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Hi Alascana,

While you were here did you ever try to use the debit card for direct point of sale purchases? Did you ever try and withdraw money from your account using the card at an ATM. If you can answer yes to those two questions then you'll have no trouble. I'd recommend trying the ATMs from Bradesco first (usually serve more banks).

Regular mail... forget it. The postal service here is full of thieves unfortunately. When they're not stealing the stuff themselves then real crooks are holding up their trucks. You just can't win with Correios. If your bank will do it have them send the card to you via FedEx, you'll be sure to get it. If they won't send via courier then perhaps you can arrange for them to mail it to someone in your family, or a trusted friend who can FedEx it to you.

I could write a book about how inefficient and corrupt the Brazilian postal service is, but if I even think about what I've gone through over the past couple of year with them I'll need a straightjacket.

Cheers,
James
expat.com Experts Team

Hello James,
It sounds like the Wild North East/lol. Yes my cards worked fine until this one guy questioned it and sent a alert to the bank and that was the start of the problem, the luck was having the credit card with me for it took care of the things I needed like cash. I showed the clerk my I.D. and he was to busy trying to impress his female associates with his skills and he was just being an ah for lack of a better word and that caused the Debit Card problem. I used the ATM machine聽 for cash at two grocery stores all the time I was in Belem about every聽 8 days and had no problems with withdrawals or purchases until the little guy at the unmentionable Mercado did his little thingy (lol) .聽 The card did not have the new chip and it was only rejected at let's say sketchy locations like small shops and small restaurants yet cash handled the small problems. One problem was at a large merchant while trying to purchase a air conditioner for the 2 seasons of the North (kkkkk) and I think it was over my daily limit and no CPF so I was able to do a double withdrawal and as it was a gift for my lady we paid cash and her CPF (lol). I will work with my bank and my family to have the card shipped by FedEx / Fedup ( I am Retired USPS) (lol). For the 3 months I was there those were the only problems and the new Credit and Debit cards will have the chip. Thanks for the info and helping a fella out. I am also hoping to be able to set up email with the bank in case I meet another outstanding Manager as mentioned above for he was a Manager and not a clerk (lol) Talvez Biometrics is the anwser?/ lol

What a difference from the treatment we get down here in the civilized southeast... nobody here gives us problems with our cards. My card has no chip and nobody here even bats an eyelash when I tell them they need to swipe it instead of using the chip reader.

Anyway, once you've got a new card that has the chip you shouldn't have problems even in Bel茅m.

Cheers,
James
expat.com Experts Team

The Real is $4.06 as of now to the USD.

Alascanam,


Did you try to have the new debit or credit card sent to you via Fed Ex or DHL?聽 聽I suggest DHL as it has a good tracking system and there are real people that you can MAYBE talk to when there is a problem.聽 Once the bank card arrives, you can have it activated while you are here in Brasil.

Based on that you stated that you are moving to Belem hopefully no later than June 2016, I strongly suggest for you to get a Brazilian bank card.聽 I have been in many situations when you do NOT have immediate direct access to your money, then a simple bad situation turns into a truly nightmare.聽 It happens late at night during an emergency or just when there is no family or friend to help and you are totally and completely screwed, like running out of gasoline on a deserted road or a blown tire or no taxi to give you a ride out of a bad/dangerous location.

To be very聽 simple and straight forward, after living in Brasil for over fifteen years (15), I can say with a clear conscious that anyone who tries to live in Brasil without a bank card, must be related to a monkey out of the Amazon.聽 Brasil is country which is made up of rules and laws and more rules and laws, etc.聽 If you do NOT want to take the time to take care of doing the damn required paperwork prior to an emergency, then please do not come back whining about all of the B.S. in Brasil when you have an emergency, etc.聽 It is just a fact of life.聽 Nothing is simple here in Brasil with the banks.聽 In addition, the people who work at the banks are constantly going on strike.聽 Here, you do it the Brazilian way or it just does NOT get done.聽 Brasil is not the USA!!!!

FYI.聽 HSBC is now in the process of selling their branches here in Brasil.

FYI.聽 I opened a bank account in HSBC in Florida and then in Macae just so I could move money as needed.聽 It has been a life saver many, many times to have an account with the same bank in both countries.聽 聽Now I will need to get another bank from USA, like maybe Citibank.聽 聽I still kept my local bank in the USA and transfer money as needed.聽 It takes three days to do a transfer int eh USA, vs here in Brasil a transfer can easily be done in the same day.聽 I then opened a bank account at Bank Itau as it is very convenient here in this part of Brasil.

FYI.聽 聽Here in Brasil, I have not written but two checks in almost the last seven years.聽 The Brazilian bank system allows payment and transfers online which is fast secure and simple once you learn to read and write Portuguese.


