This week is a bit bumpy. If it’s not because of the challenge, I would not have posted this but here we are, recounting my bumpy Thursday.
I had a good sweaty run and 20 min of strength workout. A great way to start the day in my book. Then husband drove me to office, he usually does it on his non-gym session day with the coach, and I really like it. It’s just 10-15 min together, a great way to start the day instead of rushing through to work. I told him few things to get from the groceries store and I switched to “work” mode.
I realized that I needed to pay tuition for the second semester for the girls. As I tried to see which account I should wire the money from, I realized I can’t login into one bank that seemed to have changed their login website. Then I called to get help to reset the login. Guess what happened? They said my account has been closed since July and there’s no account associated with them. WTF!!!!! I just made transaction few weeks ago. How is it possible? My brain exploded trying to remember what was the balance, and next steps, finding paper trails of my recent transition. I called again, and the lady (from the Philippines as I can tell from her accent) was super kind and spent a good hour with me. Still same answer, they can’t find my account, and she really tried to check with different people, but the only thing she could tell me is that I have no active account and they can’t even locate the accounts I told her about.
I then asked my friend who I had recommended to open account there whether he had the same issue. He said there was a change but he has no problem accessing it, and that I should escalate/document ASAP. It was 4pm and I was exhausted and defeated. I didn’t want to tell husband to avoid him getting worried too but at the end I did as it was too much to handle. My friend checked on me at night if any progress, I said I was too tired and will call again the next morning otherwise I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Now it’s Friday morning 5am, and I tried again, finally got to the right customer service, and found my account and reset the login information.
What a nightmare!!! Fortunately it has a happy ending. It was a wake up call for me to sort out few things. If you have good system to track my finance/banking transactions, please share or DM me!
Our New Journey 
Glad you got it sorted out! I have one main bank checking account that I pay all bills from. I also have a separate high interest savings account. I set up all of my credit cards to be due on the 4th of the month and then I pay for everything with the credit cards. Then at the end of each month, I transfer the amount I will need to pay off the credit cards into the checking from the savings. If it is not something that I can pay with a credit card, and it has to come right from my bank, I set up automatic periodic transfers (monthly, quarterly, annually) to come from my savings to my checking so that I can pay those bills without having to think about it at the last minute. If it is something large and ad hoc that cannot be paid with a CC, I do an ad hoc transfer from my savings to checking and pay for it. I also keep a small cushion in my checking for smaller ad hoc items.
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Whoa!!! I would have been in a complete state of panic!! I am glad it all worked out though!!!
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That is scary. I’m so glad yuo were able to sort it out but the bank really needs to get it together. Not good!
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I used to work for a Swiss bank for many years. Your post made me think about how I would prove to a bank that I had an account with them.
– Account opening documentation that was sent by e-mail.
– Annual pdf that I download for my taxes.
– Physical credit cards issued by the bank.
– Monthly pdf documents that I download of each account with the movements and end balance.
Did the bank explain why they couldn’t find your account anymore? Can the root cause be fixed so this won’t happen again?
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It was a migration of their online system. Obviously they didn’t sort out the technical parts before hand. thanks for those tips, will follow in the future.
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Oh this would stress me out tremendously. How can that even happen that they loose an account. This is scary. I am ver glad it was sorted though.
At least the day started nice with a workout and joined car ride.
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I would have had a heart attack I’m sure at hearing they couldn’t find the account, and that they thought it was closed. I’m so happy to hear you finally got it was sorted out. How scary for you.
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That IS scary! I’ve never had anything like that happen to me. I’m so glad you got it sorted out! Of course it wrecked your whole day though, sigh.
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Oh god, how stressful. These kinds of things always give me hives. How can you have used the account when it was apparently closed since July. And if they told you it was closed, how could they not locate/reactivate it? I am glad you got it sorted out.
I use YNAB (You Need A Budget) to track all my finances – bank account balances, CCs and transactions. But I am also very diligent about it.
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