7.22.2008

International Banking Part #1

As you may or may not know from reading around this site, I live in a foreign country. I live here because my work offered me a job in Dubai and I took it. So far it has been one of the hardest things I have ever done. But beyond the move itself being hard and all the different things that are incredibly difficult to do in this country, I am having trouble with my banking at home, especially the transfers of money to my bank here.

3 months ago I was in the States for a couple of weeks and while I was there I called my bank to find out what was necessary to set up a wire transfer internationally. They gave me the instructions and I followed them with the aid of a banker in a local Midland branch.

After I was done filling out a bunch of paper work, the banker told me that I was done and that within a few days I would be able to make transfers. I assumed that this was the right information because why would anyone at my bank lie to me.

When I got back to Dubai, I called to make a transfer. The people I was talking to told me that I didn't have anything set up and that I needed to go into a local branch to get this set up, I explained that I had done that already and that it would be difficult for me to visit a local branch as most of them were eight thousand miles away. They passed me around a little bit, but they finally got me in touch with the bank where I had originally set this up. The banker that I worked with had moved, but they got in touch with her and she had never filed the paper work. She had put it in her desk and that doesn't help much when it needs to be on file. So the banker I spoke with at that time told me that he would get the paper work filed and then I could call in and make the transfers.

So, 3 days later I called in to make a transfer and the people said that it was set up and that all I needed to do to make the transfer was to give them my PIN. Well, no one had given me a PIN, so I explained that I needed to get something done, and they made an exception. I appreciated that exception, but in the future I was told I would need my PIN to make the transfer. Over all, I spent about 2 hours on the phone for that transfer. At the end of it all, I asked them to re-send my PIN.

For the last two months my brother and sister in law have been watching the mail for my PIN. They watched but never saw it come through.

About 2 weeks ago I called to re-request that they re-send the PIN. Part 2 will be up in a couple of days to explain the first part of that phone call.