My Story:
On the first day of my first trip into Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam, the plane touched down. I headed to the exit of the airport, and promptly exchanged 40 USD to Vietnamese Dong, from a shady seeming airport exchange (I say shady because she didn't take my passport, in Thailand this was standard and as I later found out it's standard in Vietnam as well). And then promptly purchased what I thought was a Viettel SIM card... it was not. It was Mobifone. So off to a great start right?
I exchanged so little USD because I just wanted some cash in my pocket and didn't want to think too much and be perfectionistic about whether I was getting a decent exchange rate and I figured best to keep some USD in my pocket just in case and pull out some cash from an ATM later.
Of course, that was before I found out that my Wells Fargo Visa ATM debit card that had given me no problem in Thailand wouldn't work on literally any ATM in Vietnam.
Things to Try:
I tried four or five different ATMs and made sure I was hitting the right options. I looked online and found one person who had a similar problem kept tapping savings instead of credit (see the thread here). They figured it out later and got their cash. So make sure you check that off your list of things to try.
Next thing to consider... My bank now says that I no longer need to inform them of overseas travels, but perhaps you still need to let your bank know you are traveling? Did you try that?
I also read online that Vietnamese PINs are six digits long. American PINs are only four digits long. If that is true for you, you can try this... Some people have posted that you can try putting two zeroes before and/or after you input your PIN. I've tried both putting two zeroes before and two zeroes after, neither worked for me.
Go to a bank and withdraw some money over the counter. It was my second day and I was a little nervous due to not ever having encountered something like this, plus banks give me a strange nervous feeling anyways. The pomp and circumstance and weird way everything works throws me off. The guard politely helped me take a number and asked me to sit. He kept and eye on the numbers changing and let me know when it was my turn. Very nice man. I got to the counter and attempted to explain my problem to the lady across from me. She didn't quite understand. I had already typed into google translate (honestly such an amazing app) what the issue was. And once she saw that she asked how much I'd like to withdraw, told me the exchange rate from the bank (seemed correct *shrug*) and added that there would be a 4 percent add on fee for "the sale". I didn't like that she called it a sale. I was trying to understand exactly all that was going on. I was hoping for less percent taken, but I was desperate and just wanted some money in my pocket so I said ok. Honestly, the amount of paperwork seemed excessive but at least it seemed they were doing something for that 4 % they were taking. I handed my passport over, they scanned and during the process the woman decided to take out a huge wad of cash and count it, while the transaction was going through. In my terror I thought I was about to be handed a stack of cash haha. But no just typical bank stuff. The woman handed me my Dong and I left.
I have one more idea. Visa has an ATM Locator on their website. It's best to use your phone because you can search by letting the geolocation find you rather than trying to input Vietnamese street names and locations. So, on the website, the different ATMs specify they have different abilities. Some have chip readers, some are open 24 hours a day, etc.. I feel I recall finding out that though my card has a black bar, I don't believe it is an active magnetic strip card, but it does have a chip. Now, using the ATM Locator I can see that some of the ATMs are specified as having chip readers and some don't. My last idea is to use this ATM locator and find an ATM that has a chip reader and use that and also use the two zeroes at the end of the four digits that I have yet to try. I'll try and remember to update this post if I figure something out. ... hopefully my card doesn't get eaten..
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