recomendation for U.S Bank and a rant

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

There was a time in France where all the autopay systems required chip and pin cards. The vast majority of U.S. cards are chip and signature, which is different and not accepted by those chip and pin machines. A few credit unions and specialized cards like the Wise card are chip and pin so it's worth getting the Wise card for that alone.
I've noticed that they've moved away from the chip and pin requirement in Europe over the past 7-8 years, so if you're in a big city with newer infrastructure or eastern Europe where they've only recently installed the equipment you're fine. But rural France still has some of the old equipment, and it's really bad in the overseas departments like Guadalupe.

I do believe an old system was the problem although the only card that worked was a chip but the system didn't ask for the PIN. What really baffles me is that I had the identical card from the identical credit union and it did not work while my wife's did.

What I saw in most places, including rural south France, were machines that didn't even use the chip but instead used a contactless (RFID I assume) system. Those were almost universal and indeed were in the machines that would not take my cards.

[SuW]

Originally Posted by etoimene

Try https://wise.com/ or https://www.revolut.com/en-US!

Not exactly a bank, but might work for what you describe.

Yep, I've used Wise to transfer money from Canada to the UK. Includes things like regular remittances. You can transfer the money to Wise electronically and then send it to someone using email. (The receiver has to have online access to a bank account).

XE.com is another such service.

[SuW]

Originally Posted by StoneCrab

I found the link to Patrick and Rebecca's article on boat finances. He goes into a good amount of detail. The service that I couldn't remember the name of was TransferWise...

Yes, they changed their name to Wise a little while ago.

[Norman_E]

Don't go anywhere near Bank of America. They just locked my wife out of internet banking, and refuse to let her back unless she goes to a branch. we are in England, so that is impossible, They did it because she tried to make a small online wire transfer to a bank outside the USA. She now wants to close her account and the only way she can do it is to write a check for the balance and hope the tossers pay it.


If you can get an account with them the best banks for international travellers are HSBC and Standard Chartered. Citibank used to have reasonable international coverage, but I am not sure whether that is still the case.

[Norman_E]

Re travelling in France. If you rent a car get the rental company to fit it with a motorway toll tag. The common one is from Sanef. When you drive up to a motorway barrier choose the automatic lane and the tag will give a beep and the barrier will go up. In some places there is not even a barrier and you just slow to about 30mph to activate the tag. The rental company will bill you, but watch out as long distances on French Autoroutes are expensive. There is a similar system with a different tag for Spain and Portugal.

[Waterdog247]

We have had a USAA account for 25 years, and Ameriprise investment accounts as well. Has anyone had experience with either of those institutions for long-term international travel?