I need to go on a little rant!
The Schwab ATM fee reimbursement is a gimmick like the best rate guarantee by travel companies.
Almost 3 weeks ago I withdrew cash at an ATM at a bank next door to my apartment because I needed cash and didn't feel like driving a few miles to a BoA atm where I can use my BoA atm card for no fees obviously.
I just opened my Schwab account a few months ago so I figured this would be the perfect chance to try out taking cash out of any bank atm with a schwab debit card.
I read the terms and Schwab says they reimburse withdrawal fees only, thats fine with me, so I stick my Schwab card into the atm, read the prompts, agree that I will be charged a 2 dollar atm withdrawal fee and that it will be combined into one transaction. So I withdraw 40 dollars, charged a 2 dollar atm fee, and the charge shows up on my statement as a single 42 dollar withdrawal.
I save the receipt and wait a week and no reimbursement. So I figure I would take a picture of the recept and send a secure message to Schwab requesting a manual reimbursement of the 2 dollars. After all I heard somewhere that Schwab is really good with just manually reimbursing fees if they don't post automatically.
So I sent the secure message out about a week and a half ago and the only response I got was the automated response I got a day later saying they recieved my message.
How long does it take? I am starting to think they are blowing me off, or that there is some legalese buried in the fine print somewhere that in order to be reimbursed the atm fee must show up as a seperate transaction.
Last time I make this mistake. From now on every US dollar atm withdrawal will be at BoA atms and will go on my bank of america atm card. I will only use the Schwab card for foreign atm withdrawals since BoA is pretty much guaranteed to charge me a fee, while with Schwab there is at least the off-chance the planets will align and I make it through all the hoops to get the fee reimbursed.
Normally I wouldn't be too fussy, but at the same time I had a best rate guarantee shot down by Orbitz so it was a double whammy. My claim was shot down because I was on a prepaid booking, which doesn't upset me as I wasn't holding my breath on this anyway, just submitted the claim because I saw a lower prepaid rate at another OTA and figured what the heck. If they didnt shoot it down because it was prepaid they would have shot it down for another reason so I figure I didn't lose anything by at least trying.
Disappointed in Schwab though.
Should I at least call them or wait a bit longer? A week and a half for a secure message seems awfully long, can't help but feel like they are blowing me off. I have never waited this long for a response from a real person from any bank secure message ever.