For those of you who don’t remember my Twitter thread in recent weeks, I was having a HARD time getting the money from the USA to Ukraine for my recent real estate purchase.
The good news, let’s start with that…
It went through.
Building company received the money, and I’m supposed to pick up my certificates within 10 business days. So, there’s now two apartments with my name on them on a brand-spanding-new-building in Kiev. Which is cool.
But, I’m still fighting to get some of the money returned to me from Chase Bank.
They charged $40 for wire fees, never managed to get it sent, couldn’t help me fix it, and then when it failed, they just started automatically debiting $50 for each failed transaction – they don’t even list it! Truly shady stuff…
Anyways, I’m now with the “Exec Office”, and I’ve been getting passed around there like a piece of meat for a week now…
Can’t tell you how unhappy I’ve been with the whole experience, but today isn’t time for complaining.
Today is time to talk about…
How scary this all is.
That if you have your money in the bank, that you can’t…actually use it. I was disgusted by the questioning I was given when sending the wire transfer.
Things like:
* Whats the wire for?
* Have I or someone I trust seen the property?
* Have I met the owners or company who owns the property?
* Have I researched the property?
* How did I find the property?
* The name of the person I’m sending it to
Honestly, it’s not the banks business what I do with my money.
If I want to wire it to myself overseas, withdraw it all in cash, and use it as $100-bill toilet paper, that’s absolutely my right to do so – and if I’m not allowed to do that, then, again, it’s not really my money, is it?
And look:
I understand them stopping the transfer once.
That’s normal, expected, and good.
But stopping it repeatedly?
That’s bad.
That shows how little power you truly have.
And what I keep hearing is stuff like, “Why didn’t you use Bitcoin?” – and honestly, I would have LOVED to, but it wasn’t an option. Had I bought used, I bought have BTC’d myself the money, got it in cash from the BTC bank, and handed it to the owner.
But, this is in a new building from a real company, so I had to play by the rules.
It would have been tough to explain how and why I had that much cash, I’m not even sure the bank would have allowed me to deposit it.
Is Bitcoin the answer to big banking?
Right now, I don’t think it is, as much as I’d obviously love for it to be.
Neither is stashing gold bars in your backyard.
In fact, right now, I don’t think there is any solution – we just have to hope that one day, one shows up. Bitcoin is the best hope we’ve ever seen, but even it has a long way to go, and will require a generational technology shift (i.e. the boomers dying out, because they’re not as comfortable with tech) before it can really take off.
Anyway, that’s my $0.02.
All I know is, I’m going further and further away from the US, the government, and the banking system, and settings things up so that I am responsible for my own destiny.
This means multiple citizenships.
It means bank accounts in multiple places.
It means not relying on a big company as little as possible.
It means taking the power back.
It’s hard to do, but it’s doable.
And, that’s what many of us inside “Actually Abroad” are doing.
Join up, and see what we’re all about.
Learn more at the jump below:
Leave a Reply