The frightening thing is that there are people who live like this all of the time.

Dear People’s United Bank:

Before leaving on this voyage, I called your customer service center to inform you of my itinerary.  I was not bragging, I was just trying to make certain that I would be able to use my card.  I told you all of the countries I would be visiting and when I would be done traveling.  I even informed you of a few suspiciously large looking capital flows I was aware of.  Your customer service representative took note of each country and the specific transactions I mentioned and told me that the only country I would not be able to use my card in would be India.

I have not, yet, been to India.  But as you know, I had to spend five days in Spain without use of my debit card as either a line of credit or for ATM withdrawals.  Thankfully the person I was traveling with allowed me to incur about 200euro worth of debt through him, but it certainly was no fun being broke and having to rely upon someone I just met, the lack of fun was probably exacerbated by the fact that I was in a foreign country.  Oh, and your call center is not open on Labor Day Weekend.  The rest of the world does not recognize the same holidays, so it would make a lot of sense for you to open up a segment of your call center specifically dedicated to travel issues during holidays.

When I finally did get through to your call center, I incurred international charges on my phone (which I had planned to use as only an alarm clock for four months) only to be told that my card was probably locked because I had been guessing at my pin.  The problem with that logic is that I had been rejected for at least 12 transactions before ever thinking to try an ATM.  The ATM situation was furthermore irritating because I am fairly certain I knew my pin, unless of course, when I got a new card shortly before leaving (the gentleman who was ordering for it clarified that it would be the same number as my old card, whereas I knew it was neither lost nor stolen—I actually have it with me, as I put it somewhere I knew I would not lose it before this trip and found it in my luggage), you may have assigned me a different pin along with the new number.

When my mother contacted you, you told her that I never said I was going to Spain.  She was standing next to me in the kitchen when I called your center before leaving and informed you of my full itinerary.  You also told my mother that Spain was on your “fraud” list, even though your service representative told me that Spain was fine, as other members of the E.U. have been for me in the past.  Additionally, you told my mother that you can only keep track of travel destinations for up to a month.  Why did you let me waste my breath talking about Halloween in Singapore, then?

I still cannot make purchases with my card, here in Morocco.  I have been able to use the ATM, thanks to my mother and brother for working to get this all straightened out to the best of their abilities.

But because I cannot charge on my card (with the exception of on this ship), I cannot buy transportation tickets for long distances (whereas most airports and many train stations do not allow for people to pay in cash).  This means that I did not get to go to Agadir, as I had planned to.  I am sincerely disappointed.  I hope that you fix whatever your problem is by the time I get to South Africa: you have a couple of weeks.

What bothers me most about this, though, is the fact that every ounce of it has been passed-off as being my “fault,” and none of your representatives ever issued an apology to me.  I did everything I was supposed to do and little to nothing of what I was not supposed to do, and for some reason your end of the bargain has not been held up substantially.

Do you know how frustrating and frightening it is to be in a foreign country without readily available cash?  Very.  Imagine that you have a twenty-year-old daughter and she is in that same situation.  It would probably be more frightening to you, were you to work somewhere other than a bank, were you to be a professor, thousands of miles away, needing to deal with the first weeks of class, an increasingly complicated car, a son, a dog and the life in front of you.  Your daughter being broke in a Muslim country with the aspiration of getting to a city about 300 miles away might worry you.  If she does it, it could be dangerous.  It might sadden you if she does not, though… because she wants to go there even more than she wants to go to UPenn for grad school.  The fact that she is on the trip of a lifetime that she got a one-time $13k scholarship for might make you kind of angry at the bank for not having her card in order: she’s never going to get to do this again.

When I return to the United States I will be finding another bank to deal with, but until then I am stuck dealing with your shenanigans and would appreciate it if you could make this as simple of a send-off as possible by fixing whatever the problem is.  The first step is that you have to admit that there is a problem, then you need to acknowledge that it is on your end, and then you need to remedy it.

I am grateful for how fortunate I am to be on this trip.  I am extremely frustrated that there is no reason for things to be this complicated.

Sincerely,

Confused in Casablanca