Stop Paying Killer ATM Fees

[jtwells]

I see that many people keep their US bank accounts while living in Argentina. I am one of those people (I tried to open an account here, but don´t have the required 1 year residence...). For the longest time I was paying the Argentinian bank´s ATM fee plus my bank´s fee (it was like 5$ US). I recently found out that all you have to do is ask for a fee waiver. Now I only pay the local bank fee which is only a few pesos. They might even reimburse all money they took!!! I´ll have to wait and see if that happens, but I sure hope it does.
I use Bank of America, but I´ll bet that many other US banks have a similar fee waiver. Mine is good for thenext year, and I can extend it if my time here proves to be longer. If I had know about this a year ago I would have saved hundreds!!!!!

 

[piermo]

hey on the atm what does one have to do to obtain this waver?Can I take care of it on line,from the U.S. or is it done in Argentina Thank you

 

[ericdharma]

That sounds like a great deal and I am a Bank of America customer as well. Is the basis for the waver simply that we are living abroad or is there some other kind of qualifier? Also do forms have to be faxed and signed or can this be done through their online banking function?

 

[syngirl]

Yeah I called my bank and switched my account type, so now as long as I have a certain amount in there (I can't remember if it was 1k or 5k) I don't pay fees at any bank machine in the world. If you drop below then you still don't pay fees on extractions but you pay a $20 fee each month that you are below. I did this on both my TD Canada Trust and my HSBC accounts.
Anyway I always just take out the maximum here to reduce the amounts of extractions I make in a mnth - Banco La Nacion allows 1050 pesos a time and I've heard Banco Frances allows even more (I don't live near one though, so I have yet to try it out).

 

[jtwells]

As far as I know, there are no qualifiers to obtain the waiver. I got mine over the phone by calling 1-800-432-1000. It took less than 10 minutes. It was very easy. I´m pretty sure that as long as you are a Bank of America (possibly other banks too) customer you will qualify. Be sure to request a refund of past ATM fees. If I had not asked for it, the customer service agent probably would not have mentioned it.
As for doing this online, I´m not sure. GO ROCKETS!!!!!

 

[Granadaiscool]

Is this charge the same for European based people?

 

[hshanks]

I'm a BofA customer, too, and have a friend who's had this fee waived, but I haven't been having any luck. I've called them about eight times now, and keep getting different stories and my fees still haven't been waived. Any advice?

 

[GFL]

Internet banks generally do not charge any ATM fees and some even reimburse the fees the other bank charges.

 

[ericdharma]

hshanks-

The problem could be based on the fact the Bank of America actually has two separate business entities in the U.S. There is a west coast Bank of America and then there is Bank of America for the rest of the country. I was working in San Diego for a while and I had a difficult time transferring funds from my account at home to the Bank of America in California. The procedure was almost as if I were dealing with another bank entirely. I am going to call tommorrow and see if they will do it for me. If this regional account situation has any bearing I will leave a post explaining what they told me.