International Banking Fixed? Well, At least the movers got paid

Hoo RaH!! The transfer we made last night went through without a hitch!!!   The movers are paid, and all is well in the world today, at least for now. ;-D.  I spent the day on the phone yesterday, pitching a hissy fit and probably sounding like a deranged person with a bag full of weapons, but I finally got hold of someone who was interested enough to help. 

Seems like the answer, in reality, is very simple.  The first bank officer I spoke to a month ago should have told me that SafePass has to be set up inside the US.  Then you opt for a SafePass card rather than give them a cellular number.  Use the card for the first time in the US, and after that it can be used anywhere in ther world.

I am still skeptical, but at least I won't be ripping someone's heart out with my fingernails.

Update - International Banking - Not fixed

Thursday we decided to have our daughter make an interbank transfer to pay our mover the ransom he wants to finally ship our household goods and the Xterra.  Since both banks are in Miami, that should have been a very easy thing to accomplish. 

At 4:30 pm Thursday, I received An email saying that the transfer was scheduled and would show up on my account by 6:00 pm.  Friday morning I emailed a copy of that email to the shippers and asked them to let me know when the money was deposited.  Friday at 4:40 pm I received an email from Bank of America informing me that they had blocked the transfer because it did not meet the bank's standards.  WTH? m I was given two 800 numbers to call if I had questions.  My cell does not allow me to make calls to 800 numbers, nor does it allow me to go to ATT Direct to speak to an operator to complete the call.

I tried to log into our account to see if I could find out why the transfer was blocked, only to find out that I could not log in. I tried again this morning, no go.  Luckily, I have the number of our bank in the States which allows me to choose to go to customer service.

I spoke with  nice young lady who informed me my account was blocked because the bank felt the there was an irregularity with the transfer, and I needed to speak to ECommerce.  She started to give me the 800 number, but when I told her very nicely that I cannot dial an 800 number she transferred me to ECommerce.
That sent me to a robot who said, "I am sorry.  There are no associates to take your call.  Please call again during our regular business hours, Monday thru Friday......

I know the problem is that we have made several large transfers in the last month, and they are suspicious of fraud.  I don't care!!!  Who died and left Bank of America our legal guardian.  What court did they take us to and declare us  non compos mentis?  It is our money, and for a month the only way we have been able to us  it is to pay bills.  Now we can't even do that.  To make matters worse, the mover will not ship until they are paid, and they have a right to auction off our belongings if they have not been paid within 30 days.  Tomorrow is 30 days.

I am so angry I could chew nails and spit tinfoil.  If I have to go to Miami to fix this, I will fix it by closing out all my accounts.

International Banking Problem Solved.....sort of

Prior to the closing on the sale of our house and our leaving the States, we made a trip to our branch of Bank of America for a talk with one of the officers.  We explained that we would be leaving most of our money in BofA, transferring money as we need it.

No problem.  Set up SafePass, which provides you with a randomly chosen password and allows transfers up to $10K USD per day.  BofA charges a flat transfer fee of $35.00 and the bank here charges another $16.00.  Quick, easy, safe, and you can do it online 24/7, even banking holidays.   NOT!!!!!

After four days of trying to get answers from customer service at BofA; getting through to a robot, who transferred me to another robot, etc, etc, only to have the call dropped, I had a chat with an online customer service agent.  She looked into the matter and told me that I could not set up SafePass, because you need a cell phone based in the US, to which they send the randomly selected pass code.  She did say that our bank here could request the transfer.

Then she transferred me to the wire transfer department, who informed me that they do not do wire transfers .  HUH?  Anyway, the nice young lady suggested I could go to my nearest BofA branch and they would be glad to assist me.  There was complete silence for a minute after I told her that I was looking out my back window at the jungle, and the nearest BofA branch was a 2 hr 25 min flight to Miami.

In the meantime, Macho Man has been to the bank here several times asking what we can do, because we have a 40 ft. container, on a ship, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, getting closer and closer to Puerto Cortes, and the mover's agent wants almost $5K USD before the ship docks.  The bank manager tells him that only the bank who holds the money can initiate the transfer, which makes perfect sense.

The next customer service agent I spoke to doesn't understand why our bank will not initiate the transfer, but suggests as an option that we give our passcodes to our BofA account to someone we trust, and let them make the transfer.  We thought about this and called our daughter and asked her if she would help, to which she agreed.

In order to help her out as much as possible, I decided to set up SafePass for her from here, and at the proper time entered her telephone number and clicked Submit.  Immediately there was an error message that there was a problem setting up SafePass on our accounts, and we should contact customer service.

Okay!!  Back to the robot, etc, etc, at almost $3.00 per minute.  When I finely got to a human and explained to her I was almost completely bald from pulling my hair out, she said, "Mrs. Ramirez, you are trying to set up SafePass from a foreign computer, and for security purposes we don't allow that."  This is the same foreign computer from which I have been paying bills since we got here.

So, back to our daughter.  Again she steps up to the plate, gets SafePass, and transfers $200. USD to our account here.  The next day, Thursday, we get a notice from BofA saying our transfer has been made and the money is in Honduras.  Maybe so, but our bank denies it. 

Then we made our road trip, and while at Banana Beach we explained the problem to our new friend, Rand.
Rand tells us he has not gone through that hassle in years.  Just take our ATM card to our local bank and withdraw the money.  Then make a deposit to our account.  Voila, instant money,  no fees!

It works!  The mover is happy, we are happy, and now we know how it is done.  Oh, the $200. that BofA wired Thursday?  It got here today.  We don't know where it was for four days.