111op

Sorry -- one correction, in that example, I'd probably use four dots for ellipses. Six really is overkill.

But sometimes the older generation likes to nag and to think that they know better.

111op

I've done the Googling myself. In the search facility for Google maps, there's a Barclays on 45 Passieg de Gracia. I can't seem to locate a Santander nearby, but there's a Banesto on 37 Passeig de Gracia. I believe the two are partners in Spain. 37 and 45 are, however, numerically not right next to each other.

I can't be 100% sure that these are two banks, but if I remember correctly that one is Barclays, then this should be one of them, as I can't imagine that there are multiple Barclays branches on Passeig de Gracia.

When I read Fodor's and participate in Fodor's, I sometimes get the impression that the attitude here is "guilty until proven innocent." It's really rather ridiculous, in my opinion.

I think that I've posted here enough to establish that I am a real person who travels to Europe a few times a year. And that I'm capable of traveling to Prado and back to the airport within a four-hour layover to see an art show on Patinir, and all this is humanly possible, unlike some people seem to think! Wink.

NeoPatrick

Janis, I know what you mean -- I agree with you totally, and really am having trouble believing that the entire ATM process has changed that drastically since last year. But if someone says that an ATM showed the exchange rate or the amount of dollars it would cost or even what the temperature is back home -- well, who are we to argue?

Robert2533

lincasanova and others, because of the incident in Madrid in March, we have stopped using the Bank of Santander, but continue to use BBVA, Caja Madrid and many other banks, including Barclays without encountering this problem. It may have something to do with the Bank of Santander being involved with the sub prime mortgage business.

111op

NeoPatrick & Janis, why not open up an account at Citibank? I'll pay for your tickets to Brussels. Withdraw some money from the Citibank ATM (I hope it's still there) near Gare Centrale and see that the ATM indeed displays the dollar equivalent (or enough to let you know what the exchange rate is).

If this doesn't happen, I want my money back x 2. How's that for a bet?

Don't argue because there's really nothing to argue. I'm not blind. I'm fairly young. My memory is fine. And last, I'm not an idiot. Thanks!

111op

By the way, Robert, I thought that Santander escaped from this all relatively unscathed. Didn't they buy a stake in ABN Amro, along with Fortis? I can't remember exactly. But whatever stake and whichever bank they bought, they flipped the stake faster than any one else.

Instead Fortis got burned and had to be bailed out by the Dutch and Belgian governments.

I guess Santander is covering its losses by charging 10% on FX transactions. Ha ha.

NeoPatrick

Now wait a minute. You are talking about a Citibank ATM that you were using? I thought you were saying it was a Spanish bank ATM. If it was a Citibank, then what's all this talk about googling for Barclay's and other banks? Meanwhile, now you're saying that it was a Citibank card in a Citibank ATM and that is why you cancelled the transaction -- because you didn't like their rate? Or if you are saying that the Citibank ATM in Belgium told you about your own Citibank account and a rate, that's quite a different matter. I thought we were talking about a European bank in Spain.

My point and I assume Janis's is that a European Bank won't tell you how much your home bank is going to charge you, nor will it tell you the exchange rate or the number of dollars. Of course your own bank's ATM might.

But if you say the one YOU used in Spain did that, well . . .OK, if you say so.

111op

No, it's an ATM in Barcelona.

But Citibank ATMs in Europe have been displaying the exchange rates implicitly for years.

I think all this is quite clear from my posts actually, Patrick. If they are not clear, then maybe try taking some reading classes. Or read something else, as my posts don't seem to agree with you.

I can also offer this bet. Why don't we all fly to Barcelona together and use my ATM card and see what the screen says? The loser picks up all the travel costs. That's fair, isn't it?

NeoPatrick

OK, if we're going to talk about being clear.

You were NOT using a Citibank ATM in Spain where the problem happened, right? That sure is how I read it. So who in the world cares if a Citibank ATM in Belgium tells you what your balance is on their/your own account, or what the actual charge will be? What on earth does any of that have to do with the entire issue of this European bank that supposedly told you what the exchange rate was, you cancelled the transaction, and now your bank says you didn't?

