Segitseg

(Help)

Imagine going to a foreign country for three months. You get a debit card to "manage" your finances. It makes sense, and it's what you are used to in your home country. At the end of the three months, you go to the ATM and access your account, to remove as much money as you can; after all, why leave it in that country. Three days later you are home, go online, only to discover that you have racked up $350 in over-draft charges. And these were dated after you had arrived home.

This is the real experience of my colleague's boyfriend.

At this point, your only recourse is to somehow contact "customer service" at the card-holding bank to get some information on how this happened. (I say somehow, because how do you get in contact with that bank in the foreign country.) You go online and find that you can get "customer service" in a chat setting. But the language barrier is a bit of a problem, even with your girlfriend sitting there and translating for you. After two hours you realize you have not gotten anywhere.

Here's the cultural problem: In your country, a debit card is used for every non-cash transaction, and your balance is IMMEDIATELY debited for your purchase or cash withdrawal. In a sense there is no need for a check register or ledger sheet to keep track of your balance. Your receipt tells you your new balance--every time you use your card. But in the foreign country where you were for the summer, some of your transactions are posted two, even three days after the purchase. You don't know this, because you don't know the system, and you have a bit of a problem with the language barrier. When you checked your balance before returning home, you failed to realize that some of your purchases from two and three days ago were not debited from your account.

In Hungary $350 is a third of your monthly income. I usually multiply by six to get a feeling for the difference. In other words, it feels like you owe the bank $2100!

So then, maybe you can get some help from someone who can speak the language. And you find another colleague who has an online phone plan that will allow you to be on hold for twenty or thirty minutes without amassing a huge phone bill. When an associate is finally reached, and the problem is explained and debated, the associate says, "Well, one must always be aware of his balance in the account. We're sorry for the confusion and misunderstanding."

My colleague's boyfriend was able to get a $200 "courtesy credit" applied to his account, and another double payment that he made was going to be reviewed. Hopefully there will be a total $340 swing in his favor. My flat-mate Sharon and I were happy to help, but it's quite frustrating to be caught in such a situation where you feel trapped and can't find your way out. This does happen when you live in a different country; it's part of the adjustment that must happen.

Hopefully you get a better understanding of the difficulty of learning to live in another culture.