guanix

Yeah. Most of the time it just looks like Fidelity is your checking account. For someone who is totally ignorant of all of this, the only confusion that would arise is when you set up ACH pull payments and the bank shows up on some payment services as "UMB Bank", not Fidelity.

Otherwise it’s Fidelity logos on the checks and the debit card, and you would have to get out your magnifying glass to see the underlying banks’ names.

Happy

This explains it why I made a test $20 ATM withdrawal at local PNC bank prior to a long trip last year, to my surprise, the PNC ATM did not display the usual message of the ATM usage fee. I dont remember the authorization limit but I was told that in case I needed more cash than the $500 I could go into a bank for Cash Advance transaction and there would be no fee. Never need to use this function so I could not tell if it is true.

Because Fido does not own a bank, its arrangement with the banks on various functions seem awfully complicated. I have found this being a very annoying factor when your ATM card was "eaten" by a foreign bank's machine and your withdrawal got debited then credited because of that, but later the credit would fall off, leaving you a net "loss" situation because you did not get any money. It would take a few communications to get this resolved.

This happened to me at a BNP at Aix-en-Provence during a port of call on a cruise. At first I saw there was a credit to offset the debit when I checked online I thought everything was fine then. On the next day I checked the account and now saw the credit disappeared! At least I had the foresight to print out the account activity the day before, that showed the credit.

Long story short, it took a phone call now in Italy, using the toll fee number Fido had, and then got patched to a very rude rep who handled the ATM card (obviously not Fido rep), an online chat with Fido rep, and an email to follow up, to eventually got a non-secured email response to the email address on file, to explain why the credit fell off "because the bank did not use the authorization code to process the credit" - which is insane because everything was generated WITHOUT any human intervention - when the card was "eaten", the slip spit out showed the withdrawal / reversal.

Since then I try to use Schwab's card most of the time and avoid Fido's which is served as a back up only. At Seoul, the ATM at a bank in the airport arrival hall apparently ran out of money - it debited my card but no money spit out. It took 20 min for the bank to get its manager from the bigger branch located in another area of the airport to come, and after taking photocopy of my passport and the card, they gave me the Won. I cannot imagine if they did not resolve the matter on the spot, how much a nightmare would be, dealing with Fidelity.

Schwab reps are far more friendly and details oriented than Fido ATM reps who are very lack of geographic knowledge when I called in to give Travel Notice.

emvchip

To see the customer horror story when fraud occurs on a Fidelity branded debit card (issued by BNY Mellon) see Bogle Heads:
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/vie...94337#p2794337


The Fidelity cash accounts are held by UMB Bank, the debit functions are serviced by BNY Mellon, and the cards are issued by PNC under contract to BNY Mellon. (BNY Mellon purchased most of the PNC Financial Service Group in 2010, but did not acquire the debit card system). If you need help with your Fidelity debit card, you can only talk to BNY Mellon, Fidelity reps will direct you to BNY.

Schwab is simpler. Schwab bank, Schwab debit card, Schwab account, Schwab employee answers the debit card phone line.

jetsetter

At some point I asked Fidelity if they could issue an ATM only card, and they said no. I then got a survey, and I must have answered it with the most negative rating possible. I got a voicemail from someone in Fidelity's market research department, and I left them a follow up voicemail about my desire for them to issue an ATM only card.

I had been speaking to Fidelity, not the vender that handles the debit card.

May be if we got a dozen of us on this thread to call Fidelity and request it, and ask the rep to send some kind of suggestion and if some of us got the followup survey.

I have had this Fidelity account for several years, and its worked well; although I have never had a tricky issue where I have had to engage Fidelity. While Fidelity has a good reputation, I have no idea how well or poorly they would handle a tricky issue; I read the previously posted article which sounds pretty bad!

So far, as far as my experience, its been like Ebay or Paypal or Uber. When they work great out of the box, its great! But if you have a problem, I'm not sure how well the company would respond despite their good name in the community. The devil is of course in those pesky details!

I too highly recommend Amex! Also for their claims if something is stolen/damaged (or for Platinum card) lost, they have a quick and efficient web based claim system. I have the impression with Visa if I had to file a purchase protection claim, even with a good card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred, that it would be a copias amount of paperwork. Whiel it would be possible to get reimbursed, the process seems like it would be arduous!

