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Banks in Mexico?


mexjerry

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Pappysmarket is right.  My advice is the usual:  Don't put more money in a Mexican bank than you can afford to lose. You have already had reason to question your bank's activities.   It doesn't matter that you are a Mexican citizen now.   Unless you have renounced your U.S. citizenship, you have choices.   If it were me, I'd take nearly all my money out of Actinver immediately and put it in an insured account in the U.S.  If you need to know of one where you can apply without going to the U.S. to do so and can use your Mexican address, PM me .

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46 minutes ago, Niki said:

I've had problems at Actinver. When I looked at my account on-line last week over 100,000 pesos was missing. I called Carolina and with no  explanation at least a major part was returned to the account. Then a few days later more funds were missing from my investment account which is supposed to pay 8% interest. Carolina explained that the underlying certificate fluctuates on my government backed securities. Any help would be appreciated. 

Please reread your own post.  "100,000 pesos missing", "no explanation", "more funds were missing"  "certificate fluctuates"  and finally, "Any help would be appreciated."  The fact you have "Mexican citizenship" is of no help if you lose your money...but it is YOUR money...maybe.

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Thank you all for this shocking information.  I was beginning the process of transferring more and more of my retirement savings to Mexico. I was going slowly and hadn't transferred that much. But no more.

I will keep what I have in Mexico, but will keep the majority of my retirement account in the US.

The trouble is, the older one gets, the more trusting s/he gets.  And yes, I was getting too trusting.

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11 minutes ago, johanson said:

Thank you all for this shocking information.  I was beginning the process of transferring more and more of my retirement savings to Mexico. I was going slowly and hadn't transferred that much. But no more.

I will keep what I have in Mexico, but will keep the majority of my retirement account in the US.

The trouble is, the older one gets, the more trusting s/he gets.  And yes, I was getting too trusting.

Not always true, Pete, but it's good that you're taking care of business.

I find myself becoming less trusting and somewhat more cynical as the years and experience accumulates.🙃

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My problem is that I think that I live in paradise (here, lakeside) and I was beginning to become more and more naïve, trusting everything that I saw. These posts help wake me up and begin to again be that cautious investor that I had always been.

I love it here, but that does not give me the right to throw caution aside.

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1 hour ago, johanson said:

The trouble is, the older one gets, the more trusting s/he gets.  And yes, I was getting too trusting.

The opposite here. I used to trust people until they proved themselves to be untrustworthy. Got burned enough times that now I don't trust them (in the sense that I won't put myself in a position of blindly believing that everyone has good intentions) until they prove themselves to be trustworthy. 

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The issue with Monex is they are not a bank so funds are not protected. FYI Monex is a US subsidiary out of Texas. 

Having money in Monex is akin to asking your buddy to invest your money for you. 

It was a Ponzi scheme manipulated by people working for Monex. Unfortunately, many of those conned seldom checked their bank account. 

Texas authorities are now also investigating Monex. 

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On 6/5/2019 at 10:26 PM, mudgirl said:

Well, if I got a text alert that something had been charged to my debit card when I hadn't made a purchase or a transfer, that would alert me to fact that someone is using my card fraudulently and then I'd contact Bancomer.

The point is, Bancomer contacts me ONLY when I make a purchase or transfer.  Of course I save my receipt or confirmation email for either of those.  Bancomer has NEVER contacted me with a possible fraud alert.  Only my USA-based bank does that.

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6 hours ago, More Liana said:

The point is, Bancomer contacts me ONLY when I make a purchase or transfer.  Of course I save my receipt or confirmation email for either of those.  Bancomer has NEVER contacted me with a possible fraud alert.  Only my USA-based bank does that.

So are you saying that you've actually had fraud activity on your Bancomer account, but haven't been alerted to it?  

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So Bancomer only contacts you if you make the transaction, and does not if it is some hacker or fraudster.

How can they be so smart as to know the difference, and if they are, I would rather have it be reversed so that they notified me when it wasn´t me, and forget it when it was me.

 

This one has got my head shaking.

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18 hours ago, mudgirl said:

So are you saying that you've actually had fraud activity on your Bancomer account, but haven't been alerted to it?  

