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Happy holidays!
oooOOOooo. Off to find my credit card!
Oh, thank you for a great early Christmas present — which I am about to take advantage of!
Sigh, due to a kerfluffle at the bank, the debit card is in limbo. Ten days to two weeks, they say, until they finally send a new one because somewhere in the change-over from one owner to the new owner with gubbamint muckboots in the mix somewhere, they don’t seem to believe my mailing address hasn’t changed IN TWENTY YEARS…
Of course, they didn’t NOTIFY me of this issue, so when with no replacement card in the offing I asked mid-month(of the expiration month), chicky taking my deposit at the drive through said “Oh, it’ll be here before the end of the month.” Well, end of said month, no card arrived and a trek into the bank was in line. This was, of course, followed by waiting in line to talk to another chicky (this one looked to be about 12!) then waiting in a seat for an office dweller. And waiting. Finally the office dweller became available, pulled up my account to say “OH, we need a new address from you.” To which I replied “Um, no, you don’t, the old one is perfectly valid.” A 20 minute wait to spend 1.5 minutes straightening out a computer glitch.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I’m reduced to 20th century technology – AKA Writing Checks.
Right at the holidays. That’s a pain!
I do NOT use my Debit Card unless I must, which pretty much means gas station at Costco. If it were to get stolen/misused everything would be gone in a flash, with no hope of getting it back. Whereas with my Credit Card there’s that $50 limit, and I get to see a bill at the “end” of the month and get to review and contest bogus charges.
My debit card has a $50 limit if I notify the credit union within a certain time frame. Of course, it’s a lot easier to empty the checking account with the debit card, but even so, I still do have that protection.
Me too. Don’t own a US debit card.
I’d be even less willing to own a foreign debit card! 😉
Poor weeble, I feel your pain. Be very careful writing those checks, writer’s cramp is painful. Then there is the danger of a paper cut when you try to tear the check out of the book.
Seriously, I hope the bank gets this problem rectified more quickly than they promised, especially since it was THEIR error.
I stopped dealing with banks a while ago, I use a credit union for most of my financial transactions, (this one advertises during NBC’s Sunday Night Football game), and I have a savings account at a small savings and loan that I’ve had for 47 years, and it’s very convenient if I need quick cash, and I also have my safe deposit box there.
Best wishes for a speedy resolution.
This IS a credit union! It was established long before I came to town and I’ve had my account there more than 20 years now, BUT…
They did something hinky (via the ‘good old boy’ network – probably involving loans for local construction big-wigs) that had the government pouring over the books with a fine tooth comb for about 6 months. The final outcome had the board fired en-masse and a slightly less local and more regional credit union came in and took over this summer. Somewhere in that transition, they decided I couldn’t POSSIBLY have lived in the same 4 inch by 6 inch box at the PO for 20 years and they needed a new address, so when my old card expired, they just didn’t send a new one. VERY ANNOYING.
I’m ok using checks, this little corner of Oregon is 20 years behind the times anyway so everyone takes checks without a second thought. The Debit card has Visa protections built in, which I trust about as far as I can throw the bank, but its still there. They wouldn’t get much anyway, I figured out how to transfer stuff around ages ago and keep just working funds in that account. It just means I’ll have to physically DRIVE the 2 hours to the pottery supply place to restock rather than ordering online if I need something for the next couple weeks. Joy.
Weeble, It may not help this go-around but if you establish a pay pal account linked to your checking account number you will be able to purchase on-line, and I find it is VERRRY convenient when ordering from Closed Circle and other reputable merchants…. Once you have your new credit card you should be able to remove the direct link to your checking account. I hope this gets worked out for you SOON.
LOL I actually do have money in the Paypal account! I tend to forget about the possibility of using that for fun stuff like new books because its permanently hooked up to my business account (instead of my ‘household’ account). HMmmm, might have to go see if I’ve missed anything!
Now if I could only convince Paypal to send me THEIR debit card so I could use that money directly with the pottery supply place…. They refuse believe my PO box is valid enough to send a card no matter what. Sigh. Some days.
