To change a PIN.
So here we were. We had just landed in Lima, Peru. My first time in a third-world country. And what do you think one of the first things I did? I lost my debit card. It was clearly not my fault… Marlo had used her card to get cash and I might have given a piece of bad advice so that instead of getting Sols that would be useful in the country that we were currently occupying she ended up with more US $’s. ooops. So she decided that I should use my card to get the sols. No problem. During this discussion we had a chat with and English chap about the exchange rate. We knew what the Chilean peso was at but neither of us had a clue about the sol (2.9/$). So I put my card in, got 150 sols and left my debit card right there and walked away… no clue how I spaced so badly. Worse then that it took me two days to figure out that I had lost it. Fortunately one smart thing that I did do was copy all of the card numbers and contact numbers if I did have an issue. I cancelled it and had a new card issues (in the us) easily. No help to me here in peru, but no one had used the card and it was fine. I was just not happy about being stupid.
This bring us to part two of the sage. I still had my wonderful visa signature card. That was the good news. The bad news is that I did not know the PIN. Setting the PIN was on my list of things to do before I left… I did not make it to that item… I did not know the pin. No worries I thought, I have this wonderful signature service. I called them up and told them of my dilemma. This call mind you was from my cell phone. I believe that the rate for that call was around $2/min… America… so being on hold is even less fun then when it not $2/min… the first call was ok. She asked me my card number, yes, the one I type in the first time they asked, gave her all the information in the world, and she said she would send me to the automated system to set the pin. I thought I was set… not. The automated system spit me back out to another customer service rep. I proceeded through THE SAME dance and she connected me to the automated system… the THIRD rep was even more help. At this point I was somewhat agitated. We were sitting in the airport waiting to board a plane and I figured that I could get this done. She told me that there was no way to do this because I was not calling from my home phone. WELL I had changed my number to my cell and it turns out that it takes 30 days for that to be valid for a PIN change. I could not get my pin set. Game over…
Now the really good part… she asks me if there was anything ELSE she could do for me, what?!?!?!? I very nicely told her that she didn’t do anything for me in the FIRST PLACE so she SHOULD ask me if there is anything that she can ACTUALLY help me with. The answer was no…
The moral of the story is this… make sure all that pin business is set before you leave home. ALSO, one additional little tidbit… if your PIN on your debit card is over four digits, it may not work in foreign countries. Try it BEFORE you really need it! Yes, Lauren this means you :>