My point is simply that a European bank ATM will NOT do that. And you sure seemed to make clear that it was a European ATM that DID show you the exchange rate and dollar cost. Is that NOT right?

Now is that clear, or do you need to make more snarky comments about people being too old or unable to read?

111op

Let me just clarify.

The Citibank ATM usually displays a message along the lines of "I'm about to deduct xx.yy dollars from your account. Is that OK?" Something like this anyway.

I'm not sure this is unique to Citicard holders. This messsage appears after you specify an amount in Euros you want to withdraw. I don't know why this feature should be unique to Citibank only. So when the Spanish ATM did something similar, I didn't think much of it. I just thought that it was normal.

In any case, I think the sequence of posts speaks quite well for themselves. So I'll conclude this exchange for the moment with one last "snarky" remark. I was brought up to "respect" the elderly.

So I'm letting it rest for now, people. Peace. Thanks!

And I'm more interested in checking prices on trips I'm about to take. I'll respond when there's something more relevant and worth responding to. Enjoy your evening.

NeoPatrick

OK, one more comment from me. You do realize, don't you, that logically withdrawing money from your own US account at your own US bank's ATM is very likely to be totally different from withdrawing money from your US account at a non related European bank's ATM?

janisj

111op: My, you certainly do get testy over absolutely nothing.

I did not attack you. I VERY carefully did not say anything that could remotely be considered an attack. I very <u>gently</u> suggested you may have mis-remembered what actually happened. Which, by the way, you said first. &quot;<i>I am pretty sure one bank was Barclays and the other was Santander, but I really can't remember for sure.</i>&quot;

So I was only agreeing w/ you - you really can't remember for sure. So - before you start attacking folks for some imaginary slight - you might, just maybe, want to re-read what you wrote . . . . . (more of the ellipses that seem to send you round the bend &gt;-) )

111op

Oh, let me add another clarification. Actually the one with the marked up exchange rate was cancelled by Citi when I reported it, no questions asked.

It's the other one (probably at Barclays) that's giving me trouble. In that case, I cancelled it because some possibility for a fee was mentioned, so I cancelled to be on the safe side.

And I'll post these lines from what I can find from my online statements:

xx-xx NONCITIBANK ATM WITHDRAWAL Sep xx 17:15 yyyy $ 143.48

xx-xx NONCITIBANK ATM WITHDRAWAL Sep xx 17:26 yyyy $ 143.48

xx-xx NONCITIBANK ATM WITHDRAWAL Sep xx 10:21 yyyy $ 143.48

xx-xx NONCITIBANK ATM WITHDRAWAL Sep xx 17:14 yyyy $ 157.83

Times are NYC time, so to get Spanish time, you need to add six hours. I did the first withdrawal at 10:21, which was 4:21 pm. (I had a connection in London.)

The next three withdrawals happened after 11 pm at night when I was walking to my hotel after dinner at Moo.

As mentioned, the $157.83 was voided with no incident after I called Citibank. You can see that the last withdrawal that night was logged 11 minutes afterwards. This was one at Deutsche bank.

Hope this clarifies things further, if you need that level of detail!

111op

Janis &amp; Patrick, as I said, I'll refrain from non-essential comments. I think that our posts speak for ourselves. Let's just leave it at that.

It's a meaningless discussion unless you've got something useful to add, and you really don't at the moment. Time is money, so let's not waste one another's time.

lincasanova

i can't believe what i am readng here.

i hope you are proven right somehow and get that money back.

one possiblity?

maybe you didn't press &quot;do not continue&quot; and actually left the money and receipt in the machine that spit it out a few seconds later once you retrieved your card.. and the next person got it??

the card usually comes first.. then the money and receipt. could you have just &quot;fled&quot; without checking that the screeen went back to original messages for a new transaction?

111op

Hey lin, of course anything is possible, but I think that's unlikely. I think the machine would have beeped as a warning? Also, by habit, I usually wait until the screen refreshes before leaving. I do pay attention to these kinds of things (believe me). When it comes to anything money-related, I'm careful. Maybe because I don't have enough.

