Breaking the Bank: A Saga of Stupidity

Before I left Portland I said to my pals and family, "I won't be settled until I have my three Bs. A bike, bank account, and a beer (Maybe a bestie or two as well)". The bike and beer were very easy to come by, (besties as well lucky for me), but the bank account proved to be more of a nightmare than I was expecting.

One of the things that the university tells you before you come is that you will need to set up a Dutch bank account so that you can recieve any student loans you may have. Fine. It doesn't really make sense to me why my American student loans can't go to my American bank account, but then again what do I know, I'm just little old me. 

In addition to the loans, having a Dutch bank account comes in handy when making purchases around town. Although it is a mostly cashless society, the Netherlands has a pretty limited variety of cards they accept, and the one that is most widely accepted is the maestrocard (not to be confused with a mastercard of course). The first (of many) headaches I experienced while trying to set up my life here was when I tried to set up a phone plan (with T-mobile, the same provider I have in the US. God forbid the SAME company would make it easy to use the SAME services in another country. I digress). I got to the T-mobile store and was informed that I cannot set up a phone plan without a Dutch bank account. Fine. I got a prepaid sim instead. A problem for another day. 

So, I want to set up my bank account. First I have to register my address with the municipality. For reasons I will not get in to here, this was a bit of a struggle. You see, I had to register my address in order to get my resident number, which I need to open a bank. This process takes a few weeks in the best scenario, and needless to say, my situation would not be classified as "best". 

After I finally got my registration settled (after a month and a half of being here) I was ready to go set up a bank account. Needless to say, this whole time the university has been harassing me about getting them my bank account details so that they can send my loan disbursements (again, why can't they send to my US bank? Hmm? No answer? Weird). 

The university recommends a certain bank that has a good student account deal, so I figured I would just go with that one. I went to the website, and selected the pop-up saying "set up your account in five minutes!" Amazing, I think to myself How easy. How simple. How wrong I was.

I filled out this long form with all my information, address, tax info, all my demographics, the usual. Then the last question on the form was "Are you an American citizen?". A word to the wise, this is never a good sign. When I selected "yes", I was hit with the message that I would need to make my account via appointment instead. Fine. I can deal.

I click on the link to make an appointment and low and behold, it takes me back to the form which I had just filled out. Amazing. Obviously I filled out the form again in the vain hope that this would allow me to make an appointment. To no ones surprise I was wrong. Okay. Fine. I searched instead for an email or number to call to make an appointment, but no such option was available. The message clearly said I would need to make an appointment, but I decided to just go to the branch in the city center. 

When i arrived at the office, I was unsure if I had entered a bank branch or a coffee shop. Immediately upon entry there is a bar which cheerfully advertises the millennial slogan "but first, coffee!". This should have been my first indicator that I was about to have a stupid interaction. The place was entirely deserted except for a woman sitting at the coffee bar, eating her lunch. Hesitantly I asked her if it was possible to set up an appointment to open my student account. 

Her answer was, no you can't do that here, you need to call the number. Okay? It seemed to me that I was just going to call this woman whos sitting right in front of me to make an appointment to also talk to her? Okay. What do I know. So I got the number from her and went outside and immediately called it. 

I was met with a brief message in Dutch and then the line cut out. How wonderful. I went home and called the number again, this time with my computer listening with google translate equipped. Apparently you can't call this number without a Dutch phone number. As I mentioned, the best part is that I can't get a Dutch phone number without a bank account. What a great system. 

After a brief fit of intense frustration, my superb problem-solving skills kicked in, and I decided I would ask one of my friends with a Dutch number to use their phone during class. When I finally managed to place the call, I talked to a man who asked me all. the. same. questions. as were on the very first form that I filled out. Except this time I had the added pleasure of having to spell McFeeters-Krone over the phone (always a joy, but when speaking to a Dutchie, the letters are different so it ended up looking like Mcfeitiers-Kroni). 

All of this lead to me getting an appointment online to establish my account. For a country that is known for being systematic in almost all regards (like Germany), one wonders why this couldn't have been done with an email or better yet, an online form.

So. Moral of the story, after two months here I finally have my three (four?) Bs. I guess you can say I'm settled at last (albeit more than a little incredulous).