My son lost his debit card..

Parent Cafe
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<p>So my son calls me in a panic…he cannot find his debit card…he swears he had it but now it is gone. We live in So Cal, he is in Philadelphia…card was from Bank of America.</p>

<p>His account is “connected” to mine with my ATM debit card, I am able to transfer funds to his account from mine…</p>

<p>It worked really well, until the card was lost. I called and canceled but they said he needed to call to order a new one. He will be home in 2 weeks and we are not sure if the card will get to him in time…</p>

<p>I tell him to find a Bank of America (he tells me it is far away…about 10 blocks OMG) to get a temporary card, the “east” coast B of A’s are not connected to the “west” coast B of A’s, they cannot issue him a card…huh? I tell him to just go open a new account, get a temporary ATM card and transfer the money out of the one account into the other…wait, he is moving out of the dorms and is renting an apartment next year and doesn’t have a local address and he will be home in 2 weeks.</p>

<p>We decided to just forget it, have him call and order a new card which will be waiting for him at home.</p>

<p>What a fiasco…</p>

<p>How do you parents who have kids on the other side of the country in college handle money matters? I thought we were OK but now I am re-thinking it…</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

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<p>Try doing this in a foreign country… :eek:</p>

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<p>Anxious–Many moons ago (way before computers) I was doing a semester at Cambridge–I had an ear infections, had to go to the post office to use a pay phone (no cel phones as of yet)–and lost my wallet and passport!! No $$ nor ID!</p>

<p>Believe it or not, American Express replaced my credit card the next day (that would never happen today) and with good old Western Union, my parents were able to to wire me money. The only problem was the American Embassy, it was not really easy proving I was me without any ID, I actually used the replaced American Express card and my school ID…eventually they did replace my passport ;)</p>

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<p>when my D went to India after high school, she had her cell phone & wallet stolen almost as soon as she arrived.
We had set her dad up on her acct before hand, so we mailed her his ATM card for her acct & she bought a cell phone on the street. ( her card was canceled)
We still had access to the acct on line so we could monitor it.</p>

5

<p>You know, in 4 years we never got a good handle on this. He never lost a plastic card, but only has a bank debit card, not a credit card. Our two banks weren’t compatible cross-country. </p>

<p>The basic problem was, raised frugally, he waited too long to let us know when his bank balance was too close. Then he needed sudden bursts of cash to get through a week. It took a while until he learned to look ahead, figure his expenses in time for us to mail him checks to put into his own bank account. Sometimes I’d be running to the post office to pay for silly overnight fees at USPS or FedEx just to mail him a check, which took time to clear. Once we wired money between banks at a cost of around $50 which I hated and never did again. There was another approach, something like Western Union independent of the banks, but it cost around $75 and he had to go to some pizza joint to redeem it and gather up his cash. Just Nuts. </p>

<p>If your own cash flow is close, you can’t just load up his account in September; nor is that advisable, either if he might run out of money before end-of-term, just by inexperience budgeting.</p>

<p>When he moved off campus, after some false starts, we finally found the best approach was for me to cut checks from my bank savings account, post-dated, for various functions. He kept those in his dorm drawer, separated by envelopes according to purpose (and noted on the check memo). </p>

<p>Twice yearly, I’d write out ALL rent checks, made out by name to the landlord and post-dated to the first of each month. Same for utilities. I had him log and propose his weekly food budget, then wrote postdated checks made out to him for an entire semester for one week’s worth of off-campus food. We had other budgets, too, for pharmacy. </p>

<p>For flights home, I booked the tickets on my Visa but had to consult with him by phone on scheduling, which was a challenge during his academic workload. </p>

<p>Clothing he bought on Ebay where he used my H’s Paypal account and passwords. That sometimes worked for books, too. </p>

<p>I don’t believe in giving credit cards to my college students. He has a debit card from his West Coast bank/checking account, but the issue was always keeping his account replenished. FINALLY, by senior year, he got good at predicting and reminding us when it looked like he’d be running low. </p>

<p>I have no easy answers and will look forward to how others solved this.</p>

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<p>Visa or Mastercard debit cards are a bad idea in general. Theft of the card or its number can result in easy fraud, which is more of a hassle than with a credit card, since the fraud causes money to be missing from your account instead of running up credit card bills that you eventually do not have to pay. Money missing from your account can cause checks that you write on that account to bounce.</p>

<p>If you have a Visa or Mastercard debit card, best to have it linked to an account you do not write checks against and that is only filled with enough money for expected use.</p>

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<p>A good bank should be able to send him a replacement card via overnight delivery. Time to change bank.</p>

<p>Or he could open a savings account with a small balance as an emergency fund, at a bank near his apt.</p>

