["Money (that's what I want)" by The Flying Lizards.]
In our first installment of Banking in the Bundesland, I mentioned some of the unique joys and frustrations of banking here while still dealing with Citibank in the U.S. Unfortunately, since then I have had occasion to discover firsthand that both systems are plagued with some of the same types of fraud.
I have a MasterCard from Commerzbank. I don't use it much at all here -- just for things that I buy online like goodies from Amazon.de or airline tickets. I used it a bit more when I was in the U.S. in late July/early August because, among other things, so many things in the US are value-priced, particularly when purchased with the strong Euro. Well, "value-priced" is a relative term if one doesn't consider all the, um, "hidden costs" and risks when making a transaction these days.
Fast forward to about a month ago when I had the overwhelming urge to purchase a keyboard, as described in a separate blog. I wasn't sure how much a keyboard might cost these days, so I logged into Commerzbank online banking to check what the available balance was in my current account (the one that is kind of like checking, except we don't have checks here). There is a helpful Summary of Accounts screen where I caught the balance of my current account and was about to navigate away from the page when I did a double-take at the summary for my credit card. Which summary showed a balance of over €9,000!!! Uhhhh..... I clicked through and was rather astonished at what I saw -- myriad charges all incurred in Calgary, Canada. I, of course, had not been in Canada and have never been to Calgary.
So then comes the fun part of trying to figure out how to straighten this mess out. First step was to get the credit card shut off immediately. Tricky part is that, unlike a US credit card, there is no number on the back of the credit card to call. Hmmm.... Looked around online and also didn't see a number to call (and it may not surprise you that unlike the US, many customer service numbers here do not operate 24/7). So I did what I often do in confusing situations -- I called my neighbors. They were able to come up with a number that I called and, fortunately, the guy spoke English. He cut off the credit card but said that I would need to go to my local branch to contest the charges.
That particular Monday I had stayed home to work and rest a bit as I was feeling rather under the weather. In late afternoon, I remembered that I was supposed to go to "my" branch of the bank to settle the credit card matter, so I tried to get myself put together enough to go down there. I figured that it would be a rather quick visit and I felt good enough to at least do that. Alas, it was not a quick trip.
The banks here, or at least this branch, are not like most US banks. There are no tellers up in front. Instead, once you pass by the ATMs and statement printing machines in the foyer, there are two regular desks. I approached the first one and asked if she spoke English. Nope. So I attempted to explain the situation in German. It was not easy. She asked for verification that this particular branch was my home branch (perhaps in an attempt to pawn the English-speaker off on some other branch) and then finally called for the person at the other desk to assist me.
This other individual, Linda, is the one who was assigned to me when I opened my account, apparently, though I had not met her in person. She is rather young, which I thought might increase the chances that she spoke English. Unfortunately, she didn't seem too comfortable speaking English, either, but I restated in German the problem, she logged into my account and quickly saw the problem I was describing.
She had to print out a claim form (which was in English and German, thankfully) for each of the 20+ charges from Canada. As she was printing out those forms, I did some research on the BlackBerry's limited browser to try and see if I could figure out what some of the vendors were. The ones like McDonald's and Wal-Mart and the myriad gas stations didn't require explanation, but some others were less straightforward. Here are a few highlights of the great week someone had with my credit card. Sounds like a good time -- wish I could have been there to see this in action.
Two visits to a fur store - €3,500
Four visits to a store that appears to be a photography equipment shop - €4,000
Various shoe stores - €700
Fine dining - €400
Seeing a well-heeled photographer out on the town combating the Canadian winter with a fur or two - priceless.
It's not clear what, exactly, happened, but the bank suspects that while I was in the US, the information on my credit card's magnetic strip was recorded while it was swiped. Someone then took that information and wrote it to a new, blank card, and then sold or used the card. While it's pretty easy to see from charges on my current account that I was indeed in Germany during the time these charges were made and a quick review of the signatures from Canada will undoubtedly not match mine given the odd way my first name is spelled, it nevertheless will take at least four weeks for this to be resolved.
In the meantime, I understood from Linda that I would not be charged for the disputed items. Um, wrong. I looked at my current account balance the other day and the entire amount of the credit card balance had been settled against my current account, leaving me with a negative balance. Even though apparently you are allowed to have a negative balance here up to your limit, I am not pleased as this makes me feel like some sort of deadbeat. I am even less pleased that my emails questioning this settlement have not been returned. Let's hope that there is no need for me to create a Part 3 of this series....
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