Dr. Biswas reminded me to close my bank account before I leave Portugal.

I went to the branch at downtown BPI. Not sure what to do, I queued in the line for the front desk. The receptionist told me it would be a two step process. First, I would need to withdraw all of my money, then they would be able to close the account for me. She helped me with the first step, and then assigned me to a manager.

I waited in a second line for the manager. However, when it was my turn the manager said her English was not good. Then I was assigned to another manager. I waited in a third line. The manager came out. He told me I did not have to close the account. Because I had zero balance, I would not have to pay the monthly fee. And the account would be closed in two years if I did not incur transactions. That sounds okay, so I left and never thought about it again.

Until February 4 of 2020. I woke up at 6:00 am and noticed an unanswered call on my phone at 4:30 am from Lisbon. I called back, but the line was busy. Then I saw an email from Ms. Debra the agent who helped me at a BPI branch in Lisbon. I checked my bank account and saw I was in negative because of a number of charges, one of which as a charge from William’s school on January 6th. We checked out of the school on Dec 8. It must be a mistake. I wasn’t worry too much and wrote a message to Debra telling her about it and told her that I would call her in 30 minutes.

Debra called me in a minute. She told me my account was in delinquent. They would report me to the national credit bureau the next day if the problem couldn’t be fixed. I immediately wrote a message to CLIB while I was on the phone with Debra but there was no much I could do. In addition to the charge from CLIB, there were a number of bank fees triggered by the negative balance. Also there was a charge because the receptionist at BPI in Braga did not use the ATM. Although I am more than willing to pay everything out of my pocket, the bank will not accept a payment in credit card. A bank transfer from my US account will take days if not more.

Debra skipped her lunch and worked with me for hours try to resolve this. She tried a number of new technologies that available on paper but nobody head tried before, such as secure communication through a special device but that did not work. She also video called me to help me with my banking app in Portuguese language. In the end, we were able to use a new feature in the banking app to take care of this. I am truly impressed by her knowledge, skill, and professionalism. She went above and beyond, going out of her way to help a customer who she had only met once. That’s remarkable.