I have personal experience with the Amex Platinum Card, I lost some socks that I bought which were about $60! I filed the claim online at about 18:00 and by the time I woke up the next day, I had an email that the claim had been approved and I would be getting my credit for my lost socks on my statement in a few days! The claim took no more than 5 minutes tops to file! And I didn't have to for instance find and fax or mail in a receipt for the socks or get documents noterized or do other such things which I think I would have to do with Visa!

I guess I will just have to be careful with my Fidelity card, I am tempted to cancel and reissue it because before I used credit cards 100% I had some charges on it, so it might be good to get a new #.

Also I wonder how responsive Fidelity would be say if there were a fraudulent ACH transaction on my account?

jsk1973

If people wanted an ATM-only option, they'd probably provide one. The market has sort of spoken on that issue.

Instead of worrying so much about that, why not just open a secondary Cash Management account and keep most of your cash there, with money transferred into the "ATM" card only when needed?

photaco

Doesn't an ATM-only card imply that the card can no longer be run on the Visa network?

jsk1973

It doesn't imply it; that's exactly the result.

paytonc

Re: ATM fees abroad, I haven't always had these comp'd back. Sometimes, if the fee's rolled into the ATM withdrawal amount abroad, it has no way of knowing what part of that $67.30 transaction was the fee -- but if the fee is billed separately, it does credit it back.

No, PNC only provides the card; they don't have a back-end to the Fidelity account system. I suppose you could try it if you were in Missouri, near a UMB Bank (since in theory you have a UMB Bank account number). Whenever I have extra cash sitting around, I deposit it to a credit card account.

Happy

Schwab reimbursed it in the above situation. All ATMs at the BKK baggage claim area have the fee rolled into the withdrawal amount at least by the look of the receipt.

I emailed Schwab on that and asked them to look into it. Got a response rather quick and told me they saw the fee and would reimburse it. In the case if the fee not reimbursed, tell me to email back.

The fee is reimbursed as Schwab said.

Like I said, Fido card to me would only be a back up. Schwab is so much nicer to deal with.

One caveat - if you do not use your Schwab card in the past 6 months, and your current card is expiring, the renewal card would not be sent - you would need to call Schwab to get it. About 18 months ago I did not get my renewal card and when I discovered it it was 2 weeks before our trip. I called and was told because the card hadn't been used for more than 6 months. But they Fedex the renewal card to me. Very good customer service.

Michael Ad

Ditto - Schwab is great about the fees. Most are automatic; anything else just takes an email. I do try to snap a pic with my phone if I see a fee displayed on-screen on an ATM as a reminder to check later.

I really keep the Schwab account solely for this purpose.

missing_link

Three weeks in Thailand, and all fees were rolled into the total amount taken out of the ATM.

Fidelity reimbursed every fee as soon as it posted. No intervention necessary. In fact, in some cases, the reimbursement was more generous than necessary (i.e., more than the 200THB fee).

jsk1973

How does Fidelity refund fees if they're rolled into the total?

missing_link

No clue. I'm assuming that they must receive some sort of data from the ATM operator as part of the transaction. Either way, it was pretty neat that it all worked like it was supposed to without any intervention on my part.

Here's an example of the transaction: http://imgur.com/3L65Lkn

The fee was always 200THB at various ATMs, which on the posting date above (1/4/16), comes out to around $5.54, so the reimbursement was pretty much spot on (going off of this reported conversion rate: http://www.exchangerates.org.uk/USD-...e-history.html).

jsk1973

Very good; thanks. I've had a FCM account for a few months but haven't used it abroad yet. Glad to see it works as advertised.

texasguy77

My experience in Thailand and Japan is that the ATM never mentions that it will charge a fee and I'm only charge the amount of my withdrawl. I request 5K baht and I'm debited $140.xx. No other fees are charged to me. Perhaps it depends on the ATM's used?? I've used the ones in the BKK baggage claim. In japan the same thing applies, only charge the amount of Yen withdrawn. I believe the 7-11 ATM's are totally free in Japan.