Saudações e Cumprimentos meus amigos! I started a different post yesterday but got sidetracked and now I have just so much more to say about BANKING. Ooof!
If you read my post from February 8th you know that my phone that was set up with dual SIM cards, one with the US number I’ve had for decades and one for my new Portuguese number was lost (accidently left in an Uber) along with 2 debit cards and a credit card and my NC drivers’ license. Supremely stupid, I know. Weirdly, but happily no one tried to use any of the cards. The worst part has been all the freaking things that were tied to my US phone number as my 2-factor verification for logging into just about everything these days. It’s insidious, you should look into your own situation and see if you should make some adjustments.
I already relayed to you most of the crap I’ve gone through with replacing the phone – there’s been a newer crappier twist to that story, tell ya later. On to the bank cards. These were the debit card for Wells Fargo, the debit card for our bank here (Novobanco) and my American Airlines Mastercard (AAMC). All three need to be replaced. Don’t tell anybody, but I had already obtained a duplicate driver’s license before we even left the US.
Another sticky wicket to do with the cards, in addition to the phone number thing is the address thing. This involves
1. The address for the house we sold in October and moved out of in November. Everything had this address to begin with.
2. A new, basically PO Box address in Charlotte (variety of reasons to have this). Now, I had many issues getting this set up and it wasn’t really working properly until about 2 weeks ago.
3. The address for our apartment here in Faro. You may recall that our landlord didn’t put the address correctly on our lease which took a while to come to light. I think that’s corrected where it needed to be, but, hell, I don’t really know right now.
4. Our friend Hope’s address where I can have mail from the PO Box sent if it needs to be dealt with in some way.
Phew! The replacement Wells Fargo card has safely arrived at Hope’s and I’ll be able to get it next week when I’m in Charlotte for my niece’s wedding. The other two cards have been more problematic. Because of my upcoming trip and the fact that I used the AAMC to book my flights (and I want to make some changes) I really wanted them to ship that card to me in Faro. They said they would, but, of course, I haven’t seen it yet. Scott has a card for this credit account also. In fact, I recently told him to use it to pay the guy shipping the lithium batteries for his trike. So Tuesday, I think it was, I got an email from that card's bank telling me to call them because they think there’s a fraudulent charge.
This is starting to get beyond belief, but stick with me. When I called about that charge the guy says it was from an AppleWallet (neither of us have Apple anything), get this, for ZERO dollars. This strikes me dumb. I don’t know how to respond. If it was zero and there wasn’t some follow-up transaction, doesn’t it seem like somebody realized they mis-keyed something? So I’m sort of stammering about this and trying to think it through. Scott was out walking the dogs. The guy tells me that's the only information they have about the transaction. No vendor name or anything. Oh, it did come through on March 2nd, which means absolutely nothing to me. Anyway, the guy says they need to cancel his card and send him a new one, too. Yeah… ok…. Where are you going to send this card? I swear, as I sit here writing this in the wee hours, I do not remember what the answer to that was. So I guess we’ll just find out.
That leaves the debit card for Novobanco. When we opened the bank account, we didn’t have an apartment yet, so the address on that account was the Charlotte house and also my US phone number. This is important, right, because I CAN’T FREAKING LOG IN TO THAT ACCOUNT BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE THE PHONE WITH THAT NUMBER. I hadn’t gotten around to changing the address there because I was doing everything needed for that account online.
Week before last I went to the bank to try to deal with this. Have I mentioned that almost anywhere you go that involves some sort of service you are required to take a number and wait to be called? That is the case at this bank. So I did that. Eventually I was called and a very nice lady who spoke English (Vocé fala ingles?? Pretty please) lets me explain that:
1. Debit card lost into a black hole
2. Phone in same black hole (I guess)
3. Address on the account is our old address in the US. Don’t want card to go there.
She tells me that she will cancel the lost card and get a new one sent to me. She says she can “temporarily” change the mailing address so I get the card at the apartment here. My hazy understanding of this is that once we get our actual Residency Permit (appointment with immigration is this coming Monday), I can REALLY change the address and phone number on the account.
Miraculously, the card truly comes to me, in our mail box one day last week. Pretty quickly actually. The nice lady had told me that I could activate it by using it in an ATM. I think she said something to me about the PIN, but I didn’t retain that information. That leads us to today. Wednesday March 5. Not realizing that yesterday, Fat Tuesday, was a bank holiday I went to the bank (only branch in this area, btw) around like 12:30pm. Gee, there were an "purse" since the loss of the phone. It happens that it has about 44 pockets (probably more like 6, but it's too many, so it might as well be 44). So now I’m frantically trying to find that index card in one of the 44 pockets. Eureka, it’s here! I’m not sure if the ATM timed out on me or if I mis-typed the number, but next thing I know, red letters are essentially telling me, sorry lady, 3 strikes and you’re OUT. Then it prints this little piece of paper and shoves that out at me instead of the freaking brand new card I had inserted into it!!! AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGG.