One thing I’ve done most of my life, is patronize smaller banks rather than the mega-banks: definitely FDIC insured, but our little Washington Trust has a convenient number of branches, has a convenient downtown ‘big’ bank, but when I go to our regular branch, or to the downtown bank, there are actual people I know and who know me. Our bank’s big enough (we got our mortgage and our re-fi and such there), but not so big there’s no one there who knows us on sight. I tried Bank America for a while; but there was no sense of connection there. As it is, I may not know every department personally, but I know who to go to, who will walk us over and introduce us to someone. It’s just the personal touch that doesn’t leave you wandering a large lobby wondering who to talk to…which is definitely the treatment we got at Bank America.
I pay the occasional charges to my Chase credit card at a local strip-mall branch. They insist on having someone posted at the door to open it when they see me coming thru the parking lot. I object! But it does no good. 🙁
Sometimes bank greeters are there to take certain actions if somebody comes in looking like Clyde Barrow. I never trifle with a bank greeter. 😉
I loathe BofA. Everything is a hassle with them. OTOH, Wells Fargo has been very nice.
My plumber only takes checks. He seems to find it amusing that I have trouble finding paper checks.
Our small town Bank of America branch might as well be a small (local) bank. The tellers know my face and name and I have no problems there. When number 1 son was moving to Canada for school they handled the necessary fund transfers to his new Bank of Montreal account. When I travel (out of state or out of country) I can usually find a branch to take care of those tiresome gotchas that occur when away from home for months at a time. I also have a good history of telephonic and on-line banking, plus seriously low auto loan rates. We also are long-time customers with a credit union and another bank, but we definitely get the best auto and home loan rates through Bank of America. CDs and other savings instruments pay to shop around for better rates, but I like to have my assets spread around a little. It’s funny how different parts of the country have different experiences. A lot of it must depend on the size of the bank/branch/credit union and the actual services needed by customers.
Don’t you have direct online payments in the US? It’s the standard way of paying almost anyone or anything in South Africa, other than credit or debit cards.
Just log into your bank account and make an instant payment to anyone else with an account at any bank. Most online retailers in South Africa will accept direct payments as well as debit/credit cards, and paying that way means that you don’t have to give out your card details to anyone. It’s also highly secure and problem free.
Consider a separate account with limited funds for online payments. Especially Paypal. I am not talking about the monthly bills, just the extras. A debit card attached to the extra account if someone gets the info, they don’t get your paycheck. It can be a savings account at a local credit union. Mine only demands I keep a $5 balance. Makes keeping a separate account easier.
Paycheck? Oh! I think I remember those. Last one of those I saw was 13 years ago when I was walking the streets for the 2000 Census! Or did I actually ger checks? I forget. 🙁
Using Paypal safely revolves chiefly around one unbreakable rule: you contact THEM, even when they seem to be contacting you. IE, go to their site, via your password, and check it out.
NEVER respond to a Paypal e-mail about a problem with your account that comes to you. If you get such a notice, go, on your own, and without reference to that e-mail, log into your Paypal account on your own and find out if you have a notice THERE, inside the safe walls of Paypal. Paypal is very often spoofed and phished with fake doorways (most of which are very obvious if you look at the actual URL)…
Here is their statement on it, but I take it that one step further: if there is a problem with your account, or a general issue, you can always find it out by GOING to your account, so you know who you’re talking to. https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/security/suspicious-activity
If you observe that one rule of safe computing (‘don’t call me, I’ll call you’) you’ll find Paypal itself secure as anything online.
I closed out my Paypal account a couple of months ago due to a disagreement with their policy toward payment for certain types of lawful purchases. When they refused to let me send my money to a seller because Paypal doesn’t like what I bought, my opinion is that it’s none of their business. Since I agreed to their policy when I opened my account, I really didn’t have much of a leg to stand on if I wanted to argue my point, so I just decided that I wouldn’t use their services any more.
OKC: Christians put the 10-Commandments on the statehouse steps, so the Satanists want equal placement. Hmmmm. Can we call that unintended consequences?
Sale is useful – replacing stuff that got mislaid due to various computer problems. Now I have to make sure it’s backed up. Again.