I've been picking-up anecdotal evidence of bank related problems. The following was by far the most interesting from csy2k given the transaction and "geography" issues involved:
>>>Wow. Some people don't have a clue as to what the problem is. I'll give
my y2k testimonial:
I will preface by saying that my family are living and working in
Johannesburg, South Africa. On the 8th of Dec. I went online to view my
'American Bank Account'. Somehow over $4k of charges had been placed on
my account on that day. What the ...?! Of course I called my US Bank
asking what the hell was going on, had someone frauded my debit card? We
have had our cards frauded since we've been here, so we are always on
the alert for any funny business. Our branch manager and ultimately the
Regional Manager of this bank were stumped. Neither had seen anything
like this before. If it was card fraud the thief would have only been
able to purchase or withdraw up to our daily limits. These charges went
way beyond that. Wait, it gets better. Five days later, four days after
notifying my bank of the problem, another batch of charges was placed on
our account totaling over $5k!! So now we have been charged $10k
including bank charges! Now I call back my bank wanting blood. What the
hell kind of mickey mouse operation are you running? Well, they tell me,
it seems that all of those charges are coming from one institution in
SA. So they tell me that institution has sent through all those charges
all at once, and if I want to expedite the investigation, I should go to
that bank and request proof/documentation of those transactions I was
disputing. I finally get to the proper division of this SA bank and the
person on the phone matter-of-factly says, "Oh yes, you have a foreign
debit card. No ATM transactions made by foreign debit cards have been
charged since August 27th, so we have just run through all transactions
that occurred over that period. We have switched to a new system because
of the y2k and it crashed(the system is by EDS for those interested)."
WHAT!!! So what these fools are saying is that anyone that used a
foreign debit card in their ATM machines had been getting free money for
three months! Cool right? Wrong. Only thing is the money was coming out
of my account. My hard copy statement from my US bank shows some of the
disputed charges, I haven't gotten my latest statements. So, as I write
this it is the 2nd of Jan. and I have yet to be refunded my money
because the SA bank has yet to produce the proof of transactions. They
won't refund the money without knowing where the error is and my US bank
isn't going to refund it until the SA bank show them the documentation!
Bad data is a bitch ladies and gentlemen.
This problem took three months to show up according to the SA bank, and
I sit here deep in red. I work with two other people who are
experiencing the same thing, both British bank debit card holders. How
many others? Tourists? Travellers? Can you afford a $10k hit for a
month?Two? Tell it to the Mortgage/Auto/Phone/Llights/.....
Yes, csy2kers, We've been hit. One of Cory's cuts, but it's a slash to
us.
PS-Shall I speak on the 286/386 era computers one sees when you go to
pay your electricity bill here? The ones marked 'Non-Compliant. Not for
critical use.'? So they might keep the lights on, but they won't be able
to send you a bill...
Leonard
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