F*cking Banks

[Glasseye]

Hate the bastards.

 

*Nothing personal to one BM mate in here.

[thegrogmonster]

I have had a Kasikorn account for years which has always been free but when I got the new card this trip I now have to pay 250 baht every year.
 

[Yesitisdakid]

Both Bangkok Bank and kbank accounts I hold I have yet to have any issues when the banking apps came into play it really made life easy. Not having to have an ATM card anymore to take money from the ATM machine is brilliant I'm never losing a card in a machine that's for sure cuz I don't need one. What I do find interesting is in the 20 years I've lived here and had a couple of bank accounts I've never gotten a single piece of mail from the bank. I'm not sure they send out statements not that I really care don't need it everything online. I wish my US Bank was as efficient as these Thai Banks I have

[Glasseye]

8 hours ago, Yesitisdakid said:

Both Bangkok Bank and kbank accounts I hold I have yet to have any issues when the banking apps came into play it really made life easy. Not having to have an ATM card anymore to take money from the ATM machine is brilliant I'm never losing a card in a machine that's for sure cuz I don't need one. What I do find interesting is in the 20 years I've lived here and had a couple of bank accounts I've never gotten a single piece of mail from the bank. I'm not sure they send out statements not that I really care don't need it everything online. I wish my US Bank was as efficient as these Thai Banks I have

Oh yes. It's not the Thai banks I'm talking about. My K bank account has been tremendous, rarely an issue. The Bkk digital, working proper.

 

It's the U.S. banks I'm talking about. 

 

Just throwing out a rant. I hope one day I can tell you personally the full story.

[Freee!!]

5 hours ago, Glasseye said:

[...]

It's the U.S. banks I'm talking about. 

Most U.S. banks are not pleasant to work with, also (and especially) for other banks. A worked at the Amsterdam office of two major (non-U.S.) international banks and in both cases the U.S. banks were the major source of problems.

[ChiFlyer]

7 hours ago, Glasseye said:

Oh yes. It's not the Thai banks I'm talking about. My K bank account has been tremendous, rarely an issue. The Bkk digital, working proper.

 

It's the U.S. banks I'm talking about. 

 

Just throwing out a rant. I hope one day I can tell you personally the full story.

I use Charles Schwab as my US bank and they tend to be on the stick. I have cancelled my US credit cards with Citibank and Chase as they became useless due to their notifications for approval processes. I use Skype for my US phone number and both banks are unable to communicate via Skype. I instead moved to AMEX for a US credit card and they have been a pleasure to deal with, other than their slightly high annual rate. Mine is $150 for a green card. Worth it to me due to the no hassle processes.

I have a Bangkok Bank Account and I have been pleased for the most part with their online services. They occasionally forget to update the laptop online service when they do an upgrade, but the mobile service still works when this happens. I prefer to access via the iBanking laptop method as I like the bigger screen and like to extract data to feed various xls files on my laptop. I have a Bangkok Bank credit card to use when someone does not accept AMEX.  

I let my Bangkok Bank ATM card lapse as it served no purpose. I use my Schwab debit card for ATM withdrawals, as all fees are refunded anywhere in the world.

The US Big Name Banks tanked on Friday in the US stock markets. A less than expected earnings report from JPM accompanied by words of warning from no less than Jamie Dimon were part of the reason for the downturn. Geopolitical angst and the Fed cooling toward lowering rates also caused a negative drag.

JPM is a significant holding within my overall US equities. It was at 15%. Hmmm - 14% now. I have held JPM for many years and some bumps in the road have occurred in the past. I actually worked for a Jamie Dimon Bank (as an IT consultant) for 5 years. Jamie and I were not close friends, but I was in the same room with a few of his immediate reports at times.

 

In case anyone is interested I use a site to get a quick market recap on a daily basis. They offer other services, but I use only the free market recap.

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

 

 

Edited April 13 by ChiFlyer

[Glasseye]

38 minutes ago, ChiFlyer said:

I use Charles Schwab as my US bank and they tend to be on the stick. I have cancelled my US credit cards with Citibank and Chase as they became useless due to their notifications for approval processes. I use Skype for my US phone number and both banks are unable to communicate via Skype. I instead moved to AMEX for a US credit card and they have been a pleasure to deal with, other than their slightly high annual rate. Mine is $150 for a green card. Worth it to me due to the no hassle processes.

