Colombia Forum

elgringuito
Joined 2021
Posts: 325

2 years ago

Is there a bank with real service?

2 years ago

Hola estimados (haha).
Another saga... I am guessing it is better to break this out as a separate thread. (I hope that is right.)

I went to the Bancolombia office today with my Colombian friend, to see about funding a car. The manager said to contact their international business office, and so after a long talk by phone the deal is that I will send my friend the money, and then he will pay for the car. (It isn't right yet, but the manager agreed to it, so we will try again tomorrow, uff).

But now the real issue is that when I was trying to buy some basic items on the Homecenter website this evening, the transaction was declined (again), but I received a notice both on email and by text that I had had a charge from Avianca for 59.000,00 COP (about $15.21 US), which makes no sense. (Not only have I never bought anything from Avianca ever, but what can you buy from Avianca with $15.21 USD?)

My adrenaline spiked, because I recently had a nightmare issue with credit card theft from my US bank (USAA), and was hit with 26 charges within minutes. I got it shut off only because I just so happened to be online at the time. (USAA has a feature where you can lock the card online, and I was able to get all of that money back after jumping through lots of hoops--but the point is that I was very concerned about a similar thing happening with Bancolombia, and I noticed that there was NO similar shutoff on the Bancolombia page. You can set the access levels to $1 COP, but it takes 4 hours for the system to update--and if there was a real issue, a thief could drain your account in that time.)

I tried contacting the Bancolombia help line, and after 12 minutes we finally got connected by chat. After about 50 minutes of slow-as-molasses-in-winter chat ("Wait, what happened again?" "Are you sure that you did not make a mistake?" "Are you sure that is what happened?") I was told that they would call for more information. Four hours later they finally called, and then during the call, the call dropped. We called back for another appointment, and I guess I fell asleep waiting for the call. We lost the whole evening to this issue.

I very much appreciate the other thread about bank card rates, but if it takes hours and hours to get basic emergency service from Bancolombia then I need a different bank, no matter what the exchange rate, and no matter what the monthly cost. So maybe I am dreaming here, but is there a Colombian bank that offers real service if you get hit with identity theft, or if you have issues with payments? Again I don´t like to waste money, but in this case I don´t care what it costs, I just have to get my time back. I cannot afford to lose a whole evening to this kind of thing.

I probably need to keep Bancolombia because they are the only bank that TransferWise (aka "Wise") will send COP to, but at this point I plan to move that money out of Bancolombia as soon as possible, to a real bank (if such a thing exists in Colombia, haha).

Alternately, is there a Colombian bank where I can send USD through TransferWise, and then they will exchange it in house for COP, so I can make purchases in COP on the internet, and withdraw money from ATMs, etc.? Again at this point I don´t care if the fees are a little higher, I just need to be able to get real service when I need it, so I don´t lose all my time. Thanks.

William Russell

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William Russell

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