TL;DR…… got scammed back in Shinjuku and we are locked out of all our accounts now financially stranded. All we have is a Discover credit card and a contactless debit card on his phone but most places aren’t taking contactless nor Discover. Now desperately trying to get cash instead but can only do so by Venmoing someone for it, can anyone help!?
Hi all – my BF and I got drugged, beaten & taken to ATM in Shinjuku Tokyo on day 2 of our trip. Thankfully our cards all declined the transactions and locked up, but they did take his debit card (cancelled and worthless anyways), our cash (~$100), and my phone. We’re now left with the consequences being fully locked out of our debit + credit cards and me not having a phone for two-factor authentication for the rest of our trip to Dec 9.
Customer support for our accounts have been effectively useless as they obviously are suspicious given the fraudulent transactions, which I’m grateful for but is now leaving us financially stranded as they won’t restore our access and tell us to visit a branch in-person, AKA impossible considering there is no Wells Fargo nor Bank of America in Osaka. Almost all our accounts (Airbnb, etc) are linked to my phone so without TFA this has snowballed into everything and is slowly making this the worst two weeks of our lives. We have been beating ourselves up with regrets every day so *please be kind, we are desperately trying to figure out our options to salvage the rest of the trip.*
Our only lifeline is my Discover credit card and his Google Pay debit card which his bank thankfully authorized for contactless while his new card is sent home in the US. However we’re realizing most places don’t take Discover nor contactless, and we can’t take out cash as ATMs don’t take contactless. Our hotels from here on out are all prepaid, but trains being cash-only is a challenge. We got into Osaka off the kindness of a couple we begged to let us PayPal & buy Yen off of.
Is anyone in Osaka we could buy some Yen off of via Venmo or PayPal? Or just have advice? Here is what we DO still have and what we’ve done with it so far. Are we completely fucked or is there any chance we can still get around with this?
We have access to:
-his phone (can do contactless pay for debit card, Venmo/Paypal etc)
-his physical credit card (locked/cancelled, used an emergency cash advance on it yesterday but today we found it cancelled and customer support is saying they cannot reauthorize)
-my physical debit and credit cards (locked/canceled, bank won’t authorize anything without TFA)
-my Discover card (our only working credit card, won’t authorize cash advance without TFA and I don’t think ATMs take Discover anyways)
by Icy-Needleworker-805