Banking while cruising

Best way to get cash that I found cruising is debit card from Charles Schwab. They reimburse all the ATM fees. Never use debit card for anything else. If use credit card for cash advance they start charging interest from day you get the cash. Always get best exchange rate with debit or credit card instead of changing dollars at Cambio. Best to also have stash of modern $20 and $100 hidden on board. Many areas will NOT take old style US bills.

We use ATM machines for cash, drawing out larger amounts for the same fee as smaller amounts. Bill paying through our bank, goes well using wi-fi. We fell it secure on the banking end whereas the sending end may not be secure, however we have never had a problem.

I am similarly concerned. I will wait to learn any tips regarding strange WiFi systems. Only thing I know is to make sure you see your systems transmitted picture and your code to ensure you are on YOUR bank and not a 'man in the middle' hack with someone impersonating your bank.

I believe the only safe solution is to have a bank that guarantees to reimburse you and has a track record of following up. We use Bank of America's free online banking and have cruised 3+ years and in many locations with them. (They did immediately reimburse a $14000 mistake 8 yrs ago (before I left for full time cruising) when a decimal inadvertantly got put in the wrong spot on a phone payment that likely was my fault, took 14 days for phone company to reimburse them. I am loyal to them now.

If your bank is a member of the Global ATM Alliance (Bank of America, Scotiabank, BNP Paribas, Barclays, Deutsche Bank 24 and Westpac), you'll be able to access ATM's at other member banks as you cruise for free. SCOTIABANK is throughout the Caribbean.

Other ideas: I have heard and assume without knowing that if you use foreign computers for banking, to do it safer you should use a USB formatted with an installed operating system and your browser, which you can then insert in the strange computers assuming they will boot off USBs, & that will save your cache to the USB.

As to keystroke hacking... If you use any foreign keyboard make sure there is nothing plugged between the keyboard of a foreign computer console - machine as there are a number of keystroke recorders that use that method.

Hayden:

We've been using on-line banking since retiring in 2003. We set up any recurring bills to pay automatically from our checking account and use several credit cards - VISA for cash advances and a Mastercard for purchases. We use the Mastercard as there are no foreign transaction fees on our purchases.

There are no ATM fees on the Cash Advances and if you are concerned about the small interest charges on the advance you can pay the advance off on-line.

We kept our banking with the Credit Union that we belonged to before retiring so there are no monthly fees on the account or our credit cards.

We set up our credit cards in this fashion - Visa 1 is for day to day cash advances, Visa 2 is for anything that we do on the Internet, Mastercard 1 is for face to face transactions.

I have a debit card but we only use that if we have an emergency.

We have had a few credit cards compromised but never cost us a penny and most of the trouble was US based with the exception of a card that was compromised in Antigua several years ago. The scam - the scanner on the door that gave you access to the ATM had been replaced by the bad guys so they captured the card info, then there was a small camera installed in an upper corner of the ATM to capture PINs. The fraudulent charges then appeared as several large cash advances in Ukraine, Rus.

I am not concerned about using WiFi to access my banking info whether it be from the boat or from an Internet Cafe. My bank (as do most now) uses SSL so the end-to-end connection is secure.

We do not keep lots of cash on board and recommend against keeping US currency larger than $20 as more and more places will not touch the larger bills. In the Caribbean we use $EC and Euro's - no need for USD.............

Bobby
Bequia, SVG

Might add - you will need the ability to sign a document and then send via fax back to your bank on many issues. Banks generally do not react or respond to emails - faxes still seem to be their preferred communications method.

Bobby

Ste Anne Martinique

Thanks for the reminder about having a fax number. What is the beat online fax service, if someone can give advice on a computer or web based fax application, as I have none presently and should get one.

One other thought - I read from another cruiser - was to make sure you have a good landline direct phone number (and hopefully a name of someone) for your bank(s) in advance if possible. The cruiser I heard about spent hours trying to get through to the bank as the 800 numbers did not work outside the country and when they finally got through it went into a call center that was not much help.

Ed

Ed:

I've tried 2 different fax (outgoing) programs - PamFax and FaxZero.

PamFax is a good applicaion and you purchase time like you would with Skype.
The program has worked well and I have been happy with it. Another one, only
tried one time - Faxzero - free for small faxes - have the link but have not tried it.

My banking is thru the Credit Union that I did business with before retiring (PenFed.org). I have both 800 (free Skype call from anywhere in the world to any US toll free number) and also have the standard commercial numbers for member services - rarely more than a 5 minute wait, Credit Card Services, and home loan division). Can never really get the same person but once you start working an issue you can get the same person back pretty easily till the
issue is resolved. Found out recently that emails are last in que when it comes to a problem - was told to fax a signed letter and it is acted on the same day.

We also have everything we do set up so that we can email or fax a rep - Home Owners, Flood, Car and Boat insurance, LTC policy, all of our investment services, etc.

We've probably gone overboard trying to cover ourselves with different type of credit and debit cards but the last thing you want (or need) out here is to have a problem with the plastic.

Bobby

In Australia ATM's are everywhere, but you need the local currency to eat. The notes are plastic so you can go swimming with your money. The notes will even survive accidentally left in the washing machine.
Scammers are active here, unfairly blamed on "Rumanian Gypsies" who as a group are non existent locally.
I never use Wifi any more or Internet cafe's for banking. An IPad with 3G is the safest way to do your financial business.

Mark

Mark:

May work for you but not practical in most areas of the world. I choose on-line secure banking and get the local currency from an ATM when needed.

Bobby
Grande Anse d' Arlet, Martinique

We have an old friend and his assistant at Merrill/BOA who takes care of us...investments and banking. We always have $50 paid to the charge card cuz we can never remember what day it is and get it paid on time....am not proud of this! Our account does pay for our safety deposit box too. We get so many wire transfers a year for stuff like insurance and several accounts are auto deducted regularly. They also arrange for our taxes to be done and filed.

We have pulled up banking records on wifi all over the world and never had a problem in 7 years living aboard. Our son the whiz has convinced us that the bank is as safe as possible. We actually opened an account in Australia when we were there for 6 months and many folks did that in NZ having a bunch of money wired at once when the exch rate was good.

I think we only had problems getting cash in Sudan and Yemen but we knew that. Everyone needs a good hiding place for $ on the boat. Otherwise we use debit card everywhere and the cost of changing money is just one of the prices we pay....kills me. tho! I don't want to know how much it has cost us over the years.

One handy thing I did was make a complete list of all accounts, insurance, info on us, the boat and even access to email and other net groups and I hid it on the net in a double locked document but one we can access in an emergency and that our son can access if we don't turn up as expected.