Adventures in Foreign Finance

[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.

[ZenSojourner]

Well I went through yesterday and filed a dispute for each and every one of these bogus charges. This "bank" makes you file separate reports for every charge, and there are about 30 of these.

They denied them ALL.

Sent me an e-mail (for EACH DISPUTED CHARGE, so like 20 or 30 e-mails) with a list of generic questions and told me I had to provide this information and REFILE another dispute for each and every one of these bogus charges. AGAIN.

These were along the lines of has the card ever been lost and then you found it, was the card in your possession, etc etc, very generic questions that should have been include on the dispute form they make you fill out online to start with. No reason these questions shouldn't have been asked right up front, and in fact I answered them over the phone when I initially called.

Anyway it took me 2 hours to go through and refile all those disputes. And I'm told I'm going to have to do it again and again and again, so they can be sure I'm telling a consistent story (eg they're trying to catch me in a lie).

In the meantime, they put me on hold for 48 minutes waiting to talk to a supervisor, then switched me to voicemail, which cut me off because I didn't have a "mailbox #".

Jeez! At least I caught it before the 60 day window to file a dispute had passed.

[Irulan]

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

uh YEAH.
I'd go down to the financial office and get past the front desk people to show them what's going on. I'm sure you'll get the brush off but it is a start. I wonder if what they are doing by limiting your options is somehow illegal? This kind of stuff really pisses me off. There are a lot of nasty, predatory, customer-no-service card companies out there and it sounds like you've got one. Perhaps a call to your state attorney generals office, consumer division, might be in order before you go much farther. LOL, maybe a call to Dave Ramsey, too.

I've had to deal with these types of companies of behalf of a relative who has some brain damage, and was taken advantage of in a number of ways by cards.

Schools can be a total pain in the butt. My son's college won't accept VISA for tuition payments, only MC. Why? "that's what the board voted on". Stupid.

[Grog]

Schools can be a total pain in the butt. My son's college won't accept VISA for tuition payments, only MC. Why? "that's what the board voted on". Stupid.

The real reason is that credit card companies take a pretty hefty fee on transactions, and the board was trying to find a few pennies to save. UBC saves $2 million a year by no longer permitting people to use credit cards to pay tuition (since 2008). My bet is that your son's college probably got a very good deal from MasterCard... In current times of severe financial restraints (for universities funded by public monies and by endowment income alike) they are getting aggressive at it! They know it's unlikely that they will lose a student because of that.

Thanks by the way for the explanation about the charge cards!