Last summer Lenore and I went to a Dutch bank to open joint-account. Of course we didn’t have a problem and before she went back to the US Lenore had the atm card. So our plan was to open yesterday a joint-account again but then here in the US. We went to a bank with the most atm’s in this area the Washington Mutual, the one Solano in Berkeley. First it took them 20 minutes before someone came to open an account. The lady was new in this process and every time she went back to her supervisor to get our questions answered. Simple questions like what do you guys charge me when I send money from my Dutch account to here;’ I think probably nothing’. ‘Are you sure or ….’ Again she went back to her supervisor, ‘Sir it cost U$ 10,-. Next problem, I don’t have a security number yet because the process is so slow. Now the supervisor came and told me that I can’t joint the account, the excuse they have; ‘sorry since nine eleven’ RIGHT.
I’m getting sick about this excuse, is the whole US use this as an excuse. I think this is paranoia.
Luckily Lenore’s own bank is willing to put me on her account till the time I get my own number.
It’s time to think positive in this still beautiful country.
1 comment:
That's weird, me (Dutchie) and my wife had no problem at all to open a joint account at WaMu, last year. I wasn't even immigrated yet, just here on a tourist visa... all they needed was my passport and within 30 minutes we had our joint account. One tip to transfer money from your Dutch account though: go to the ATM machine at any WaMu building... withdraw money (up to $500 a day is max.), then walk inside the building and deposit it into your WaMu account. That way you only pay a few euros on your Dutch bank account and obviously no fee to deposit cash on your WaMu.
I once transferred money doing an online transfer from my Dutch account to WaMu and the Rabobank charged me 15 euros for the transfer and then some kind of quarterly fee of another 10. Also, the WaMu charged some fee, plus that it took close to a week before the money got here... so all and all the ATM-way is cheapest by far...
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