Im an american that relocated to canada. I opened a bank acct here and opened both a usd and cad account. I keep very little in cad because its for expenses. Well im leaving canada and thus planned to close my account and i had figured i go there and close my account, then withdraw my money in both cad and usd. Cad i basically have very little. However with USD, i have mid 4 figures there. I was just planning to withdraw my usd cash with bank draft where they write me a bank draft for the whole amount and i just pay that small fee for the bank draft. Well i was told i couldn’t close my bank account b/c they saw i had a good amount of usd money in my acct and said they had to order usd cash and i have to come next week to close my account. That confused me b/c i had thought why can’t i just get a bank draft for the whole amount instead and i was told b/c im closing my account they cannot do this and will have to give me my money in usd cash.
The bank is not going to be open till next week so i cant go there and ask them now but i had forgot to ask… does this mean im going to have to pay a lot of money b/c they ordering the usd currency for me? I will not be converting any money such as i dont need the cad converted to usd nor the usd to cad so there shouldn’t be any currency fees i have to pay right? Then again they are ordering usd currency for me b/c they said they dont have that much usd at the bank at the moment. But does that mean i will have to pay for that? I mean im going to get upset if when i go and withdraw my balance… i find out im going to be charged like 500 dollars to get back the 5000 dollars i have in my usd account when i presumed i could have done a bank draft for the whole amt that cost just $7.50 but they said they couldnt do a bank draft for me b/c im closing my account.
Why not open an another account wherever you are going, and do a wire transfer?
No bank has ever charged me for ordering any currency.
They shouldn’t charge for the currency, so they may save you the $7.50.
They wouldn’t provide a bank draft after closing the account as they have to have the funds in the account to complete the transaction when you deposit it when you get home.
A bank transfer might work if you already have the account set up at home in the US, but that can take some time to complete as well.
Cash will probably be quickest.
Be aware that you will have to declare all cash you have when you cross the border to the US, especially if it is over $10K.
If you are closing your account, do you mean a cashier’s check? Or were those Montrealers confused and thought you wanted a cheque drawn against the account (which makes sense then, you can’t have a cheque against an account that has stopped existing.)
Regardless, sounds like the BofM people are stupid, or using the “make life difficult for people trying to close accounts” rule. Maybe they don’t do US denomination cashier cheques, so they’d have to take the US balance, convert it into Canadian for a percentage then use that C$ currency to create a US money order for another conversion percentage.
Welcome to Canadian banking, where “customer service” is a phrase we heard once.
I have know knowledge of Canadian banking practices, but I would have thought that you could simply write yourself a cheque for the outstanding balance in the Canadian account, and pay it in to the American one. With a zero balance, it should be easy to close the account.
Can you not do electronic transfers?
One thing I do know is that BMO does do US dollar cashier’s cheques and free, since I have done it. What an individual teller will do is another matter. Ask to talk to the manager. But I am afraid they are now closed till Wednesday.
Once I had a visitor from and cheque for him for $1500 for expenses. I took it to a branch of BMO and tried to deposit it in my account and then withdraw $1500 (my account had well more than that in it). The teller told me they no longer were allowed to accept third party cheques. “What can I do?” She suggested I deposit it it in the ATM and made two withdrawals of $500 and one the next day. Which I did. Banks!
If they issued you a bank card with the Interac logo on the back, you can use it as a Plus-system ATM card anywhere in the world, including the USA. You should also be able to phone the bank from anywhere in the world and instruct them to transfer funds from your USD to CAD or vice versa.
PS – don’t close your Canadian bank accounts. Keep them active with a bare maintenance balance. You never know when you might need to have a bank account outside the USA. Things change. Rarely for the better.
Good point. Just make sure the total is under $100,000.
If $100,000 qualified as bare maintenance, I doubt he would be on here asking the question:rolleyes:
Ok i got my usd cash earlier. However, there were a few dollars i didn’t get because my account balance in usd wasn’t an exact amount and they paid me in 100s.
However this is what confused me. I had around 15 dollars in my CAD account. Normally i get charged 4 dollars a month if i dont keep at least 1500 dollars CAD in my acccount. BMO on the phone told me i wouldnt get charged for closing my account but when i was there, i was told so i cant withdraw the remaining small balance in my account… i was told my cad acct was already closed last week and that i had to pay a 9 dollar fee. BMO told me on the phone that i wouldnt even have to pay a 4 dollar fee for the month and it would get waived so i figure i would get back my usd and my 15 CAD.
Is this normal? I spoke to someone on bmo on the phone and they said did i close my acct at my home branch… i said no b/c i had opened an acct there when i first got to canada but then i had to change apt so i no longer go to that bank anymore and go to the one closer to me and and they said they would redirect me to that branch to get my fees waived. Phone call they didnt answer as line was busy. They mentioned i got charged a 9 dollar fee b/c i didnt close my acct at my home branch.
Would i even get my remaining balance back since the BMO bank i went to to close my acct said my acct is already closed last week when i went to close my accts? Its not that big of a deal b/c i have 15 Canadian dollars there only but what if i had like 300 there and i find out i can no longer withdraw it? Its like they closed my acct with my funds in it.