Have you heard my saga of the bank account? No? I don’t have one. “Why not?”, you might say. “You’ve been there about 2 months now.” Right. RIGHT!

A bank account - how easy and basic a necessity is that? X dollars put in holding with an agency designed to manage such funds. One of my tasks before leaving NY was to call around to various local banks until I found one with a branch local to my parents and also in Edinburgh. Perfect, I thought. I can directly like to the account overseas and access my money with no problems! Right? WRONG! Apparently because we are worried that students are terrorists there are now blocks to prevent linking to the US. GREAT! If I proceeded with opening an account with the same bank here as there I would incur a £10 fee per transaction. THAT’s $20 EACH TIME I TOUCH MY OWN MONEY USING THE SAME BANK AS ALREADY HAS MY MONEY! OK! Fine, after a bit of shopping back and forth I decide that I’ll use the Bank of Scotland because then I apparently have NO fees to access the money (get that!) other than basic $1.50 ATM charges. Great. That’s what I’d expect. Additionally, the school has had SEVERAL people speak to us on different occasions counselling the GEP students on how to open an account and they have suggested either Royal Bank of Scotland (who were majorly obnoxious Royal pains when I enquired about a student account and strongly indicated that there would be no account available to me) or BoS. So I opt to open an account with Halifax(BoS). Based upon the school’s recommendation and following the instructions provided, I request a letter from the school to be sent to my dorm room (this all happening back in August within the first few weeks of arrival and squeezed in between the 9-5 M-F classes) which takes just under two weeks. I take my letter down to the nearest branch and ask the teller to open the two accounts we were told THE DAY BEFORE to request. She smiles and informs me I am not eligible to apply for the second type of account because I need to have been living in the country for at least 3 months AND have had a successful account with them for at least 6 months but she would be happy to open the first account and no there is no need to provide the letter from the school because the second stage of my application is a letter sent from the bank to my housing which I will need to sign and mail back in order to verify my address. OK. Wasted weeks aside, I’m not going to be living there by the time this whole circle is completed! It is fine - I can just inform them of my change of address once I have the new information. The letter arrives; I sign it and mail it back. And then I move. To be safe, I request that Pollack Halls forward my mail as there is both a theoretical package and this bank card due to arrive any day. Needless to say, neither ever arrives. After another several week wait I stop by the bank to verify they have the correct current address. The man has no record of me on file. Full stop. OK. He suggests I bring in a copy of the letter I mailed back to the bank to prove I have applied for the account. OK. I leave and try to not hyperventilate recalling that already I have encountered different answers from different tellers. Besides which I might have some paperwork from the first round of visits and will see if any of the numbers are within that stack. Go home, return, get a different teller and request a change of address but am immediately stopped with a, “we need a bill mailed to your current address to prove who you are.” But I have my passport, my student ID and my California license? Isn’t that enough proof? I’m requesting a change of address so that the paperwork doesn’t get lost in the mail! NO. They need proof of my new address. It’s rather fishy that I keep moving around after such short times living at each residence anyway, don’t I think? NO! I don’t think it’s fishy at all! The first place was temporary student housing, I am now in my full-time residence AND I TOLD YOU WHEN I APPLIED THAT THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN! Well, there is no proof of that being true. BUT HERE’s my STUDENT I.D.! Too bad, they cannot change my address without a bill. OK! Stop by Pollack Halls in the hopes that I have tried too late to apply for the change of address and the card is waiting. I’m sorry, they don’t have any mail for me and if it did arrive they would return to sender because I no longer stay at the halls. Who told me that they would forward the mail because that’s not their policy and this alleged book which I SIGNED is a mystery to them. There is nothing anywhere with my current information and it wouldn’t matter. They would send it back, no exceptions; thank you. Fuming, I let it go for a few days. Get a bill from BT, the phone company (who by the way have no proof that I am who I say I am because they requested autopay using a bank account that I don’t have!) which has my name and address - my proof! BACK to the bank. The teller, without looking at any paperwork, hands me a change of address request form, looks me up on the computer, finds my application and informs me the account status is pending but why or what else needs to be done is not indicated; she cannot give me any further information. I will have to walk to the other side of the lobby and use the courtesy phone to call the following number, provide my account information and request specifics from customer service. OK. (what happened to my needing to prove who I am by the way??) I call the number, reach a woman who takes my information and tells me the account status is pending. I know that, that’s why I’m calling. Oh, well she can’t see any more information than that and the line for the office that might be able to answer my question is busy so she will take my name, number and mailing address to have someone call me back or mail me paperwork indicating the problem thank you. THAT’s IT!?! How long will this take? She’ll try to make sure someone takes a look at the account that day and I should receive a call or letter by the end of next week. That was Thursday.

The most painful fact is I went to a party and was chatting with American archaeology majors who informed me they: 1) got an account opened (from start to finish) in one day and, 2) one of them had HSBC so he just opened a Barkley’s account locally that is linked to his other account in the States.

I want to cry. Can you sympathize?

One Response to “AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrtghh”

1. Bobbie Says:
   October 8th, 2006 at 7:44 am

   Not to add insult to injury, but you should have asked me about banking both here and abroad. We’ve been using HSBC’s ATM system internationally for years without incident. Give up on that bank. They don’t want you. Have your parents open something up here and you have access via ATM over there. Its much easier. Miss you.

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