Don’t feel bad if you get confused reading this post.

My main sources of income are Social Security and pension from the state of Tennessee. How to get that income into my UK bank account has been like playing whack-a-mole.

In the U.S. my main bank is a credit union, they’re fantastic. I also have an account at a big U.S. bank.

Banking is weird here. There are the “high street” banks, which are the big ones that have been around forever. They have big fancy offices and branches, but they’re not friendly. And as you can imagine , their fees are high. In recent years they’ve gotten competition from online only banks. Funds are insured with the UK equivalent of FDIC. There is no bank branch of any kind in my village. The nearest branch is an HSBC, which is a 20 minute walk or 3 minute train ride + 10 minute walk.

I first tried to open an account at a the HSBC, but was told I’d need to go into the big city main office. So instead, I opened an account with an online bank here in the UK. It took about 15 minutes and I had my debit card within a few days. I did an international wire transfer to put in the initial funds and signed up for autopay for my rent, utilities, mobile, internet, etc.

It turns out that Social Security can be direct deposited via IDD (international direct deposit) straight from SSA to my UK account. Favorable exchange rates, no fee, comes on the same day as it would in the U.S. So, I filled out the form and contacted my new bank to find out where to send it for their part of the form. After complete , it gets sent to the U.S. Embassy in London for processing. “Oh, we can’t do that” was the response. They actually said I should contact the Embassy for an alternative. After I stopped laughing hysterically, I began exploring other options.

Silly me, I thought the easiest thing would be to wire from the big huge U.S. bank. I signed up with Forex to handle the exchange rate because I get a discount from the firm I used for the citizenship. I wanted to send a test amount to see how it works. I used copy/paste from the email Forex sent me to set up the wire. The wire was returned the next day & money put back into my account by their intermediary- Wells Fargo. But they kept the wire fee. After talking with Forex and confirming the information was correct, I contacted big U.S. bank and read them the information, which they confirmed was what I had entered. I’m thinking Wells Fargo messed up somewhere and now I have to fight to get my fee refunded.

ATE YOU STILL READING?

Pivoting to the small credit union, I messaged them to ask to set up an international wire. Their wire fee is higher, but with the exact same information, my money went from them to Forex to my bank in less than 24 hours.

In the meantime, I tried to get Amex to switch me to a UK account. Nope, that would be too easy. They made me apply anew. Then they declined to give me a card even though I’ve had one in the U.S. for 15 years and have never once made a late payment. I have no credit history in the UK. Well, duh. I’ll be canceling them once I get a new Visa or Mastercard. Then I discovered that my new bank doesn’t offer credit cards. I’ll have to open a bank account with one of those high street banks, get the IDD sent there and apply for a credit card after a few months history is under my belt.

Tennessee doesn’t even have a way to do tax withholding other than federal. I cannot imagine they’d be able to do something like IDD. Oh, and their website thinks I’m a malicious foreign bot, so I can’t even log in. I believe I’ll just keep having my pension sent to the credit union and do a wire transfer twice a year or quarterly. Will save on the fees.

I kind of hate to give up the online bank account since it’s a small woman-owned bank. Hopefully I’ll be able to do transfers between it and the new big bank for free.

Do you now have a headache like I do?