Bonjour Pilgrims,
A short tale this morning of the wild and wacky world of French banking such as that is.
The universal ATM card here is called Carte Bleue which every and all banks here in France issue and they all work in any bank here plus there are no fees to draw cash at another bank's ATM no matter where in France you are. That's the good news.
The bad news is that in French banking of any kind, there isn't a free exchange of information of just about any kind. Our bank which will remain un-named in this entry is actually a global bank owned for the most part by a UK company but naturally it's branches here in France are staffed by French people.
In our just over 3 months here both Cassie and I have repeatedly had to contact our bank by phone or in person to sort out things that would happen for no apparent reason. I'll name a few here for you.
2 months ago while attempting to get my lab-work done my Carte Bleue was refused at the lab even though we had plenty of money in the account. A kind English speaking woman in the cue with me explained that the lady behind the counter was telling me that I had to call my bank. I walked back to our apartment to call and found out after a time that all Carte Bleues in France reset on the 28th of every month and they all have a limit that you can draw on that if you reach will leave you in a situation like mine where my card was refused. Did anyone tell Cassie that when she started the account? Non.........*
Cassie goes to her branch near where she works and is told there is a different Carte Bleue with a higher limit for a fee naturally and orders those. The customer service representative tells we'll have our cards in a week. 2 weeks goes by and when she checks with her branch, they have no record of the request and the who's on first routine begins again. Later the following week one duplicate Carte Bleue arrives for her but not for me which again isn't what was requested in the first place.
Finally, yesterday, almost a month after the original request, Cassie picks up the new Carte Bleues which are Gold and is told to activate them, use them to draw some money out of an ATM which I endeavored to do this morning. The card was rejected.
I call the customer service number and after being vetted by the agent which I didn't mind, and his checking with whoever needed to be checked with, I was told that our cards wouldn't work until tomorrow morning as they were very new. I had a brief chat with him about keeping secrets and how our conversation would never have happened if the customer service rep at Cassie's branch had told her not to use the new card for 2 days.
It's 11 AM here and I'm already confused this morning. Today might be the day that we go to get our residency permits and that too should prove to be fun.
Still this is all happening in Paris and I do enjoy living here. Let's just call this entry a snapshot of the everyday trials here that occur from time to time.
Love to all,
Sid
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