I have a Bangkok Bank Account and I have been pleased for the most part with their online services. They occasionally forget to update the laptop online service when they do an upgrade, but the mobile service still works when this happens. I prefer to access via the iBanking laptop method as I like the bigger screen and like to extract data to feed various xls files on my laptop. I have a Bangkok Bank credit card to use when someone does not accept AMEX.  

I let my Bangkok Bank ATM card lapse as it served no purpose. I use my Schwab debit card for ATM withdrawals, as all fees are refunded anywhere in the world.

The US Big Name Banks tanked on Friday in the US stock markets. A less than expected earnings report from JPM accompanied by words of warning from no less than Jamie Dimon were part of the reason for the downturn. Geopolitical angst and the Fed cooling toward lowering rates also caused a negative drag.

JPM is a significant holding within my overall US equities. It was at 15%. Hmmm - 14% now. I have held JPM for many years and some bumps in the road have occurred in the past. I actually worked for a Jamie Dimon Bank (as an IT consultant) for 5 years. Jamie and I were not close friends, but I was in the same room with a few of his immediate reports at times.

 

In case anyone is interested I use a site to get a quick market recap on a daily basis. They offer other services, but I use only the free market recap.

https://www.briefing.com/stock-market-update

 

 

 

Schwab (International) is my main bank, into the future. I will slowly rotate funds into them.

They have the best service out there. And the one I trust (if that is even possible).

Anyone out there consider Schwab. They are great.

[ChiFlyer]

9 minutes ago, Glasseye said:

 

Schwab (International) is my main bank, into the future. I will slowly rotate funds into them.

They have the best service out there. And the one I trust (if that is even possible).

Anyone out there consider Schwab. They are great.

One must have a US SSN in order to use Schwab Bank, not to mention a minimally funded trading account with their brokerage firm.

Edited April 13 by ChiFlyer

[Glasseye]

Just now, ChiFlyer said:

One must have a US SSN in order to use Schwab Bank.

Well, I have an account, for years. So.... I assume they have accepted my SS number. lol

 

Now I think they require a 25k U.S. for new international accounts. But they accepted me because I have been with them for years.

 

If you live "abroad" an international account is almost an absolute these days, or into the future.

[ChiFlyer]

3 minutes ago, Glasseye said:

Well, I have an account, for years. So.... I assume they have accepted my SS number. lol

 

Now I think they require a 25k U.S. for new international accounts. But they accepted me because I have been with them for years.

 

If you live "abroad" an international account is almost an absolute these days, or into the future.

I was cautioning BMs who may not have a US SSN.

[Freee!!]

If in Thailand, I think I would consider using Krungsri Bank, aka Bank of Ayudhya, based on the majority shareholder (), with which I have good experiences.

[Glasseye]

14 minutes ago, ChiFlyer said:

I was cautioning BMs who may not have a US SSN.

 

I realized that... later. 

 

😜

 

 

And I think those in the UK have similar options. But need to do their research carefully.

Edited April 13 by Glasseye

[ChiFlyer]

22 hours ago, Glasseye said:

 

I realized that... later. 

 

😜

 

 

And I think those in the UK have similar options. But need to do their research carefully.

NP

[forcebwithu]

On 4/13/2024 at 11:34 PM, ChiFlyer said:

I use Charles Schwab as my US bank and they tend to be on the stick. I have cancelled my US credit cards with Citibank and Chase as they became useless due to their notifications for approval processes. I use Skype for my US phone number and both banks are unable to communicate via Skype. I instead moved to AMEX for a US credit card and they have been a pleasure to deal with, other than their slightly high annual rate. Mine is $150 for a green card. Worth it to me due to the no hassle processes.

I have a Bangkok Bank Account and I have been pleased for the most part with their online services. They occasionally forget to update the laptop online service when they do an upgrade, but the mobile service still works when this happens. I prefer to access via the iBanking laptop method as I like the bigger screen and like to extract data to feed various xls files on my laptop. I have a Bangkok Bank credit card to use when someone does not accept AMEX.  

