Thursday, October 26, 2006

The Fear of Doing Business

People who live in Holy Land Central are going to relate to this next one:

There's a healthy dose of mistrust in these parts surrounding money/business matters for very legitimate reasons. It may be holy terrain but corruption-free it ain't. Ask the politicians - they'll vouch (off the record only, of course).

Imagine my alarm yesterday when trying to withdraw funds from an ATM machine only to be repeatedly denied with a flashing warning message that I had exceeded my daily limit. Yet I hadn't taken any cash out that day. The card, incidentally, is linked to a foreign account.

So I get home and gingerly ring up the bank linked to the card to ascertain the reason for denial. And find out that the first ATM machine which denied my attempt also registered the try as the Real McCoy. In other words, the Israeli bank is saying I received cash when I didn't.

Now it's up to the other side to investigate and I can just imagine the scenario: "She got it. We are sure. No doubt. We saw her. I personally saw her. I happened to be watching the ATM machine through the window just then. Promise. Really." Mama mia.

When I went into a different bank today and offered the story in passing, the listening clerk smiled knowingly. Christ! (no offense to Christian contingencies. But wait one minute. Didn't JC go after the money changers?)

I need this right now like I need ...*sigh*

Just another calm day in HLC. Peace Out.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This happens a lot here. It's a real pain in the ass when you go to the ATM and just get a receipt saying you withdrew $$ but no $$ - then you have to GO INSIDE which you were trying to AVOID in the first place. UGH! :)h

Toto said...

This happened to my hubby back in May. If I wasn't back in florida checking the account I would have missed it. I was just being nosy and asked him why he took out money twice on a certain day. BUT HE DIDN"T. So when he got back to Florida, the bank there had to investigate and eventually put the money back into our account. not fun, but you have to be strong! good luck!