Now even inside banks, you don’t go up to a counter and wait in line, you take a number. The kiosk for this (which DOES have an English button) offers me the choices
1. Counter
2. Service with no appointment
3. Service with appointment****
I have no idea if this is a Counter issue or a Service issue. I’ll mention here that there seem to be a LOT of people milling about today. Eventually I’m told about the bank being closed yesterday… anyway… I select Counter. It asks if you want your ticket number sent to your phone, having seen last time that it won’t print anything if you say no, you just need to remember it, I choose Yes and it then lets me enter my phone number. I get a text message, but it DOESN’T SAY ANYTHING.
I try again. This time thinking I’ve memorized the number. Again, I get a blank text message. Sigh. I sit down and watch how things go. As more people kept coming in, I decided to hedge my bets and get another number for the Service, no appointment queue. Strangely that text message comes through and tells me my ticket number and that there are 12 people in front of me. Ok, no problem. I’m retired, I have no place to be. I settle in to wait.
I’m going to skip the rest of the even more tedious details. After the bank had actually closed for the day (2pm, yes 2:00pm aka 14:00). I did have a brief conversation with a Counter person when I thought they called my number but they hadn’t. She said they would not be able to retrieve the card from the jaws of the ATM, but they will have to send a new one and new PIN. Ah ah ah. Remember, temporary change of address the first time??? I didn’t go into that right then because she was telling me how they could give me a temporary card. She was struggling with the English, so I just sat back down. My number was 57. They do have a screen set up with the numbers as they call them. When I sat back down, they were up to 53. Oh boy! Waiting. Waiting. I look up and it has gone from 53 to 60, 61, 62… WTF. Did I somehow miss my turn?? I don’t know!!! I found someone to ask, they seemed puzzled. She turned to a co-worker and rapid Portuguese words are exchanged. They tell me to sit back down, but they call me up in just a couple of minutes.
So this lady hears my sad saga and I explain about the address and how I really don’t want that card to go to Charlotte. She says she can have it send to our local address. Again, we shall see.
I ask about the temporary card and she starts backpedaling on it. You have to pay 30 euros for it, blah, blah, blah. I remembered that I do still have the CREDIT card that came with the account. Can I get cash out with that? (See I actually have a hair appointment tomorrow (Thursday) and I don’t know if they only take cash or not.)
Yes, they say, I can get cash. I go outside to the ATM, armed with the credit card and its PIN. The menu for the credit card is different from the one for a debit card. It’s all in Portuguese and nothing looks like it means GET SOME MOOLA. Quickly I use Google Translate. Nothing seems remotely like a request to withdraw cash. I canceled and went back inside. Can you believe all this? I swear, I’m not making it up. This time the nice lady comes outside with me, and then, because it’s still drizzling she takes me across the street to a Millenium bank. ?? Basically she executed the transaction for me. So I got a larger amount of money than I was going to. She picked the selection that said “Surveys” in Portuguese. I could have been there all day and I would never have picked that.
Man! Who loses their ATM card, gets a new one and promptly gets it eaten by the ATM? SMH.
I got home literally just in time to go with Scott to get the results of the MRI he had on his knee about 10 days ago. I mean, I didn’t get past the lobby, he was coming out so, technically, I didn’t even go in.
We got to the hospital and did not have to get a number, but Scott wanted to be there an HOUR early, so we waited for quite a time. Very nice doctor. He says Scott has a torn meniscus, but it isn’t really surgery-worthy (yet). Discussion, discussion. As it turns out, most of the time the knee bothers him is when he’s trying to sleep. Oh, we could do a shot of cortisone and see if that helps. UNBELIEVABLY, we don’t have to schedule an appointment to come back for the shot. We do have to wait a little while, but the doctor gave him the shot while we were there. And the real kicker is the shot was €30. We don’t yet have insurance or the number required for the public system. No idea why that’s all it cost. BUT, we did have to go back out to the reception area and take number in order to pay. We waited at least 45 minutes TO PAY. I guess you gots to take the bad with the good. While we were waiting to pay, I found a restaurant that looked good and was good. Quite a day. Yep. Quite a day. Oh, and Scott said his knee was already better from the shot.
Ending status:
Wells Fargo debit card waiting for me in Charlotte.
American Airlines Mastercard somewhere between whereever it starts life and Faro, Portugal.
I leave for Charlotte on March 11, unless something prevents that.
Novobanco debit card to be sent to me in Faro.
***On my first visit to the bank to report the debit card stolen, the nice lady said I should probably come back to the bank to activate the new debit card. I ask about how to make an appointment. She adopts a conspiritory stance and tells me they don't really make appointments. OK, WORD.
Uh that was apparently a big fat lie because today they keep talking about appointments.
PS., It's now Friday afternoon of an absolutely glorius day and I've had my hair roots colored. I think eventually I will forget all about all these crazy shenanigans.
PPS.,
A new Starbucks opened in Faro on March 4th. It has pastries and food I ain't never seen in a Starbucks before. So far, they are actually as good as they look.
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