The Time I Lost my Bank Card Abroad

01.01.23

It was New Year’s Day. I had just spend the previous night and into the wee hours of the early morning celebrating New Year with a bunch of fabulous strangers in a small German city.

I awoke from my slumber around noon, though I had a not yet noticed that fact as the curtains were still drawn, my new German friend was slightly awake on her phone beside me, and my new Brazilian friend on his on the new sofa we brought in through the kitchen from the front entrance that had been declared as free by a sign that was on it.

I went to the washroom, took out the black eyeliner that had crept its way into my eyes while sleeping (despite my attempts at taking it all off last night with the kitchen cooking oil I found in the kitchen and a random towel I found laying in the bathroom).

I at least managed to take out or scrape off the glitter I stuck to my face and hair with eyelash glue—and if you know anything about lash glue it is that it is basically superglue that the beauty industry trusts you with to put near your eyes.

I made it back to the bedroom feeling a little foggy but otherwise fine, so I did my routine check of where is my phone, wallet, ID.

Last night I decided to put my bank card, credit card, and a European travel card into this little blue case that normally contained some medication.

I’m not exactly sure when,  but somewhere in between biking to the club from the house party and biking around town to get back, I think it must have fallen out of my cross-body purse.      

My brain was still not really functioning much at this point so I just accepted the fact that they were gone. I was also thinking it could have been on the floor at the house party, which was in the same building, so I was having hope of finding it there that afternoon when we went to collect our massive wheeled bag of snacks we brought with us because we wanted to be nice to the people who did not even invite us yet we turned up anyway.

I got dressed and we went to go bring the couch back outside to the dumping area by students for free stuff. As my friend said, he could realistically not fit it into his room full-time, as it was already a pretty small room. But it served its purpose!

When we went back up to the girl’s apartment whose party we crashed, I immediately went back to the scene of the crime. (Not actually, but in my head for sure). I remember seeing the little blue case when I took it out of my bag at 9PM. I could not see it there, around the area, or on the floor. It simply was nowhere to be found.

Great. Lovely. Fantastic.

Still unable to fully process emotions at this point in the day (more caffeine required), I left with my German friend and we went back to the Brazilian friend’s place to collect our stuff. I guess sometime soon I would need to cancel my cards and figure out how to get new ones… but for now I did still have other cards.

I just went online and checked the activity for the cards; all of them showing nothing unusual so I was still pretty convinced it must have fallen somewhere. Also because it was in a cheap peace of blue plastic, perhaps people thought it was garbage or something.

That’s a pretty good alternative considering I had the smarts to bring my main Canadian bank card out with me, which housed most of my funds for survival.

However, I was in a very German state of mind there, seeing as I had no immediate cash with me I foresaw the need to withdraw some at a future point in the evening to pay for something. A drink perhaps.

But no, somehow the drinks magically appeared, and a lot of interesting red shots of tomato juice consumed.

I checked a time for our bus as now we were going to go back to the Netherlands and I was going to hang out with my friend one more day. Then began another adventure.

In order to get back to the city we were staying in, we had to take a bus, a train, and a bus. However the option I chose for some reason was different and said two busses and two trains.

One thing I have learned now many times through many missed connections, is that you should always check and see how long the connection time is giving you to make your next method of transport.

I did not check this.

Seeing as I had 2 minutes to get from a bus stop to the next train station, and our bus was 5 minutes late, we did not make it.

What was sad is that we actually saw the train as it was pulling away, right as we got off the bus.

But surely, trains being trains and much faster than busses and having more frequent run times, there would be another one shortly.

But nope! Maybe because it was New Year’s Day and everything was shut, and also maybe since we were not at the bigger train station since my ticket I chose wanted to do two smaller ones, but there was not another train for another hour.

Another whole hour. And that wasn’t the end of it; I had to buy a whole new ticket.

My lovely friend called for me to the help line which of course is just in German, and even she was having troubles for some reason. Even though there was a phone tower right across from where we were sitting at the station, she could barely hear what the woman on the other line was saying.

The woman said since the new train would be a different line, it was not the same style train and was not going to the second station that was part of my, probably a few euros cheaper, ticket.

So there I was buying a new ticket, having so much fun!

I put on more layers as it was getting chilly out, and we sat down. Between us both we quickly finished a third of an almost stale baguette, leftover from the previous day, with some tomato spread and hummus, along with a whole bag of apple cider vinegar chips.

Delicious.

We made it on the train safe and sound, back to the station where we would then take another bus.

No one checked our tickets the entire time.

Once we made it back to the city, my friend left to go hang out with her boyfriend so I went back to her place and got the whole evening to relax and chill.

Just joking!

I had to call my bank, remember?

Because for some reason both my credit card and my Wise account card I was able to cancel and freeze on the app, but the one account that is most important there was no button to be found.

It was really confusing, because obviously the best thing to do in this situation would be to call the abroad number. But it did not work.

I must have found 4 or 5 different numbers that I tried with my German phone number, none of which would work and instead a Dutch lady would speak and basically say that that number was not able to be reached or not in service. How weird!

I was finally able to use my Canadian SIM card, which I was still paying for since I was also not able to cancel that online before leaving for Germany, and although I’m sure I’ll get hit with a roaming charge, I was able to call one of the numbers, but just the American one strangely.

So I had them transfer me to Canada and I was able to talk with one representative who was able to see that it had actually just been cancelled.

He asked me if there was anyone I told about my card and I said my mom; ninja mom to the rescue!

I then asked if he was able to send me a new card to Germany, and he was quite nice and said he could for sure check that out for me, put me on hold, and then the line unfortunately got disconnected…

I was pretty done at that point—so I grabbed some more skittles and started making some noodles.

As water was boiling I called the American number again, then got transferred, again, and then had a different person sadly who was not able to help because I did not know some phone code.

I feel like I was tricked or something because at first she asked, before saying hi or anything, if I had a phone code and I said no because I have tried entering that before in the past and must not have one or do not remember it because I have never been able to have it work and usually I end up waiting on the line to talk to a real person.

She said ok, cool basically, but then later in the discussion she said actually she can’t see if she can send me a new card because I needed to answer again, in yes or no format, if I had a phone code. Since last time I said no, this time I said yes, thinking that was what she wanted me to say and was hinting at that, but then she put me through to an automation that was asking for the phone code number. I tried a few common numbers I would normally use and none of them were it. She then said that she was sorry and she would not be able to help me today and that was it.

My mom had said that they have a head office in London, and originally that was sounding like a crazy idea, but now that was looking like an appealing option especially since I have friends there.

The deal was even sweeter when I was able to find a flight from Bremen to London for 13 euros; wild!! That’s less expensive than most of the trains I have taken from city to city within Germany.

This leads me to staying in Bremen for a week, which honestly? I’m super happy about.

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I hope you I like the first chapter in the saga that is losing my bank card abroad! More to come…

Christina

The ceiling lights I awoke to, that fateful morning, at my German friend’s Brazilian friend’s place