The Worst of Times = KNBT
I truly loathe having to write the post I´m about to write. I hate to even think about what happened to me and how furious it makes me. I have been working to relax myself here, to unwind and re-learn satisfaction… and this damn near erased weeks of effort.
I woke up at 4:30 am on Wednesday morning to finish packing up for my trip to Corn Island. I meticulously packed my bag to its most compact, most travel-ready state. Every article of clothing was laundered and folded in a rectangular fashion to collapse easily in the compression bag and conform to the space of my pack. It was all ready. I was about to take the 6am express bus directly to Managua, saving myself the hassle of the dirty terminal at Rivas.
As the sky warmed, I decided to walk to the ATM to withdraw a motherlode of US dollars. On Little Corn Island, very few locations accept credit cards, and the ones that do have a vicious tendancy of charging something like a 5%¨satellite fee.¨That fee isn´t such a bad thing for a small purchase, but when I´m considering a $480 advanced open-water dive certification package, it adds up.
Anyway, I made it to the ATM, popped in my card and pin, hit withdrawal, $USD and enter. The machine whirs for a second and spits out a reciept. ¨invalid account.¨ Dumbfounded, I try the transaction 4 more times and receive four more reciepts.
The anger I felt about this immediately surged up in my chest. Those damned bastards! They´ve screwed me over! I called my mother at 7am local time to ask her to call Keystone Nazareth Bank and Trust to find out what has just happened to my ATM card. She agrees to do so and hangs up, while I stand around the empty streets of San Juan del Sur watching the clock advance to the 6am departure of the express bus.
Rewind to late February. I went to my local branch to ask what I needed to do to ensure that no holds of ANY kind would be placed on my card. They told me to call the cardmember services 1-800 number and set it up. I did. The woman at the 1-800 number took down the dates of my trip, where I would be, and added a note to my account that said ¨do not apply any holds.¨Before hanging up I thanked her, stressing again how ungodly important it is that they NOT under ANY circumstances shut off my card. As a precaution, she took down my primary email address which would be used if anything came up. I felt relaxed and confident.
Fast forward to present. I call my mother back after 20 minutes or so. She answers the phone. Here´s the deal, KNBT merged with Penn National and they sent out new ATM cards. There, in my stack of mail at home, in an unmarked envelope, lay my new ATM card. The one in my pocket here expired 4/21. I paced back and forth cursing those bastards for a minute. I didn´t know what to do, I told my mother I would call her back.
The first option many of you would think of would be to have money wired to me. That might seem like a good idea, but walking around the third world with a ton of cash is a very, very bad idea. I only considered it that day because I would be in largely secure environments most of the day, and would unload almost all of it upon arrival at the dive shop. I had 90 córdobas in my pocket, thats US$4.50. A few weeks ago a guy I met on the Momotombo expedition told me that round trip tickets to Corn Island on La Costeña cost US$147 if payed in CASH at the terminal, saving something like 20 bucks. With that in mind, a few days ago I took out US$200.
Recall that I was planning on leaving earlier, and only stayed because of that fluke encounter with the Flyers game. I want you all to think, like I did, of the many, many circumstances that could´ve led to a WORST CASE SCENARIO for me: were it not for several random coincidences I could´ve been trapped almost anywhere in this country with nothing.
Pardon my language, again, but fuck KNBT, those sonsofbitches! Killer Nazi Bastard Terrorists! ¡Hijueputas! ¡Hijos de la quiñenta puta! ¡Hijos del congreso mundial de putas sangradas! ¡Jodido Malditos! They left me high and dry, they did the ONE thing I begged them to NEVER allow. I never got a heads-up, never had any warning, never got that Promised E-mail.
After a long talk with the owner of my hospedaje, she pointed me in the direction of a real-estate office that is also a FedEx hub. Salvation? I spoke with the man there and got their mailing address. My mother was able to send out the card that day around noon. If I am lucky I can expect it here on Friday, sometime, at the bargain basement cost of $93 dollars. I believe my mother footed the bill, however, for which I am infinitely grateful.
So thank you KNBT for putting me in an incredibly perilous situation. Thank you for doing the worst thing a bank has ever done to me in my life. Thank you for stranding me in the third world! Bless my lucky stars that I ended up with enough cash in my pocket to last until my card arrives….
I hope.
3 years ago