, etc. Aaaaarrrghhhhhh!

    intlxpatr's avatar Comment by intlxpatr | December 24, 2006 | Reply


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