US Bank Account

Bond,James_Bond

We currently have a US Bank account, with Bank of America. We own a property over there and use the account to pay all the bills and so on. The account balance(s) ( there is both a checking account and a savings account) are very healthy.

My wife was over there in October, and while there managed to lose her purse (not much cash, but all her UK bank cards AND the debit cards for the BoA account ( both hers and mine)

All the UK cards were quickly stopped and replaced, and no fraudulent activity has taken place on any UK or USA accounts. She visited our Branch in the US, the lost cards were stopped, and she was issued with a temporary card for use while there and while they processed the new permanent replacements.

Although the Bank has our UK address, and their online records show that, the new cards have not appeared. They won't correspond by email ( not secure enough), their online chat representatives are always "busy" and ringing them gets you into a loop form which the only escape is to hang up.

In the meantime we need to access about $1000 form the savings account. I can't do an online transfer as it asks for the card number, (and the temporary card has now expired). Any suggestions as to what to do? Could I write a check on the account and pay it into our ordinary UK bank account?

jonesMUFCforever

Yes but it will take time for the UK bank to negotiate the $ cheque bearing in mind xmas and new year holidays coming up.

Graham1

You'll be charged fees and probably get a poor exchange rate paying a US$ cheque into a UK bank account.

If their telephone banking operates 24x7 try ringing at a time which is the middle of the night in the U.S.

Bond,James_Bond

I have now managed to get a "chat " operator online. They claim the cards were sent on 14 October; even surface mail they should be here by now. Looks like they didn't specify on the envelope that it was to go to the UK, and it may have been sent to a similar sounding town in the States ( they added a made-up zip code of 99999 at the end, but didn't say "UK" or "Great Britain" "England")

They are (supposedly) reissuing new debit cards,,and say they have ensured that the address says ENGLAND at the end. We'll see if anything arrives!

System

They have an international access number and they'll also let you call them collect (reverse the charges) if needed.

00 1 315 724 4022 worked before.

eDicky

Bond,James_Bond wrote: »

They are (supposedly) reissuing new debit cards,,and say they have ensured that the address says ENGLAND at the end. We'll see if anything arrives!

Let's hope they don't send them to 'New England' this time! 'United Kingdom' would be more unmistakable.

Once you have the debit cards, to avoid all bank charges and exchange rate spread you could use Revolut for the transfer. It works on a smartphone app. Load the dollars directly from your BoA debit card instantly, exchange to pounds at the interbank rate. Then you can withdraw to your UK bank account, which takes a few days, or simply use the Revolut Mastercard to make payments.

System

England is a synonym of London, GB and the UK to a scarily large number of Americans.
Saying that, I've had letters addressed to Ireland, from the US, arrive ok

eDicky wrote: »

Let's hope they don't send them to 'New England' this time! 'United Kingdom' would be more unmistakable.

Once you have the debit cards, to avoid all bank charges and exchange rate spread you could use Revolut for the transfer. It works on a smartphone app. Load the dollars directly from your BoA debit card instantly, exchange to pounds at the interbank rate. Then you can withdraw to your UK bank account, which takes a few days, or simply use the Revolut Mastercard to make payments.