I let my Bangkok Bank ATM card lapse as it served no purpose. I use my Schwab debit card for ATM withdrawals, as all fees are refunded anywhere in the world.
...

Another vote for Schwab. I particularly like their low, $15 fee for SWIFT transfers.

I have accounts at Bangkok Bank, Kasikorn and SCB. BB and K have their pluses and minuses, but they equal out when comparing the two banks. SCB by far is the worst of the lot though having earned that distinction when they eliminated their website banking. I only keep the account as it's tied to my Lazada Wallet and since it's not broken, I don't want to fix it by trying to tie it to another bank.

You mentioned you let your BB ATM card lapse. Are you still getting charged an annual fee, IIRC 350B, for a card you no longer use?

[ChiFlyer]

2 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

....

 

You mentioned you let your BB ATM card lapse. Are you still getting charged an annual fee, IIRC 350B, for a card you no longer use?

No - I do not think so, but I once slept through an earthquake. 🙂 

IIRC the ATM card had a fee when it was renewed. I chose not to renew it.

Edited April 15 by ChiFlyer

[Glasseye]

6 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

Another vote for Schwab. I particularly like their low, $15 fee for SWIFT transfers.

I have accounts at Bangkok Bank, Kasikorn and SCB. BB and K have their pluses and minuses, but they equal out when comparing the two banks. SCB by far is the worst of the lot though having earned that distinction when they eliminated their website banking. I only keep the account as it's tied to my Lazada Wallet and since it's not broken, I don't want to fix it by trying to tie it to another bank.

You mentioned you let your BB ATM card lapse. Are you still getting charged an annual fee, IIRC 350B, for a card you no longer use?

 

Several years ago I had a T-Mobile account for a few years. Then changed it to Verizon which turned out to be one of the worst decisions I have ever made. Now back to T-Mobile, still learning the ins and outs of the app and services (mind numbing at times).

 

Anyway.... with that first T-mobile account I discovered that they were still charging me some fees long after I cancelled it. It was being charged to a CC that I quit using, but was still active. Eventually I caught it. Then I had to go to battle with T-Mobile who were claiming it was my fault... turned out it was someone who had hijacked my account. 

American big phone companies are dicks, like the banks. They are controlled by the U.S. governments distorted laws which came out of 9/11. It's all about tracking and controlling. The companies have many layers to make the average Joe grievances difficult. Example... T-Mobile said they had no record of the prior phone number I had with them because the number was terminated (by me), so they claimed no connected account info. was on file. Bullshit.

[ChiFlyer]

7 hours ago, Glasseye said:

 

Several years ago I had a T-Mobile account for a few years. Then changed it to Verizon which turned out to be one of the worst decisions I have ever made. Now back to T-Mobile, still learning the ins and outs of the app and services (mind numbing at times).

 

Anyway.... with that first T-mobile account I discovered that they were still charging me some fees long after I cancelled it. It was being charged to a CC that I quit using, but was still active. Eventually I caught it. Then I had to go to battle with T-Mobile who were claiming it was my fault... turned out it was someone who had hijacked my account. 

American big phone companies are dicks, like the banks. They are controlled by the U.S. governments distorted laws which came out of 9/11. It's all about tracking and controlling. The companies have many layers to make the average Joe grievances difficult. Example... T-Mobile said they had no record of the prior phone number I had with them because the number was terminated (by me), so they claimed no connected account info. was on file. Bullshit.

Well - my post here has nothing to do with Banks or Phone Companies, but this was one of the most aggravating experiences I have had with any company.

I had purchased a plane ticket from Cebu Pacific for a domestic flight from Manila to Tacloban. When I got to the airport my ticket had been cancelled even though they had charged my credit card. They said there was no record of the credit card payment.

I was going to see my honey. She had traveled 3 hours to Tacloban to meet me. We were going over to Naval for a starter. I did not want to leave her stranded in Tacloban wondering what the hell had happened to me, so I bought another ticket. It took me two years to get the charge straightened out with Cebu Pacific. At one point they told me that they could not refund my money because their email server had crashed and they had lost all records related to my initial purchase. 😠

I had kept tracks about all of this and turned them over to Citibank (the credit card issuer). At first they said hey your problem not ours, but I got a nice lady on the phone who was willing to look through said tracks. She got back to me after looking through said tracks and laughingly said "these guys are incredible, I am amazed". I got my refund from Citibank.