And let's say I walked away without getting the cash. I *think* that as the ATM refreshed, it would have just taken in the unwithdrawn money. It wouldn't have left the cash out for the next person. I don't know though. Would love to try this experiment on somebody else's account.

And, as you know, it shouldn't take very long for an ATM to refresh, so all of this should have happened in less than one minute -- I mean, after all, I switched to a different ATM in a different bank in about one minute, if you believe the statement records.

Plus it was after 11 pm that night. I don't remember very many people around. I just think that I'd have noticed if there was something strange.

I know this all sounds unbelievable -- and I just also don't see how they could have reconciled the ATM records for that way without finding anything. That's why I'm posting to see if someone else has had this experience.

But I've also worked enough and lived enough to realize that while humans are fallible, machines and computers can be fallible as well. I am pretty sure that the transaction for $157.83 was not reversed within a week or so. So if I hadn't called, I don't know if it'd have resolve by itself.

I think that I had an ATM mishap once. In London, I actually forgot to take my card after I'd done a withdrawal! And the machine, I think, was beeping, but I must have been too tired that day. So the ATM ate the card. By the time I realized it, it was too late.

I think that this happened at the Bond Street Citibank (where there was still one). There's something strange about this story too, actaully, as Citibank ATMs are usually of the &quot;insert card and pull out&quot; variety. But my recollection was not that Citibank ATM I used. So it was the type that the ATM holds your card while processing the transaction.

111op

Oh by the way, just to clarify again, Citi has given me a provisional credit, as they did the last time. But they will probably mail me a letter in a few weeks saying that they have to reverse the credit. I hope not, of course.

I'm just trying to prepare for that possibility.

If they can't resolve this to my satisfaction, I don't know what I'd do. But I'll probably be less aggressive cancelling transactions I don't like in the future.

NeoPatrick

&quot;It's a meaningless discussion unless you've got something useful to add, and you really don't at the moment. Time is money, so let's not waste one another's time.&quot;

Well, this may not exactly be something &quot;new to add&quot; as Janis and I have both mentioned it before. But the fact remains that European bank ATMs do NOT tell you the exchange rate your own bank back home in the US is going to charge, nor will it tell you how many dollars your euro withdrawal will be. If someone can confirm that such information is now a real part of the European ATM experience, through some new marvel of technical capability -- then that would be &quot;new to add&quot; information. But until then, some of us are still scratching our heads at the entire premise of this post -- that some European ATM told you the exchange rate your own bank was going to charge, so you decided not to continue. Sorry, that's the part of the whole story that doesn't make much sense. If nothing else, the ATM can't know what day your bank will actually post the withdrawal to your account, so it CAN'T know what the rate will be then! Nor can it possibly know what kind of account you have with your own bank to know what level of fees that type of account will charge you. Of course you own bank's ATM could tell you that information -- but here you are talking about foreign banks that can't and don't -- unless something very new is now possible.

You say it &quot;is not likely&quot; that you walked away without retrieving your money if it failed to cancel, yet some of us say that is a &quot;more likely&quot; scenario than finding a foreign ATM in Spain that told you what your own bank's charges would be if you withdrew the money. One other thought still remains. Perhaps it did say something like &quot;your own bank may charge you a fee for this service&quot; -- well, yes, but you already knew that. So that would hardly be a reason to cancel.

Is anyone able to confirm that European ATMs now have the power to tell you what your US home bank will charge you for the transaction BEFORE you get the money? And if someone can confirm that such information is now given, I will gladly admit I am wrong about this.

111op

Patrick, indeed you are missing something. For the last time, find some other axe to grind.

Or else, why not take me on the offer to fly to Barcelona together? As I said, if you lose on the bet, pay me.

Otherwise, stop whining. It's very simple. Thanks!

111op

Also, let me say it again. The $157.83 was reversed without incident. Why did I reverse it?

Obviously I had too much to drink at Moo and I was depressed? Or because I love ATM transactions so much that I love to cancel them and start new ones?

I hope that when I get older, I don't turn into a Patrick or a Janis. Ha ha.