I must have been able to stand cold weather at some point in my life, because I have memories of shoveling snow as a child in Chicago and of digging out cars stuck in snowdrifts during the winters of 1978 and ’79. Perhaps it was all the years of living in Phoenix and the Caribbean that made me less tolerant to cold. All I know is that when the temperatures drop below 50 I am miserable. I had an amazing month-long leaf-peeping trip to parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Georgia, but toward the end I really started to suffer as autumn kicked in, and I was anxious to get back to Florida where I could warm my bones.

The drive home from Atlanta yesterday was not without drama. Near Valdosta, Georgia, I pulled off the Interstate for fuel. I pulled into a Race Trac gas station that was advertising the lowest price, slid my debit card through the reader and waited for the pump to turn on. When the nozzle didn’t activate I checked the display. To my horror it read, “Declined – see attendant – error Z.” Now, I know my debit card is good. There’s plenty of money in my account. But my first reaction was embarrassment, that somehow I would be seen as a thief or a deadbeat. So of course, I tried again. No way. Declined. I seriously thought about trying a third time, until I realized that would be the definition of insanity – repeating the same behavior over and over and Read the rest of this entry »

During the last two months I have been trying to find out why I am being charged erroneous ATM fees by my bank. Last month my statement showed a “foreign ATM transaction fee,” which normally would result if I had withdrawn money using an ATM that was not owned by my bank. When I insisted that I had only withdrawn funds from ATM’s owned by my bank, they researched the fee and told me it was levied when I used my debit card to pay my AT&T cell phone bill online. Even though my bank graciously agreed to refund the fee, I was determined to make sure it didn’t happen again. I logged in to my online account with AT&T and read over all their policies regarding the fees they charge for various payment methods. Of the online payment options, their website states:

We accept the following forms of payment: * ATM debit cards – STAR, Pulse, ACCEL, NYCE * Credit/debit cards – Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover Network, Diners Club

There is no other distinction made between credit and debit cards and no notice that any fees will be levied if a debit card is used. I assumed it was a one-time mistake.

This month I again used my debit card to pay my AT&T cell phone bill online. Two days later, the monthly phone bill showed up on my bank statement, along with yet another “foreign ATM transaction fee.” This time I called AT&T. Since the customer service rep that I reached was unable to answer my question, she accelerated my issue to the supervisory level and then Read the rest of this entry »

There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that I am a fearless solo female traveler. The bad news is that I am a fearless female traveler. I used to be fearless to the point of taking foolish risks, until a few years ago, when I was camping on the island of Kauai – my tent was slashed while I slept in it and all my stuff was stolen. Fortunately, I was not harmed, but it was traumatic – this occurred about a year after 911 and it was nearly impossible to get a hotel room without any ID, credit cards, or money, not to mention that I lost my camera, keys to the rental car, glasses (without which I could not read a menu or drive), cell phone, passport, etc. The experience taught me a lot of lessons, the most notable of which was to never ignore my inner voice. I KNEW I shouldn’t have been in that campground – it was full of negative energy – but I ignored what my gut was telling me because I wanted to “wake up to the sound of the waves.”

Following that disastrous vacation, it took a monumental effort to let go of my fear of traveling solo. Before leaving for my next vacation I made exhaustive preparations, created lists after list and layers of backup safety precautions. It took about a year, but the fear subsided and I am back to being a fearless traveler, albeit a much wiser one, and I decided it was worth sharing my hard-won wisdom in the following list of precautions I take when traveling: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a bad week for credit cards. Last Sunday I received a phone call from CitiBank Fraud Early Warning Department, informing me that they were canceling my CitiCard MasterCard because of a “merchant compromise.” They explained that someone had hacked into a merchant’s database and stolen all their stored credit card information. When I asked who the merchant was they refused to tell me, saying that the information was part of a criminal investigation and couldn’t be released. Apparently, however, my credit card information was part of the compromised database, so I asked them to confirm the recent charges on the card. Sure enough, there was a fraudulent charge from the day before, $30 from Macy’s. CitiBank overnighted me a new card, which arrived yesterday, but that started me thinking. Read the rest of this entry »