I’ve been here two months now…and sometimes it feels like I just arrived and other times I feel like 5 months is almost over. This past weekend we went to Bogota to meet the other two Fulbrighters – one living in Bogota and the other in Medellin. It was great to share our similar stories of trials and tribulations, as well as progresses and pleasures. But I will share more on that later…because I must tell you my bank story…
So, I opened a Colombian bank account mostly because I can only pay my monthly rent via local bank transfer. Opening the account was not that difficult, but I soon realized that it’s harder than I thought to get money from my US bank into my Colombian account. There are two options…(A) go to the ATM with a credit card and take out a max of COP 2,000,000 (Colombian pesos) per day. Which sounds like a lot, but is about USD $414, and you can only take out COP 600,000 (US$124) at a time, with a fee of about $5 per time. OR (B) have a friend do an international wire transfer for a lump sum and not deal with the ATM. So, thanks to Betsy, I went with option B, thinking this is quicker, cheaper and easier. Well, I was wrong.
I transferred money from my US account to Betsy’s (same bank) and got her all my info and she went into the bank in New Hampshire to do an international wire transfer on Feb 21 (because you can only do it in person). They said it would take 3-5 days to arrive in my account.
After 7 workdays (días hábiles, new word I learned!), there was no money in my account. I went into my Colombian bank and they told me to call the international office. I called the office and they said they had no record of the money entering the country. Besty called the US bank…they said the money has left the country and it’s no longer in their hands. I called the international office again and they told me to file a trace (rastreo de giro, another new word!) Then Betsy had her bank do a trace also. After four weeks, two traces from both countries, numerous phone calls in both countries and several in-person visits in both countries, the money still has not shown up in my account.
Finally, someone explained to me what happened. I opened my bank account with my passport number as my ID. Then I received my Colombian ID card and I updated my information to that number (bad timing and totally my fault). So, apparently the money entered Colombian bank headquarters and was “attached” to my passport number, but it must have been that same day that I changed my ID number, because when they went to transfer it to my account the ID was not the same as it was the day it entered the country, so they can’t move it into my account. I went back to the bank to ask if I could change the data back to my passport number so the money would come in and they said I could not make another change. So now this “digital” money is stuck in no-man’s land. Besty had the US bank do several traces and then try to cancel the wire and get the money returned to US, but they had problems getting through to the Colombian bank and the cancellation can’t happen until the trace is done, which takes 5 days or more.
So today, March 21 (exactly one month later), I went into the bank because I got an email saying “transferencia exitosa” (successful transfer), but there was nothing in my account. The very friendly and patient bank teller looked up my account under both passport and Colombian ID numbers and found that today, the money transfer was canceled and sent back to Betsy’s US account. So, we will see when it gets returned, but at least there is progress and the money is accounted for…somewhere in digital money land.
In the meantime, I do have money, as I am doing option A mentioned previously. Lots of ATM withdrawals (with Zuri as my bodyguard), quickly stuffing cash into my purse and then taking a number to wait in a loooooong line (usually about an hour +) to make a deposit before leaving the bank. And going back to do it again the next day, because I can only do $414 a day, and less if the ATM runs out of cash…as was the issue today!
(I will update post as story evolves, and hopefully resolves!)
