ATM problems in Italy

When I travel abroad I carry 3 charge cards and one debit card, all from banks. Half Visa, half Mastercard.

My main reason for doing this is to have a backup in case a card gets lost, stolen, or refused . Between the money belt and the different bags I carry, I make sure no two cards are stored together, in effect not putting all my eggs in one basket.

On more than one occasion, where one card wouldn't work at a machine for some reason, I could always come up with another card that did work.

Bank of America does have a reciprocal banking relationship with Deutsche Bank and also Barclays in England. However, it's my understanding that the "no fee" part of the relationship is only good in the home country of the bank. This is why your card worked without a fee in Germany and charged a fee in Italy for Deutsche Bank.

Scott... We had a similar problem in Italy in Tuscany. When we tried to use our ATM card that we had used all over the world. tthe machines said " not valid for international use". When we called our bank. they said the transaction had never occurred. We were not turned down, the card just never worked for 2 weeks. We were in network and everything. When we got to the Cinque Terre the card worked fine.

We ran into the same problem with our credit union ATM card and an ABN Ambro card. Same message - two branches. We were in Calabria and our Calabrian cousin said theat the bank just didn't want to handle it. sounded silly but we called the C.U. and they told us no transaction had been attempted. We tried a different bank and it worked just fine. Apparently Cousin Nello was right.

The safest thing is to have more than one card from more than one bank and, if necessary, do as we did. Open an account with an online bank, put money in there, verify the ATM works in the U.S., inform them you are going overseas, then close the account when you get home. Also take $100 in 20s with the intention of bringing them back but if you are desperate for cash, you can exchange them (at a bad rate). We only needed the cash on one trip of many.

Thanks for everyone's input. I didn't mention that I had gotten 185 Euros through AAA Oregon before we left as recommended by others on the Traveler's Helpline, and we also carried a Mastercard and Visa which we also used before we got the ATM problem resolved. Be prepared for glitches like this!

We have used the BOA card at Deutsche Bank in Germany as well. It was of great benefit not to be charged the fees. After reading all of the posts, ATM use seems messy at best. As someone said in a previous post, come prepared with multiple cards.

Since it doesn't seem like we can avoid ATM fees (like the bank relationship above) I suppose my concern is just being able to access funds. I have an American Express Rewards card that allows me to use the card to access my personal checking account, of course with fees unless I am at an American Express office. Have any of you used this approach at all? Were there problems using the AMEX cards in ATMs at all?

How about using the "fall back" option of some traveler's checks? Has anyone used those in Italy recently?

Any problems using credit cards? In cities? In the countryside?

I went with 2 ATM cards from different banks. I had no problems except for my first transaction which was excruciatingly long (like 5 minutes). I was in Italy for 3 weeks and did not see anyplace travelers checks would be accepted except perhaps big international hotels.

You do realize that you are responding to a 3 year old posting which may have a lot of out of date information. You really should start a new thread with recent info rather than hijacking a thread as old as this one.

@Victor: this article may be of interest to you. Seems you're not the only one. http://goitaly.about.com/b/2008/03/15/beware-the-ides-of-march-and-the-atm-machine.htm

I was in Italy this spring and had very bad experience with DEUTSCHE BANK ATM machine in Rome, using Bank of America debit card. I tried to get 100 Euros at DEUTSCHEBANK VIA B. DEGLI UBAL ROMA. After my first attempt I got a message that transaction cannot be completed. I thought that I did something wrong and tried one more time. And again it did not work and I did not get any money. When I tried ATM BANCA POPOLARE, and transaction was successful. But surprise was ahead. When I returned to USA and checked my BoA account, I found that I was charged $361 by DEUTSCHEBANK + $8 fees for transaction that failed!
I contacted BoA and submitted claim. After several weeks I got response that my money will not be returned :(

Tom, That article is also from 2008.

An from that post I did three years ago: We used BA ATM cards in France last year at the BNP Paribas Banks and everything worked fine with no fees because of their alliance with BA, and there were plenty of BNP Paribas ATMs all over France. So in considering our Italy trip this year, I looked over the BNP website and saw they had Italian branches but it gave me no information as far as the ATM locations. Other posters on the Traveler's Helpline have commented that there can be fees involved using BA ATM cards in Italy. With that in mind and the great recommendations from others on this site, we opened up a Schwab One account, which has no ATM fees worldwide. We just got home from Italy last week and our cards worked perfectly at any ATM of our choice. And no need to "run down" a BNP ATM, which were far and few. I used the Schwab iPhone app to access our balances when had WiFi access.

I was thinking about buying debit cards in Euros from AAA. Does anyone have experience with that as an alternative?

@ Laurel: the article is from 2008, but it describes the same experience Victor had in 2011. So the problem is still happening, and I think the advice given in the article is still good.

I'm in Florence as I write this, and I've used the DB ATM three times without problems, unless you consider a 1% transaction fee a problem. The 1% is worth the convenience, if you ask me.

DEUTSCHE BANK ATM, Part 2
As I reported here I tried to get money from DEUTSCHE BANK ATM in Rome using BoA debit card. I did not get money, but my account was charged anyway. I called BoA and submitted a claim. In a few weeks I got a letter that they did not find any problem with transaction and I would not get my money back. I called them again and told that I disagree and requested reexamination. In a few days I got a letter that I would get my money back. And I got them back! So, conclusion: when you are right – fight!

Does anyone know how to view the most recent posts first? It would be very helpful. Thanks! Bev