Can an ATM in California accept payments for an Ecuadorian credit card?

June 14, 2015 11:56 AM

My wife is Ecuadorian, and we are relocating to California permanently. She has two credit cards issued by a major Ecuadorian bank, and we need to figure out how to make payments on them from the United States, as there are some charges that will post after we have left the country. The bank assures us that we can do so from Cirrus-network ATMs in the United States. I am skeptical, as I have never seen anything like this in Los Angeles.

If relevant:

1. Ecuador uses U.S. dollars as their national currency.
2. I can withdraw money just fine, with my U.S.-bank-issued debit card, from the Ecuadorian bank's ATMs.
3. Financial transfers in and out of Ecuador are taxed.

posted by quarantine to Work & Money (7 answers total)

It is often better to write checks for transfers to avoid international transaction fees. We still use this for depositing UK income into a Canadian checking account while living in the US and it saves us about 20 quid per transaction over international bank transfers.

It just requires that you have someone you trust that you can leave pre-signed blank checks with (admittedly a serious trust requirement).

Is there some reason you can't use a bank website to make payments from an American bank account?
posted by srboisvert at 12:31 PM on June 14, 2015

Response by poster: It is often better to write checks for transfers to avoid international transaction fees... It just requires that you have someone you trust that you can leave pre-signed blank checks with (admittedly a serious trust requirement).

Checking accounts are rare, expensive, and subject to rampant fraud in Ecuador, so, while we have people we trust, we don't have a checking account.

Is there some reason you can't use a bank website to make payments from an American bank account?

$45 USD + 5%. We'd love to find a different way.
posted by quarantine at 12:47 PM on June 14, 2015

Can you transfer the balances to a US based Credit Card?
posted by bitdamaged at 1:32 PM on June 14, 2015

If you know how much the charges will be, can you make a payment in that amount now? Or maybe that amount plus a bit to make sure everything is covered. It'd basically be an overpayment and would be enough to make the balance zero after the charges have posted. Maybe call them in advance and ask them what they do with overpayments. Do they leave it on the account and use it towards the next payment? Or do they issue you a check immediately?

After everything has cleared and the last payment has been made, the balance would be zero, you can close the accounts at that point if that's the plan.
posted by Beti at 1:40 PM on June 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Have you spoken to the issuing bank about converting the credit card to a different kind of loan with other payment terms and options?
posted by infinitewindow at 2:19 PM on June 14, 2015

Response by poster: We have a decent workaround. We can leave some funds in her savings account, from which we can transfer to the credit cards online for free. She has a debit card on the savings account, so after closing the credit cards, we can withdraw any remaining funds from an ATM in California (likely in multiples of $20, plus 5% of the withdrawal, plus her bank's international withdrawal fee of ~$3, plus a U.S. ATM fee of ~$2) and abandon the remainder of the funds. In fees and abandoned funds, this saves us at least $20 over the $45 + 5% option, and we might get the abandoned funds even lower if we get cash back at an ATM point-of-sale.

But, for posterity and search engines: does anyone know the answer to the original question about foreign credit card payments in California at Cirrus ATMs?
posted by quarantine at 2:23 PM on June 14, 2015

Recent-model ATMs do support making payments at the ATM when the payment account and the credit account are at the same bank. Wells Fargo ATMs will let you do that for instance. I'm not sure about accounts at a different bank, or foreign accounts.

Why not call your current bank here and ask them if their ATMs support this? If not, or they're not in Cirrus, pick another bank you'd be interested in banking at and call them and ask.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:54 PM on June 29, 2015