Now when Citibank is the good guys in any story something is incredibly wrong.

[Trip]

Reminder to Gringos; today 15 April is Tax day and the day you should be either filing a Fincen/FBAR about your Thai bank accounts or request an extension.

The FBAR is separate from the IRS FACTA Form 8938 if you are minted and have a lot of foreign income/accounts/assets so the former is online and goes to the Treasury and the later (if you are minted and it's a required form for you) goes with your 1040 submittal to the IRS.

Buddha, it's great to be a yank.

[Yesitisdakid]

13 hours ago, Trip said:

Reminder to Gringos; today 15 April is Tax day and the day you should be either filing a Fincen/FBAR about your Thai bank accounts or request an extension.

The FBAR is separate from the IRS FACTA Form 8938 if you are minted and have a lot of foreign income/accounts/assets so the former is online and goes to the Treasury and the later (if you are minted and it's a required form for you) goes with your 1040 submittal to the IRS.

Buddha, it's great to be a

Filed mine January 1st the F Bar only takes 5 minutes or so online if you have all of your account numbers and balances in front of you I do it and be done with it very early every year

[Trip]

2 hours ago, Yesitisdakid said:

Filed mine January 1st the F Bar only takes 5 minutes or so online if you have all of your account numbers and balances in front of you I do it and be done with it very early every year

Yeah, it's easy. I'll never understand why some don't do it but seems to be the sort that also risk overstay for some reason when extending a visa is pretty easy too.

[Glasseye]

21 hours ago, ChiFlyer said:

Well - my post here has nothing to do with Banks or Phone Companies, but this was one of the most aggravating experiences I have had with any company.

I had purchased a plane ticket from Cebu Pacific for a domestic flight from Manila to Tacloban. When I got to the airport my ticket had been cancelled even though they had charged my credit card. They said there was no record of the credit card payment.

I was going to see my honey. She had traveled 3 hours to Tacloban to meet me. We were going over to Naval for a starter. I did not want to leave her stranded in Tacloban wondering what the hell had happened to me, so I bought another ticket. It took me two years to get the charge straightened out with Cebu Pacific. At one point they told me that they could not refund my money because their email server had crashed and they had lost all records related to my initial purchase. 😠

I had kept tracks about all of this and turned them over to Citibank (the credit card issuer). At first they said hey your problem not ours, but I got a nice lady on the phone who was willing to look through said tracks. She got back to me after looking through said tracks and laughingly said "these guys are incredible, I am amazed". I got my refund from Citibank.

Now when Citibank is the good guys in any story something is incredibly wrong.

 

Yep. Every now and then you can get with a decent human being who knows what the fcuk is going on. 

During covid it could sometimes take hours/days to get through. Extremely frustrating at times, especially with the 12 hour time difference.

I had a months long battle with Verizon in the middle of covid. Getting through on the phone was nearly impossible, but I could sometimes get through on a chat session, which can be good because you can save the transcripts. But first you have to get through the "virtual" help crap before connecting with an actual human being. I did it so many times that I came up with creative kind of fun ways to tell the virtual AI to f**k off. 

I won't go into all of the details regarding the dispute, but there were pages and pages of the chat transcripts. Months later I went back and reread some of them. They were actually pretty funny. The dispute was never technically resolved, but I fcuked them off. Verizon is one of the most hated companies based on actual formal complaint filings. Horribly managed company. IMO many of their actions are criminal. 

Read up (if you are ever bored) on the massive fcuking over of many people who used Zelle transfer app connected with many banks (such as Chase). People would use Zelle which was attached with their accounts. Then the transfer would disappear into a hole somewhere. When the customers filed for recourse with the bank the bank would claim they weren't liable. 

Also, a little light reading regarding Wells Fargo massive criminal fraud habits resulting in multi billion dollar fines. Not just one fraud scheme but several different ones. Jaw dropping.

[Proffesor]

Buying some tooling from Australia. The sellers Portal uses PayPal. I don't have / cant get PayPal, so emailed him to explain. He said give him a call with a card number and he'd process payment ( a little over THB 12k ) that way. So I did.

