Melt Down in Kandy, Sri Lanka

JANUARY 8, 2013

 "Money doesn't buy happiness.  But is sure gives you some options."

- Mike Reid, my first boss in the financial services industry

Kandy was a traveler’s low for me.  In addition to the iPhone being stolen, I almost ran out of money.  More accurately, I almost ran out of access to my own money.  

Plan A:  Come to town with a fist full of Indian Rupees and convert them to Sri Lankan Rupees.  Well, Sri Lanka is so fierce in their cultural separation from India that they go way out of their way to have a separate identity from their neighbors to the north.  Banks exchange 9 types of currency.  

FAIL:  Indian Rupees are not one of them.

Plan B:  I’ll hit up ATMs along the way and just pay the high fees.   

FAIL:  It turns out my new bank, Chase, linked my debit card to the wrong account and my card draws on the pseudo-business account for my rental property.  Withdrawing funds from that account for personal use would be disastrous in an IRS audit.

Plan C:  A failed IRS audit beats being destitute in a third world country.  I’ll spend down the rental property account and cross my fingers I don't get audited.   

FAIL:  The new electronic payment system Chase set up with my tenants for them to pay rent doesn’t work and they’ve been texting me for help to a phone I don’t posses anymore.  That account has been down to bones for a while and I didn’t notice on account of the fact I like to pretend I don’t own the house and never check on the accounts.

Plan D:  Call Chase, give them a piece of my mind, and get the debit card linked to my personal account.  Now all I have to do is transfer cash from PayPal (where my clients pay me) to my bank account.  It takes like 4 clicks on paypal.com and the money is in my hands.   

FAIL:  PayPal twice freezes my account because the IP address I use to log in from is in an area they block transactions from.  Twice I call them and am assured them money will come.  Twice an automated process stops my request to transfer money from myself to myself.  This is after running up a hundred dollar phone bill allegedly getting this squared away with them last fall when I was in Eastern Europe. 

At one point I emailed Theresa, a traveler friend of mine, and gave up.  I was going to take a bus to the airport with the remaining 2,500 rupees (about $19 USD) I had on me where I would then buy an early ticket to India with my fully functional credit card and then live for a month or so on the pile of Indian Rupees that are stuffed in the recesses of my bag. 

In the end, PayPal fixed the glitch and I transferred enough money to buy a small Sri Lankan fishing village.  Just in case.