Just arrived.. ATM fees and more...

[anatolie]

I have arrived yesterday from London and quite like it here so far.

But.. I attempted to withdraw money from my currency cards and tried different banks to see if I was going to be charged that 15.60 peso fee per withdrawal and how much would I be allowed to withdraw each time.. more than 300 pesos?

I cancelled the transactions at 3 different banks without withdrawing any money. And I come home and check my statement, I got charged a total of £7 in fees = 40 pesos and the banks here are holding 2500 pesos of my balance. I will contact the card issuer tomorrow, already sent an email and maybe go to that branch and talk to someone if I find an English speaker.

Anyone experienced anything similar?

 

[elhombresinnombre]

I think you need to give a lot more information in order to get a useful answer. Which cards? Whose machines? What do you mean by cancelled transactions? What exactly did you do?

 

[HowardinBA]

Hi Anatolie,welcome to sunny BA..How did you get statements so quick?do you mean the chitties you get from the cash points?I had a problem with not being able to withdraw cash because my home address was still down as Nottm although I was living here in BA so the Fraud dept stopped anyone from using my card,thinking I was in the UK..if you follow?

 

[anatolie]

Hi, I am using my fairfx UK currency cards- with mastercard symbols on them and they work like debit cards- they are not credit cards, you load money from your linked bank account and can use them worldwide. I have a Nationwide account in UK but haven't received my card yet, flatmate in London is supposed to send it to me when it arrives to my address in London and that one is fee free from what I heard from British people here. For the time being I wanted to try out my other cards.

What I understand is there are two main ATM operators here, Banelco and Link and it looked like they both charge 15.56 pesos per transaction- and I am hoping this will be more than 300 pesos each time and will be happy with the fee if I can get 1000 out each time as I get a good exchange rate with fairfx- normal whoelesale interbank rate -1.5% fee, otherwise it is a daylight robbery!

Cancelled transactions: you know when you attempt to take out money and at the end you are warned you will be charged 15.56 atm fee, do you want to go ahead? No and cancelled the transaction, I mean they can't assume that I took money out.

They show as Auth. on my statement , not a normal payment or money out - you know they hold your money when you check into a hotel as a deposit, same sort of thing- which should be released at some stage I am hoping.

I can see my statement online instantly with these currency cards.

Banks I tried the card at were Banco Frances, Santander and Galicia. It looked like it wouldn't matter if it was Citibank, it is a Banelco or Link charge.

 

[anatolie]

Good news about the held payments and fees, recieved the below email:


Hello Sir,

I am sorry to hear this. This seems to to a way in which the ATM's out
there are operating. They must have asked us for authorisation before
they asked you if you accepted the charge. The transactions should fall
from your account within a few days. At most it will take 7 days but
typically it is a lot less. Unfortunately we have to wait for the bank
to correct itself.

Do not hesitate to reply to this e-mail if you have any further
questions. We endeavour to respond to all enquiries within 48 hours.

 

[flippinkittin]

I think to help you further we may need your full cc #, expiry date, and 3 digit code on the back...j/k. If you go to a citibank they let you take out up to 2,400 pesos if I am correct with only one fee. The catch is that there is a law about how much you can take out, and citibank makes you press a button that says 'no, I'm not breaking this law (that I am clearly breaking).' Also a lot of banks will refund fees legitimately incurred abroad if you just ask.

 

[kels]

I think to help you further we may need your full cc #, expiry date, and 3 digit code on the back...j/k. If you go to a citibank they let you take out up to 2,400 pesos if I am correct with only one fee. The catch is that there is a law about how much you can take out, and citibank makes you press a button that says 'no, I'm not breaking this law (that I am clearly breaking).' Also a lot of banks will refund fees legitimately incurred abroad if you just ask.

Is this only for citibank customers only or can any foreign card take out 2,400 pesos?

Thanks!

 

[HowardinBA]

I don,t have a bank account here in Argentina.I am a Barclays visa holder and would like to draw out 4k dollars.Can I arrange with a certain bank here,to do just that?thanks in advance

 

[flippinkittin]

Is this only for citibank customers only or can any foreign card take out 2,400 pesos?

Thanks!

That is for anyone. I am not a citibank customer, and this is how I usually get pesos.

I don,t have a bank account here in Argentina.I am a Barclays visa holder and would like to draw out 4k dollars.Can I arrange with a certain bank here,to do just that?thanks in advance

There are a few casa de cambios that will have you wire money to a random bank in Thailand, or Canada and then give you cash less their 1% fee. I think they have a minimum of 5 or 10k can't remember. I have never used this method, but a friend of mine did without issue.