Charles Schwab ATM Rebate for International Withdrawals

[Anonymous]

Is there anyway to process international ATM withdrawals without added fees? I have the Charles Schwab visa debit card that does ATM fee rebates, but one of my withdrawals had the fee integrated in the transaction rather than separated so Charles Schwab was not able to distinguish the fee. I spoke with an agent and he said something about using the visa rate rather than the ATMs Bank's rate and that they purposely make it confusing to make more money. I would greatly appreciate any help in how to avoid this in the future!

[CBartowski]

As I'm currently traveling international with the CS debit card hoping to avoid fees, I'm quite interested in what anyone has to offer as well.

[frugal47374]

I've used Schwab a lot for foreign ATM withdrawals and have never encountered the issue tobago_88 had.  So "normally" there will be no issue.

tobago_88-

Schwab automatically tries to identify ATM fees and reimburse them, but I think they say if they miss one, to call them.  Did you ask them to reimburse this one and what was their response?

[Anonymous]

I have used Schwab debit card numerous times without any hiccup...  In general, I always look for either bank or post office ATMs, not independent ones.

If there is something I should aware of, please keep posting.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have used Schwab debit card numerous times without any hiccup...  In general, I always look for either bank or post office ATMs, not independent ones.

If there is something I should aware of, please keep posting.

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This most recent international atm withdrawal didn't get the fee credited because the atm integrated the fee within the balance. So that's something to watch out for. I'm just looking to see if anyone knows how to avoid this from happening (if there's an option you select at time of withdrawal).

[tacpoly]

For clarity, are you saying you don’t get a fee refund from Schwab even when there was a screen where you accepted a transaction fee and it was obvious that a fee was tacked on based on the conversion (€ to $ is the easiest to tell since it’s stable over several days and you’ll notice the additional €2-3 fee)?

Here’s my experience using the Schwab ATM card to withdraw money while traveling in Europe the last few months. What I’ve seen are some ATMs just don’t charge a fee (ie. Barclays, ING; may be location-specific) — whether they recoup the fee by giving a less favorable exchange rate, I didn’t notice when I withdrew €100 or £100. For those transactions, there was no ATM fee refund, obviously.

Otherwise, I’ve always gotten a fee refund when ATMs give notification that a fee would be charged...even when the receipt does not list the fee separately (in fact I don’t remember ever seeing the fee listed separately in all my many years of travel, but that may just be faulty memory).

What you may be able to do is save ATM receipts and note how much fee was charged for that transaction. Then you can ask for a refund from Schwab if you find you were shorted. But you know, I rarely used cash, except in Croatia where they strongly prefer it (luckily, I accidentally withdrew a large amount of Kuna at a no-fee ATM in Zagreb — gave the bank rate too) so I didn’t need to get cash all that often. Which means I didn’t have to worry about getting a lot of fee refunds.

[SBR249]

I recently had a domestic ATM withdrawal where the fee was lumped together with the total withdrawn and Schwab correctly identified it and refunded the fee at the end of the statement period. 

I think the algorithm for these things takes into account the fact that ATMs rarely stock small denomination bills. ATMs in the US most often have $10/$20 so a withdrawal that's not a nice round multiple of the most commonly stocked denominations is a good indication that a fee is lumped in there somewhere. Most of the time, I think, the algorithm probably does a very good job of guessing how much the fee was. I would imagine that something similar happens for international transactions as well. 

If not, you could probably just call and tell them what it was even if it's not individually itemized on your receipt. I mean, if you asked for $300 and your receipt shows $307.50, it's pretty obvious that the ATM didn't spit out exact change for you. 

[randomguy1]

I was planning on using CS but switched to SoFi Money. It's nice the account accrues a decent APR and the ATM fees are supposed to be almost instantaneous. I have only used it domestically but am planning on bringing it abroad with CS as my backup. 

There is the question if you want to trust your assets to a Fintech startup but that's a whole different discussion. 

read more here:

https://milestomemories.boardingarea.com/confirmed-sofi-money-beats-the-competition-including-charle...

[staticvoidmain]

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@randomguy1 wrote:

I was planning on using CS but switched to SoFi Money. It's nice the account accrues a decent APR and the ATM fees are supposed to be almost instantaneous. I have only used it domestically but am planning on bringing it abroad with CS as my backup. 

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Yeah, I have read about SoFi after I opened my Schwab. I was thinking of switching but it would be pointless. I would have preferred SoFi since it's a lot more modern. Schwab has that old money vibe to me (very archaic).

[randomguy1]

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@staticvoidmain wrote:

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@randomguy1 wrote:

I was planning on using CS but switched to SoFi Money. It's nice the account accrues a decent APR and the ATM fees are supposed to be almost instantaneous. I have only used it domestically but am planning on bringing it abroad with CS as my backup. 

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Yeah, I have read about SoFi after I opened my Schwab. I was thinking of switching but it would be pointless. I would have preferred SoFi since it's a lot more modern. Schwab has that old money vibe to me (very archaic).

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It was also the easiest $100 I ever made for the sign up bonus. I like their UI. They have a 20% Lyft promotion when linking it to SoFi too.