Update:- @clemens @wellington @JackAlabama @diatessaron @Sols @Martin Everson @burden
I sent an email to the beneficiary Thai Bank yesterday, and got a reply from them late last night asking for more SWIFT information from Citibank. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with their offshore customer support team to establish that (A) they were worse than useless and (B) they were not going to provide me with the information that Krung Thai asked for.
In a moment of fury and frustration, I raised a complaint on the Citibank website this morning, explaining the entire saga, and asking to speak to somebody onshore who can give me the information that was asked of me.
Call me a cynic - and in a case of the worlds largest form of coincidence - I received a call from Citibank's "funds transfer team" 2 hours later. It might be coincidence, but..............(I'll never know).
This is where the story gets interesting, as the woman (again, offshore) explained to me that the money was returned to Citibank, because it was missing the reason for payment, and the contact details of the beneficiary - information that I f*ck*ng gave to them 10 days ago
I pushed and pushed and pushed her, but she was unable (/refused) to tell me WHEN it was returned.
This means that the money has been found, and she can try to send it again, so yes, thank the lord above, but it is important to understand that I now have to go back to the beneficiary bank to apologise, but much more importantly, go back to Thailand Elite whom I have given a lot of crap over the past week - including last night, telling her to push their bank. Let's remember, that I am starting a 5 year VIP relationship with them, and will be asking them for all sorts of things on a regular basis, so I pray I have not burned my bridges.
In signing off, I will never know where it got held up - in part because I cannot tell when it was returned. Having raised it on the 12th, with the Thailand bank back from their holidays on the 17th, my suspicion is that it was not with Citibank the whole time, and it's possible that somewhere among the shouting, phone calls and electronic tracing, it got returned.
My lesson here is that sending money to Thailand has tougher regulations, and sufficient detail needs providing - plus retail banks are really hard sometimes; especially ones that offshore
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO COMMENTED AND OFFERED ADVICE
<phew>
For what it's worth, it also just occurred to me that this saga just passed the 30 day mark, and Krung Thai might have had some error report at 30 days telling them to return it
I sent an email to the beneficiary Thai Bank yesterday, and got a reply from them late last night asking for more SWIFT information from Citibank. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with their offshore customer support team to establish that (A) they were worse than useless and (B) they were not going to provide me with the information that Krung Thai asked for.
In a moment of fury and frustration, I raised a complaint on the Citibank website this morning, explaining the entire saga, and asking to speak to somebody onshore who can give me the information that was asked of me.
Call me a cynic - and in a case of the worlds largest form of coincidence - I received a call from Citibank's "funds transfer team" 2 hours later. It might be coincidence, but..............(I'll never know).
This is where the story gets interesting, as the woman (again, offshore) explained to me that the money was returned to Citibank, because it was missing the reason for payment, and the contact details of the beneficiary - information that I f*ck*ng gave to them 10 days ago
I pushed and pushed and pushed her, but she was unable (/refused) to tell me WHEN it was returned.
This means that the money has been found, and she can try to send it again, so yes, thank the lord above, but it is important to understand that I now have to go back to the beneficiary bank to apologise, but much more importantly, go back to Thailand Elite whom I have given a lot of crap over the past week - including last night, telling her to push their bank. Let's remember, that I am starting a 5 year VIP relationship with them, and will be asking them for all sorts of things on a regular basis, so I pray I have not burned my bridges.
In signing off, I will never know where it got held up - in part because I cannot tell when it was returned. Having raised it on the 12th, with the Thailand bank back from their holidays on the 17th, my suspicion is that it was not with Citibank the whole time, and it's possible that somewhere among the shouting, phone calls and electronic tracing, it got returned.
My lesson here is that sending money to Thailand has tougher regulations, and sufficient detail needs providing - plus retail banks are really hard sometimes; especially ones that offshore
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO COMMENTED AND OFFERED ADVICE
<phew>
For what it's worth, it also just occurred to me that this saga just passed the 30 day mark, and Krung Thai might have had some error report at 30 days telling them to return it
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