Got a message from the guy to say payment declined. No message from Bangkok Bank.

Went to the Bank this morning, explained ( 1 ) the situation. The teller got on the phone to someone and asked me to speak, so explained (2 ) again. She told me to contact Lazada. I asked "Why - it's not a Lazada purchase". She asked how did I buy the tooling ? I said " I saw it featured on a YouTube video, Googled the supplier, got an email address, contacted him, placed an order ( via email ), got an Invoice ( via email ) called him as requested and gave card details" She didn't understand how I could place an order outside of the internet. Told me to buy via Lazada, Shopee or similar. I told her the goods were only available from this supplier in Australia - which she couldn't understand. Passed me on to a supervisor, who asked me to explain ( 3 ).

Then the Bank Manager ( I was in Central Festival ) wanted to know why I was keeping her teller busy - so I explained again ( 4 ). Was then told that Bangkok Bank would only allow me to use the Debit Card; the Bank wouldn't accept submission of the card number from a third party, especially a third party abroad.

I asked how to overcome the issue. Was offered an International Bank > Bank transfer. "Great" I say, "lets do it" Then the kicker - it would cost THB 1,850 and take 2 > 3 weeks to arrive in the recipients bank account. I managed not to swear.

 

Came home, opened Wise, set-up a "New recipient" under "Send Funds" instigated the transaction., which I'm told took 18 seconds. Sent a copy of the payment confirmation to the recipient, currently waiting to hear if he sees the funds in his account.

 

My impression of the High-street banks "if it ain't simple, they can't do it !"

[Yesitisdakid]

1 hour ago, Proffesor said:

Buying some tooling from Australia. The sellers Portal uses PayPal. I don't have / cant get PayPal, so emailed him to explain. He said give him a call with a card number and he'd process payment ( a little over THB 12k ) that way. So I did.

Got a message from the guy to say payment declined. No message from Bangkok Bank.

Went to the Bank this morning, explained ( 1 ) the situation. The teller got on the phone to someone and asked me to speak, so explained (2 ) again. She told me to contact Lazada. I asked "Why - it's not a Lazada purchase". She asked how did I buy the tooling ? I said " I saw it featured on a YouTube video, Googled the supplier, got an email address, contacted him, placed an order ( via email ), got an Invoice ( via email ) called him as requested and gave card details" She didn't understand how I could place an order outside of the internet. Told me to buy via Lazada, Shopee or similar. I told her the goods were only available from this supplier in Australia - which she couldn't understand. Passed me on to a supervisor, who asked me to explain ( 3 ).

Then the Bank Manager ( I was in Central Festival ) wanted to know why I was keeping her teller busy - so I explained again ( 4 ). Was then told that Bangkok Bank would only allow me to use the Debit Card; the Bank wouldn't accept submission of the card number from a third party, especially a third party abroad.

I asked how to overcome the issue. Was offered an International Bank > Bank transfer. "Great" I say, "lets do it" Then the kicker - it would cost THB 1,850 and take 2 > 3 weeks to arrive in the recipients bank account. I managed not to swear.

 

Came home, opened Wise, set-up a "New recipient" under "Send Funds" instigated the transaction., which I'm told took 18 seconds. Sent a copy of the payment confirmation to the recipient, currently waiting to hear if he sees the funds in his account.

 

My impression of the High-street banks "if it ain't simple, they can't do it !"

Wise is brilliant

[Freee!!]

1 hour ago, Proffesor said:

[...]

My impression of the High-street banks "if it ain't simple, they can't do it !"

Wrong, if they don't make (enough) money on it, they won't do it. 

[ThaiTim]

All very interesting if you are a US citizen. My UK bank failed to send me my replacement debit card. No notice, no correspondence, nothing. On querying this with Lloyd's I was told that the bank had stopped sending mail to Thailand because of the dubious mail service. They didn't think it necessary to let me know but, oddly enough, on the same week that I was spending money calling these clowns trying to resolve matters, I received a letter from them requesting tax status information "for their records" plus a replacement debit card from the TSB who is a part of the lloyds banking group.

In the end I had the card sent to my sister in the UK who then posted it to me with the knowledge of lloyds.

 

I am confused to say the least!