Adventures in Foreign Finance

[Blueberry]

ZenS-

That sucks

Try going to your school if you can't get relief from the debit card company.

Check you account agreement - usually you have a right to dispute the charges. I had my credit card company refuse to tell me who charges were from, and I disputed them since I didn't recognize them. Some were legit, and some weren't. However, it was more work for the company.

A couple of years ago, someone made a duplicate copy of my card and went shopping in NYC. They did 100 in groceries (to see if the card worked) and then 2000 at the Apple store. Thankfully, my card company caught it.

Responsible use of credit cards is far preferable to debit cards, as they have more protections for fraud usually. Plus, it's the bank's money that's missing, not the money you need to pay your bills. I understand that wasn't an option here because of school, but generally....

Good luck!

CA

[Biciclista]

bummer Zen
i hope you get it all sorted out soon.

i love my credit union~!!

[Triskeliongirl]

I am sure you can dispute the charges (but you do have to follow the bank's procedures). This happened to me. I got the last 2 charges back, but not the first one since more than 6 months had passed. I only noticed the most recent one, but went back over my older statements and saw there were more (someone in dallas was using my san antonio atm card, which was in my posession, to pay their DFW water bills!).

[shootingstar]

Either I'm just lazy or just want to reduce possibility of problems, but I don't use debit machines at all.
I only use ATM directly installed inside the bank building itself. Not the independent companies outside of the major banks.
I will try to use my bank's ATMs to avoid interbanking charges with competitor bank ATMs. Yes, it's peanuts charges....but my lifestyle makes it easier to plan small withdrawals.

It is possible..to live like this ...remember we don't have a car, cellphone. And helps me budget very carefully.

I was stunned a few years ago when my brother-in-law told me he never uses any ATM machine. Not sure about my sister. But they have 2 children (now grown). Now that takes abit of coordination.

Guess he just didn't trust what the thieves can do in terms of technical gadgets and trickery. He has a PhD in engineering and teaches at a major Canadian university.

[ZenSojourner]

This particular card is issued by a bank that doesn't even have a branch in the state, let alone in town.

The only place you can use it as an ATM card is on campus.

If you use it as a debit card they charge you a fee. If you use it at any other ATM machine besides the 3 on campus they charge you a fee. If you try to write checks on the account they charge you a fee (plus make you buy checks from them).

I always use it as a charge card because of this, or for the ATM machines on campus.

In fact usually I go to the ATM and take out the $500 max every day until I've got it all and then put it in my regular credit union account, but the last semester was hell on wheels for me and I never got around to emptying the account out. This was partly due to the fact that the only place I can use an ATM without a fee is on campus, quite some distance from where my classes are.

This account is a really bad deal for students and the campus authorities ought to be ashamed of themselves for forcing students into using it.

[Grog]

I always use it as a charge card because of this, or for the ATM machines on campus.

Out of curiosity, can you explain how you do this? Do you just tell the cashier how the card should be used? Not being in the USA I am not familiar with ATM cards that can be used as charge cards, but I can see how that would be an interesting system in some regards. Do you need to sign anything when you use it as charge card? Or punch a PIN?

This account is a really bad deal for students and the campus authorities ought to be ashamed of themselves for forcing students into using it.

It does sound like quite a dubious deal. I wonder what kind of kickback the university gets from the bank.

[Irulan]

In the US, atm cards are issued by Visa or Mastercard. In many places you have the option of doing a debit/PIN transaction, or a signature/charge transaction ( still debited out of checking account) This is different than using is as a credit account based card. Some cards are debit only.

[Skierchickie]

We got hit by something(s) recently. One day DH got a call from the credit card company (State Farm Bank), asking if he'd downloaded one song from Itunes that morning. Apparently someone used our card number, but didn't get the 3-digit code on the back right, so they caught it immediately. They issued us new cards right away. I am really impressed that they were so on the ball, after hearing the horror stories others have to tell.

Then, a couple of days later, he got a letter from our local bank saying that his debit card may have been compromised (the issue Mr Silver mentioned with that processing center). But not mine. So he got a new debit card. In both cases, it was caught before anyone successfully stole from us. We were lucky.

Ivona - I'd definitely find a different bank, if I were you. I've never heard of anything like that.

ZenS - that's awful. Your school is rotten.