Of course not.  If I had meant that, I would have said so.  

23 hours ago, Kiko said:

Bancomer contacted me Friday with a fraud alert when I made a mistake with a transfer on my mobile account.  I had started a transfer and canceled.

That's good news, Kiko.  Maybe they have figured it out.

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2 hours ago, More Liana said:
20 hours ago, mudgirl said:

So are you saying that you've actually had fraud activity on your Bancomer account, but haven't been alerted to it?  

Of course not.  If I had meant that, I would have said so.  

 

On 6/11/2019 at 9:43 AM, More Liana said:

The point is, Bancomer contacts me ONLY when I make a purchase or transfer.  Of course I save my receipt or confirmation email for either of those.  Bancomer has NEVER contacted me with a possible fraud alert.  Only my USA-based bank does that.

Maybe I'm being dense here, but you originally said that Bancomer has never contacted you with a possible fraud alert. Now you say you've never had any fraud activity on your account. So why would Bancomer contact you with a fraud alert if there's never been fraud on your account and how do you know that they wouldn't if such a thing were to occur?

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The term fraud alert is a US banking term used whenever a card is used that deviates from the "normal" pattern of activity as determined by a secret algorithm. The US system is still paper based with online authorization which relies heavily on the merchant to verify the identity of the cardholder. We only return to Texas once a year and even when notifying Citibank, inevitably the first purchase attempted is denied and a fraud alert generated.

I have had Bancomer debit and credit cards for years. Both of course are chipped which then requires entry of the pin number as an electronic signature when used at a physical merchant. A stolen card is of no use without the pin. I've never received a call from Bancomer except for some promotion.

The cards are disabled for use in online transactions like Amazon, Mercadolibre or any site where you buy things using a debit or credit card. I don't know if this is a requirement but you set up digital debit and credit cards. When using them for purchases you must log into the Wallet app with the password and then generate a CVV that only has a 5 minute life. Even if someone hacks the digital card the CVV will most likely never match.

Utilities like CFE, Sky, Telcel, Telecable and others that generate automated monthly charges can still use the real credit or debit card number.

Any card use (purchases, ATM withdrawals or even branch withdrawals) generates a cell phone notification. 

To me the Mexican banking system utilizing debit and credit cards is far more secure than that in the US. It can be difficult to set up and time consuming to generate CVVs for online purchases but in the end the ability of someone stealing a Mexican card and actually using it is pretty unlikely.

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On 6/5/2019 at 10:09 PM, mudgirl said:

I've had a Bancomer account for about 10 years with no problems. I get a text message on my phone immediately when I use the debit card or do an online transfer.

The bank can't alert you if your phone or email was hijacked by a hacker. The hacker gets the notice, not you. Check your security information regularly. If you can get a 2 step authorization code. These free apps will receive a code on your phone to authorize a log in. https://play.google.com/store/search?q=authorization apps&c=apps&hl=en

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The chances of a non-jailbreaked  iPhone being hijacked are pretty slim. Ditto for email if you follow common sense rules about clicking links from unknown senders.

It doesn't make sense to avoid the new technology because you're worried about being hacked although if you do have concerns you can always use cash. 

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11 hours ago, John Shrall said:

To me the Mexican banking system utilizing debit and credit cards is far more secure than that in the US. It can be difficult to set up and time consuming to generate CVVs for online purchases but in the end the ability of someone stealing a Mexican card and actually using it is pretty unlikely.

Unfortunately you are wrong about this.  Anytime you hand over your card at a business or restaurant they have your card number and CVV .  I learned this to my sorrow and many thousands of pesos hacked.

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8 hours ago, rafterbr said:

Unfortunately you are wrong about this.  Anytime you hand over your card at a business or restaurant they have your card number and CVV .  I learned this to my sorrow and many thousands of pesos hacked.

Not true if it is a chip card AND you never let the card leave your sight.  We use our chipped cc's all over the world, including here in MX; even in restaurants, the staff will bring the chip reader to your table, so you never hand over your card to anyone.  Prior to chips, yes, your card data was exposed, not true with chipped cards.

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