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<p>we are getting ready to experience this too. Hopefully S will never lose his card, but our current joint acct with him is with a bank that does not have fee free ATM’s near his school. So now I feel like I have to open an account with him at a national bank just in case I need to transfer money in a hurry (like right now, he is trying to pay for something and has NO money now). Right now, I can transfer money in a heartbeat. He hasn’t needed me to, but I can. H & I just discussed the fact that when I go out to orientation with S I need to find a national bank with a branch close to home so I can deposit money quickly if needed sometime over the next 4 years. I will also probably open an account I do not want just so I can transfer money 24/7. I am very happy with the local, low fee banks we are using, I hate having to open an acct just for this purpose, but I look at it like insurance. </p>

<p>I hope your S gets a replacement card soon!</p>

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<p>Why can’t your BofA mail him a card to Philly?</p>

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<p>We have not had to deal with lost card. As for money management, we’ve had good luck setting up debit cards for kids at credit union. Then I “push” money to their accounts via online transfer as needed. (It works quickly.) </p>

<p>There are pros/cons to this approach, but I like getting the related college updates. Last year we transferred a set amount to DS each month, but we’d add more if he told about extra expenses that he thought we’d cover. For example, we were happy to give him $15 for Boston Symphony tickets offered on campus for an optional Honors event. It seemed a great experience, and this way we got to hear all about it :slight_smile: We were a bit jealous that he could walk to Symphony Hall from the dorm.</p>

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<p>Hmmm… i may not be getting the total question here but whe D went from OR to VT we opened an account for her in the little town her school was in for her checking–so she could make her deposits from her jobs and such. She and I had a joint credit and debit card from our home town that I monitored on line nearly daily.
When S was in HS he and I opened a joint checking account as well as a debit count. Again, I monitor almost daily. This way he can tell me he needs $$ for such and such, or he gets gifts, and I can deposit them locally.
Lastly, both are on a CC with me. That way I can say, “stop and get milk and eggs and charge it.” Or, “charge your books”. I also monitor this nearly daily.
Bad things can happen, but out banks have always been great as long as we are timely about any mess ups.</p>

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<p>My daughter has 2 bank accounts with ATM cards. Both are with BofA and are linked to my account so I can transfer money into them. She uses one account at a time but has the other in case a card goes missing…which it has! Last summer she was in NY for a summer program and left her billfold in a cab. The ATM card to the 2nd account was here at home so I was able to send it to NY quickly…problem solved. We put a hold on the first account and she unfroze it when she got home and replaced the card. </p>

<p>Trick is to never have the 2 cards together…same with credit cards travelling…other daughter lost her purse shortly after arriving in England last year. She only had 1 credit card and atm card in it…left the 2nd set in her apartment…now I don’t know what we would have done if she would have lost both sets right off the bat. She was able to call the credit card company and get new card issued, but it had to be sent to her home address…at which point I mailed it to her…somewhere along the line of getting it to her in England it got hung up because it took over a month for her to receive it.</p>

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<p>It’s amazing how these kids have a death-grip on their cell phones, but when it comes to money cards … ppfff. </p>

<p>We’ve had banking issues as well, including a lost card. D texted me one day: “I lost my ATM card.” “Call the bank.” “OK.” “NOW PLEASE!” “Why?” “Because you won’t be responsible for charges someone makes after you call.” “Oh OK.” She texted back 10 minutes later to report they were sending a new one, which arrived in 3 days. Fortunately she had enough cash to get through until then. She has a different bank than we do, because it has an ATM on-campus. </p>

<p>I cannot seem to get through to her that checking your balance online is NOT the same thing as balancing your checkbook. She won’t record her transactions in the register, and simply can’t fathom the whole “outstanding checks” concept and how they can come back to bite you. Last year I received two hysterical phone calls that she was in overdraft status. The first time, I covered the NSF fee. The second time, I considered it a life-lesson. At least we haven’t had that problem again.</p>

<p>Then there’s the whole making-your-money-last problem. Since her summer earnings and work-study income go toward tuition, we give her an allowance for incidentals. Freshman year, I deposited it twice monthly. Sophomore year, at her request, I switched to once month, on the 1st. On the 28th of the first month on the new plan, I got the following text (yes, I saved it because it gave me such a belly laugh): “This allowance-once-a-month thing is putting a serious cramp in my style.” I suppose that was a not-so-veiled request for an emergency infusion, but I didn’t reply and never found out how she managed to survive 3 more days with no money.</p>

<p>My only comfort is that I guess it’s better for her to be learning these lessons now than later when she has a real income and real bills.</p>