Boa sorte,
John of Macae, RJ, Brasil

Macae, perhaps you did not understand the topic.

this is interesting because my bank, hsbc, just issued my new debit card with a chip, and i was concerned that the atms here WOULDN'T be able to handle a card with a newfangled chip. sounds like this is more the rule than the exception.

Hey Alascana, I'll contact you and let you know what options I will use.
Jeff Las vegas

Hi Macae, (John)

I've been living in Brazil for exactly 14 years now and have never had a Brazilian bank account or debit card. I've never had any problems with my Canadian or US debit cards. For anything that needs to be paid online my Brazilian wife's account is just fine.

When my (US) TD Bank debit card isn't accepted as a debit, which is very rare indeed, I have the option of using it as a credit card too.

Cheers,
James
expat.com Experts Team

Thanks Jeff for I am working with my bank and any info is appreciated.

I just had our Bank of America debit/charge cards replaced last month.聽 BofA sent the cards via UPS/Sedex as documents and they arrived within 7 days of being mailed.聽 We do not yet have a local bank and all banking is done through Bradesco's ATM.聽 They recognize only the BofA card and we found no Brazilian banks that recognize our Compass (BBVA) cards.聽 With the BofA debit cards for some reason they don't work as debit at all businesses but will be accepted as credit card.聽 My suggestion is to go with a bank that does business with banks in Brazil such as BofA.聽 BBVA told us that their cards should work in Brazil but we have not found an ATM that it will work with.聽 So don't accept the banks word that their card will work as you might arrive here only to find that they don't.聽 Also Banco do Brazil ATMs work well with our BofA cards.聽 They do not work at Itau or Caixa.聽 One more issue:聽 Our American banks are deathly afraid of fraudulent use of their cards here in Brazil.聽 So much so that even though we informed BofA of our move, they still turned off our cards every 2 weeks like clock work!聽 It took several phone calls to BofA to finally get them to remove all restrictions from our cards and we haven't had any problem with them in the last couple of months.聽 This issue bring up one more problem.聽 Cell phone companies in Brazil have no understanding of customer service or service for that matter.聽 We bought a plan to pay for the package monthly.聽 But Data use is counted against your total time so suddenly you find yourself without cell service.聽 When you update your plan for a better package it moved our due date and for 2 weeks we had no phone service until the new effective date went into effect (Claro).聽 We were not ever able to make international calls to the States with them.聽 So now my wife has Claro and I have reverted back to t-mobile.聽 That is free text, unlimited data (3G) and 20 cents per minute on phone calls and you keep your original US number.

Have you tried whatsapp for phone calls back home?聽 It works much better than using regular cell service.聽 Don't ask me why, but it's much clearer and less expensive.聽 At least in the rural NE of Brazil.

One thing I experienced not long ago.聽 My daughter in Brazil always has a duplicate of my HSBC debit card in case she needs cash fir anything.聽 When the cards expire, I send her a new one.聽 I have always put it in with a greeting card, and an extra piece of cardboard so it isn't obvious that there's a credit/debit card in the envelope, and this has always worked well for me.

But, several months ago, I had to send her a new card, and shortly thereafter I received a notice from HSBC of possible fraudulent use of the card.聽 Someone had tried to make a large purchase at a department store in Sao Paulo.聽 As I knew she hadn't received the card and it hadn't been yet activated, I was able to cancel the card and refute the charges.聽 No loss.聽 I figured someone in the Correio system had stolen the card and tried to use it, but about a week later, she received the card in t he envelope unopened.聽 I guess someone in the Correios system is using a card scanner to check for cards as the mail comes through the sorting equipment.聽 Never happened before, but you know how that goes.

So, I still had to get a card to her.聽 I had to buy one of the cheap card wallets that protect cards from being scanned, and sent it that way, no problem.

There are very sophisticated scanning devices that can copy the eletronic information on credit card without any physical contact with the card itself. The card need only be within a certain distance of the reader.

For this reason one should NEVER send a credit card or debit card through the regular postal service (Correios) in Brazil. The chances of theft of the card or skimming of the data on that card are simply too great. It is impossible to identify the source of the theft of cards or data so Correios will not accept any responsibility for your financial losses.

Cards and important documents should ALWAYS be sent via private courier like FedEx, UPS or DHL.

Cheers,
James
expat.com Experts Team

James with the pocket card scanners available, what's to stop the cards from being scanned even sent by private courier service?聽 Even though a card is sent via private service, there would be no way for anyone to figure out when and where the card was scanned.

Regardless of how you send the card, it's best to put the card inside of a scan-proof device like a credit card wallet.聽 Do not activate the card until it is in possession of the intended recipient.聽 Then there will never be any liability for the card owner. That was the moral of the story.