Keeping US bank cards while living in Argentina?

[rdcooper]

Are you able to keep your US credit and debit cards while living in Argentina? I've been told that banks will cancel your accounts if they find out you live overseas. I wasn't planning on notifying them of a foreign address change and was planning on using a virtual mailbox. I've also heard that virtual addresses are not accepted by banks and that they are able to distinguish it from a regular address. Does anyone have any experience with this? How do you get your cards renewed without traveling back to the US?

 

[gonzalob54]

My daughter lives in Atlanta so she handles my Capital One account, address, correspondence, card replacements. I get the cards when I visit her and I keep a U S phone # with me for purchase approvals sometimes here in Argentina where my residence is. I WOULD NEVER send my retirement to an Argentinian bank. US cards work well here at pretty decent rates nowdays.

 

[carride]

I've also heard that virtual addresses are not accepted by banks and that they are able to distinguish it from a regular address. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Banks will not let you set your physical/residencial address using the virtual address, certainly not if it is a PO Box. Though you can tell your bank that your mailing address is a virtual address.

 

[Silvie]

I use all of my US cards, specially when I travel abroad. Don’t lose your credit record. My cards never reach me by regular mail because the local postal service was always deficient so I call the banks to send the cards to me via courier with a tracking number and it works perfectly that way. One of my banks has my home address as my mailing address, the other bank has a mailing US address but they have my residence address here.

 

[LuckyLuke]

Personally, I haven't found virtual addresses to be a problem. I have all my bank and credit cards going to a Traveling Mailbox location and it's been working fine. It is a physical address as opposed to a PO box and I think that's all that really matters.

That being said there's really nothing you can do about what the banks will decide. For example, you can have all your mail going to a friend's house, but do you think the credit card company doesn't know you are down here when 100% of your transactions are in pesos for a year straight? Do you think your bank won't realize you left the US when the only debits are Western Union transfers or international wire transfers? That your cell phone provider won't see you on roaming 24/7 or that anyone with access to your tax records won't see a Foreign Income Tax Exclusion. We are deluding ourselves that we can hide from the system.

The uncomfortable truth is that sooner or later you will want to open an international account just in case and have a back up plan to avoid any financial interruptions. BTW, I received notice last year from Merrill Lynch that they were closing my SEP-IRA because I was out of the country. I sold everything (jokes on them, I'm making twice the returns down here), and here we are a year later and the account is still open.

 

[rdcooper]

Personally, I haven't found virtual addresses to be a problem. I have all my bank and credit cards going to a Traveling Mailbox location and it's been working fine. It is a physical address as opposed to a PO box and I think that's all that really matters.

That being said there's really nothing you can do about what the banks will decide. For example, you can have all your mail going to a friend's house, but do you think the credit card company doesn't know you are down here when 100% of your transactions are in pesos for a year straight? Do you think your bank won't realize you left the US when the only debits are Western Union transfers or international wire transfers? That your cell phone provider won't see you on roaming 24/7 or that anyone with access to your tax records won't see a Foreign Income Tax Exclusion. We are deluding ourselves that we can hide from the system.

The uncomfortable truth is that sooner or later you will want to open an international account just in case and have a back up plan to avoid any financial interruptions. BTW, I received notice last year from Merrill Lynch that they were closing my SEP-IRA because I was out of the country. I sold everything (jokes on them, I'm making twice the returns down here), and here we are a year later and the account is still open.

Does your virtual mailbox forward your credit cards to you?

 

[sergio]

A US person I know moved permanently to Mexico. Severed all ties to the US, angry with US politics etc. He kept one US credit card but later found that he needed at least one more. He applied and was turned down as he lived abroad.

 

[steveinbsas]

I've had a Schwab debit card for at least 13 years and I've never used it to make a purchase in Argentina. I used it to make ATM withdrawals here until I started using X00M in about 2013.

I stopped using X00M in 2019 when the Western Union exchange rate about doubled overnight.

Since then I have made monthly transfers by Western Union using the Schwab debit card. The debits for the WU transfers from my account do not include anyi information about the destination of the funds (my Argentine bank).

I use my sister-in-law's home address and she is also the "trusted contact" for the account. Her address is on the deposit slips.

 

[lunar]

Does your virtual mailbox forward your credit cards to you?

The problem is usually with receiving, not with sending/forwarding. In the US, you are supposed to sign USPS Form 1583 with a notary for a company to receive your mail. After that, they forward it according to your instructions.

 

[lunar]

A US person I know moved permanently to Mexico. Severed all ties to the US, angry with US politics etc. He kept one US credit card but later found that he needed at least one more. He applied and was turned down as he lived abroad.

I assume when it comes to dealing with people living abroad, some banks are friendlier than others.