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<p>My daughter has had a checking account withna debit card since she was 13. She spent summers training on a college campus 4 hours from home and needed to pay her own way for lots of stuff. Her account is linked to ours, so transferring funds is easy. This year, as a high school senior, she received a bi-weekly allowance for gas, food and entertainment. We were constantly transferring more money for all her senior year expenses. We have decided that when she leaves for college, we will switch to a once a month allowance. </p>

<p>We went through the losing the debit card thing this year. Her car was broken into and her school bag stolen, which had her wallet in it. She had her debit card as well as a credit card. I called and cancelled her cards and she was able to pick up a new debit card the next morning. The credit card was overnight, so she received that the next day. Originally, we didn’t close the acct because we did not think any checks had been stolen since her checkbook was at home. A few weeks later, we found out that she must have had a single check in her wallet because someone tried to cash it for $1,500. Nice try! Anyway, I was glad it happened here at home, so we could walk her through the process of replacing her DL, Social Security card, debit and credit cards. I asked at our bank, a small regional bank, how they would handle a lost debit card when she was away at college and they said they would overnight a replacement.</p>

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<p>We have done the lost debit card, the lost drivers liscense, the lost cell phone, lost wallet. All of which I had to scramble and replace, only to have them all show up, either in her dorm room buried under something or I even received a phone call from the person who found her cell phone and they were kind enough to walk the phone to her dorm. And they say people in Manhattan aren’t nice…geesh. Her license was dropped in a mailbox and that made it’s way back to my house.</p>

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<p>D1 has lost her credit card multiple times, her phone multiple times, paychecks, tax documents, driver’s license, passport etc all multiple times. I’m just glad she’s never had a debit card! She had her passport, cell & credit card stolen the day before she was scheduled to fly home from overseas. (She was robbed at knifepoint outside a shopping mall!) But at least she knew what to do because by then she was an old hand at getting cards and other documents cancelled and replaced. </p>

<p>D2 has never lost anything. (Knock on wood!) She’s had a debit card since she was 16 and credit card since she turned 18. Ms Uber-responsible. </p>

<p>I have never allowed either kid to be linked to my account. Each has always had her own account. I am joint on their accounts until they’re 21 just in case something terrible happens to them and I need to access their accounts. Since we all bank at the same credit union, I can transfer fund electronically from my account to theirs so long as I know their account numbers. D1 has never allowed me to manage her accounts or even see her account balances. D2 gave me her password so I can do banking stuff for her when she travels.</p>

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<p>Guess what…debit card found but it was already canceled! He plays on the tennis team, and he was walking by the tennis courts and his frat brothers were playing tennis, they asked him to hit a few balls with them. He had his phone, school ID and debit card in his pocket…and yes, the debit card fell out. One of the frat brothers girlfriend saw it, picked it up but didn’t know who he was so didn’t say anything to her boy friend for a few hours–by the time he was called, it was too late.</p>

<p>Being a holiday weekend things got a bit messed up but we are going to our local B of A to pick up a temporary card for him and fedex it to him. Opera, great idea, I am going to open him another account at the same bank…get him a debit card for that account but have him put it away…because I am sure this WILL happen again.</p>

<p>One other important thing, we already went through the lost phone thing (he left it on a train) and an almost lost wallet thing (he found it in his shorts a few hours later). I have made sure we have copies of his Driver’s License (and now lost debit card). We never did quite figure out what to do if you lose an ID and you are in another state, how do you get a new one? And, you can’t get on a plane to fly without an ID…so what do you do. He does have a passport but to tell you the truth, if he takes it back to school, I don’t think it will ever be seen again…lol</p>

<p>…and I am glad to know that I am not the only one with a “butthead” kid (as he called himself)</p>

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<p>i wish B of A would get their East Coast and West Coast banks connected. Its usually not a problem with the normal transactions–using th ATM, for example. But if she wants to deposit a check into her account, she has to use a special slip and specify that she is a California customer.</p>

<p>After a spectacular fiasco where the ATM machine in New Zealand ate her debit card, we always make sure she has alternate avenues to pay for things. She has a debit card connected to her own account and her own credit card.</p>

<p>For a recent semester abroad, like Opera Mom, we set up a seperate account with some emergency money in it and gave D an ATM card with the instructions to keep the cards in separate places. </p>

<p>one question–would he have been able to withdraw money from his B of A account with proper ID?</p>

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<p>ellemenope - Yes, they let him withdraw money so he still has access to the account…just no debit card, and the bank is 12 blocks away–OMG he has to walk but maybe the walk will make him think twice when he spending money (and maybe he will actually use his meal plan instead of spending $$ for food).</p>

<p>Plus, he will be home on June 10 so I am not worried</p>

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<p>Having a credit card in college is a great way to start building a good credit history. I like the idea of my D having her first credit card when I can help monitor it.</p>