shullen

We are going to Tulsa. There are different price ranges of houses. However, we are looking at the Jenks school area and especially for Jenks Southeast, there are limited blocks of street available that go inside the school boundary. Because of the boundary, there are very few rental properties and difficult to find good house below 300k mark.

TimNiceBut

The banking system is indeed somewhat archaic over here. However, for half-decent service you're usually better served with a community bank or a local credit union. My local credit union can get you a new debit card while you wait, and it's not like this is a hotbed of banking activity out here.

retzie

I'm glad you'll at least be in Tulsa! I'm afraid the lack of rentals in the 'good neighbourhood' is no doubt part of its being a 'good neighbourhood'. Never before have I been so looked down upon for living in a rental as in Oklahoma. (I had 3 x year long contracts, so I'm not sure WTF else they thought I should do.)

In my experience, the 'local is better' rule does not apply to banking in OK. They are decades behind the decades behind of the rest of the US...

shullen

Hubby's boss recommended Bank of Oklahoma, as that's one the company's using. I heard that you can ask company to set up account for the employee even before yiu land. Is it true? Also any big Birtish bank will allow you to use Internet banking there without charging transaction fees?

GeoffM

What do you want to do? I use my Lloyds account online to move money around without any fees - unless I want to transfer it abroad. At that point you switch to a Forex anyway, as they usually have far better rates than your bank. XE rates are usually 5% or more better than Lloyds, plus that latter charge a flat fee to send on top of the crap exchange rate.

Bink

I have found no comparison to xe.com for international transfers. I too use Lloyds within the UK to move money around.

AddyLaddy

I used worldfirst.com to transfer our house deposit from the UK. Had to do it 10K at time due to my online banking limit back in the UK, but I was very pleased with WorldFirst and their exchange rates.

shullen

What about withdraw cash in the first few weeks? Can't imagine we take too much cash and am thinking about relying on E-banking account for the first few weeks. I know I can use my post office card without any transaction fees but am pretty sure my debit card will charge me eveytime I take cash.

I follow Martin Lewis in the UK and his website gives a daily comparison of the exchange rate and good guide on how to transfer money. Wish there is a equivalent of him in the US. From what I heard here, US banking system is pretty back dated. We need Martin Lewis to kick the banks!

shullen

Tulsa (or OK in general) might turn out to be the worst choice. My husband is an atheist and we are moving to the "bible belt"!

GeoffM

What's cash? Seriously though, I hardly ever use cash - even when I arrived. I withdrew $80 two weeks ago and still have about $20 left, and most of that was at a garage sale. However, don't use a UK credit/debit card in its place otherwise you'll get nasty foreign transaction fees.

I think my Wells Fargo card arrived within a week anyway, and they gave me a checkbook in the branch while I was opening the account. My AMEX arrived within a few days as well. I think somebody said in this thread or somewhere else that they had a card quite literally pressed while they waited - at a smaller credit union type of place (I guess the closest equivalent would be a building society).

shullen

Here is an update of our experience so far.

We landed in US on 28th Jan. As we already signed up a lease contract, we only stayed in the hotel for two nights before informing the removal company to start unpacking all of our household goods. Cox has proved to be an excellent provider who has got us connected with both Internet and phone in less than 48 hours after we landed with just over $100 deposits. We already opened both checking and saving account with HSBC and my husband's card has arrived just before we left UK. Mine hasn't and HSBC has beeb so slow in updating our account with the US address so I can't get my card till that happens. Our application to SSN has also been much faster than expected. As we quickly released that you can't do anything without SSN, we decided to try our luck at the SSN office just 7 days after we landed. And guess what, the files actually went through! I received my SSN card in the post today!

On the credit side, there has been frustrations after frustrations. We tried to get a Best Buy credit card as everyone has been recommending store credit card to build up credit history. First we've been told that you can't without SSN. So we tried again today when I have my SSN. Gone through the whole application process and then was told that our application was rejected. It is really a bit ridiculous to be rejected for $1500 credit limit when I have spent over $3000 in Best Buy last week. The same story went with a Verion mobile phone plan. First we were told that we can't do anything without SSN. Now I have it, then I was told that not only they need to see my actual SSN card and fax it through, and they also need a state issued ID! That normally means driver's license! I was actually going to try a couple of store credit cards such as Walmart and Sears. Guess there is no point in trying now. I have an American Express card for a few years now. But again they wouldn't let me to apply for the global transfer till I have the SSN. Now I have it and the office is closed. I know that I am probably rushing things. But for someone who has several credits cards in the UK like me, this has just been very frustrating.

For other people who has gone through the same process, what do you mean by store credit and what types of shop offer them? So far, all we find are store credit cards and they will all do credit check which will reject us.

Bink

I feel your frustrations - been there, had the same experience's. I got denied a $500 Macy's credit card and couldn't believe it. I did manage to get a Lowes CC though (again a useless limit - $500 but it all helps on the credit history)

Get a secured credit card. The problem I found with some of the store credit cards is that it's automated and your lack of credit history is an automatic denial. This gets you started.

Get a car loan - especially if you can put down 20% + I found it easier to get than a credit card from any of the major CC companies.

Don't ignore offers in the post from companies like Capital One. Some of them are pre-approved - I did this and although it was only a $2000 limit it served a credit history purpose just fine. They say on them if you are pre-approved or not.

It's taken me nearly 3 years to be able to get top tier credit cards in the US (Chase BA & United cards) that actually had usable limits ($10k+).

Good luck! There are many on here that have been through these frustrations and unfortunately it just takes time. There is not an immediate quick fix.

Bob

You don't want to bother doing to many store cards. Getting a couple is good, once you're able, but to start, go secured card route.

Your lack of history is getting munted every time you make an application as it dings your history and then makes it worse when rejected.

You want a couple applications to go in within a couple days of each other so that each additional application goes in as a soft ding, but as they'll be rejected it's wasted.

You can just go get a state ID/liquor ID card until you can get the drivers license.

Any way, store credit is exactly what it is and you're running in to the issue already.

GeoffM

We were rejected for store cards as well, same reasons as above. Chicken and egg. But after about the 6 month mark things start to change - Kohl's accepted my 2nd attempt (and you get a 20% discount just for trying, even if you get rejected). And Capital One sent me a pre-approved letter which I was rather skeptical about but sure enough I did get a credit card from them. Only $1k limit, but shortly afterwards I tried for a couple more cards - one rejected, the other accepted for $8,400 credit limit.

We also had AMEX for a couple of years before we came here. That got us a $5k limit right away. Contrary to your experience, I did get mine before getting a SSN, but they did need a copy faxed when I got it - which was a bit of a PITA as I don't have a fax, and the letter I sent got lost.

A number of people have reported getting SSNs quickly (including myself). I guess they've improved the systems over the years and 10 days is now much longer than it actually takes.

Anyway, keep persevering and it'll all come good in the end!

shullen

Thanks for all the above advice. Will call American Express first thing on Monday morning.

We also had a bizarre experience with HSBC. When we opened the US account with them, we were asked do we want the credit card that goes with the account. We said yes thinking that both hubby and I have been banking with either HSBC or First Direct for years and the repretative we talked to said that our UK histories will be taken into account. And then just before we left UK, we got a letter saying that our credit card application was rejected due to insufficient credit history. Obviously different parts of HSBC don't talk to each other either!