There are certain rituals that go along with getting settled in any new place. In Poland, one of these consists of getting your zameldowanie, a piece of paper issued by City Hall showing your official place of residence. Getting this thing was a breeze—pop into City Hall, and a few minutes later here I am, officially a resident at Izabela’s family home.
Another ritual involves opening a bank account. Before trying to open one for me, Izabela had done some in depth research. We needed a bank with an automated phone system, English-speaking representatives and, preferably, one that issued checks. We eventually gave up the check requirement when it became clear that in the process of the democratic transition banks lost interest in them.
Citibank looked like the perfect solution. Izabela banked with them too, and had only good things to say about the people who worked in our small, local branch. They seemed friendly on the phone, and I looked forward to all the mundane banking tasks which had bored me in the States, but here would provide me a measure of independence I craved. I had only been in Poland a couple weeks, but already I was missing the simple freedom of being able to speak for myself in public. I couldn’t wait to start banking right away.
As Izabela had promised, pani Marta at Citibank was the perfect mix of friendliness and professionalism, the kind of banker who could walk you through a complicated lone application without a hitch. If Izabela and I ever thought of opening a joint account, or buying another house, I planned on working with her. It was only after chatting away for ten minutes in English when we hit a snag.
“I don’t know whether we can accept your signature since you can’t see,” said pani Marta, “at least, not without getting it notarized.”
“Notaries are expensive here,” said Izabela to me. She turned to pani Marta, “Are you sure this is required?”
Pani Marta had a quick conference with her supervisor. She returned, seeming anxious. “I’m so sorry to be telling you this, but I’ll have to ask you to come back tomorrow if that’s convenient. My boss doesn’t know the answer to the signature question either, and I’ll have to make some phone calls.”
I could see she was embarrassed.
“But you could read me the documents,” I said. “That’s how they do it in the States, and it works fine.”
She took a breath about to talk, and I felt that something was brewing. In the end, we agreed to meet at 1 the next afternoon.
As soon as my assistant Ola and I walked through the front door of Citibank the next day, Pani Marta rushed out to meet us. She must have been keeping watch and sounded as if she wished she could usher us right back out again.
“I’ve been trying to call you,” she said. “I was hoping to reach you to tell you there was no point inconveniencing yourselves by coming in.” Her tone shifted from frantic to apologetic as she talked.
Then she switched to Polish, speaking to my assistant at length. Why was she doing this? What made her forget her English all of a sudden?
“Pani Marta is saying that Citibank can’t accept your signature,” Ola translated at last. “To have an account here, you would have to sign a release in front of a notary, giving someone else permission to sign your bank documents for you.”
I felt disoriented. All of a sudden I was facing an alternative: either I'd be dependent on the whims of someone else for the rest of my life, or I'd never have a bank account. There was no question I'll choose the latter. But this decision instantly set me apart from everyone else, bankless and alienated. I'd be walking down the streets and looking normal; and no one will guess that I'm a different species.
An alien or not, it wouldn’t do me any good standing here. Feigning composure, I turned to pani Marta. Maybe Ola had translated wrong. Maybe I’d missed something. Pani Marta would tell her news to me.
“So you’re saying that in order to bank with you, I would have to visit a notary, with someone else, and give her permission to sign everything related to my account? And I’d have to bring that person along every time I came in here. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
I paused. “And even if someone did agree to this, would the bank pay for the notary?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
When Ola and I got home and told Izabela the news, she called the bank to confirm. Pani Marta, who had been kind until now, finally turned shappish saying that such was the law in Poland and there was nothing she could do about it.
The law? So it wasn't just the whim of Citibank. I had known I’d meet with new challenges in Poland, but that premonition didn’t make what Citibank had said any less surprising. The question of whether my signature is valid had never been raised before, and, as I knew full well, would never pass the scrutiny of the many disability rights groups in America.
But here paragraph 80 was meant to trip me up. If this was Polish law, it meant that I really couldn’t have an account anywhere. So what would happen when I got a job? There would be tricky to explain this situation to a boss.
Izabela then spoke to the banks manager, who, to our relief, was supportive, and appalled at the situation. He suggested that we write a letter of complaint addressed to him, which he would send on to Citibank’s main office in Warsaw. The next day, I did just that.
In my letter, I started from the beginning and treated the unpleasant experience as a story. I told Citibank I had chosen them because they could assist me in English; I explained how the armory of the notaries and the plenipotentiary came into view instead; I concluded by telling them why my having an account there wasn’t feasible as long as these policies were in place.
I also included the information that after examining paragraph 80 of the Civil Code, the law upon which Citibank’s policy is apparently founded, I discovered that a plenipotentiary is not, as Citibank stated, required by the Polish government for me to maintain a bank account. Instead, the law only necessitates that an individual without sight, upon opening an account, must have her signature notarized.
In the end, I requested that City Bank reconsider its policy regarding customers without vision. I said: "Though it may have been designed to protect a customer who cannot see, it leaves the same person legally incapacitated in terms of her own money. It also invites financial abuse of her by the person serving as power of attorney. Furthermore, the policy, in my case and in that of others I am sure, is outmoded." I said that as a self-supporting, productive member of society, I was entitled to exercise my own discretion with regard to money as any other working person would. Again, I requested that Citibank reconsider.
The bank manager had told us to expect an answer within three weeks to a month. When, after five weeks, we still hadn’t heard anything, we wrote again. We also sent a letter to the Helsinki Foundation, who handles cases of discrimination. It was only then that Citibank in Warsaw, who must have decided I might not have given up, picked another bank, or left the country, got in touch.
The woman who called my cell phone said that the bank had sent a reply to my letter, and that I could expect it within two days. I thanks her and wished her a happy holiday. Christmas was less than a week away, and this banking debacle wasn't personal.
When I arrived home that same afternoon, Izabela told me Citibank had phoned the house too.
Sitting at the kitchen table, I thought back. No, I hadn't given them our home phone number.
“They phoned to talk to me,” said Izabela. “I told the man he needed to talk to you and he said, ‘but didn’t you sign the letter too?’ I told him that yes, I had signed the Polish copy as a translator, but that this was your financial business and he should speak to you. He said, ‘I need to speak to her?’”
I couldn’t help laughing in spite of the situation.
“Next time,” I said, “you should tell him that no, speaking to me won’t work, he should just communicate in Morse Code. That aught to make things easier for everybody.”
Another ten days passed before the promised letter arrived.
Surprised by how nervous I was when Izabela finally brought the letter in from the mailbox, I folded my shawl over the back of the kitchen chair.
Whenever I get particularly nervous, I force myself to think of something funny about the situation. There had been a girl named Emma in my class at school whom we hadn’t liked because she was a tattle tale. Her mom had worked at Citibank, so whenever we passed the place as kids, we all made silly, kid-like comments. “Okay,” I told myself. “This letter is nothing to worry about—it’s just a piece of mail from the place Emma’s mom works—no big deal.” Sitting at the table, Izabela opened the letter and began to read:
Dear Madame, we respectfully inform you that in accordance with Bank Law, the contract regarding the bank account has to be signed in the written form.
In addition, it is necessary to explain that according to the Civil Code, when a person who cannot read has to give a statement of will in writing (which, in this case, is the bank account contract), it has to be given in the form of the public notary act.
As a result, Citibank in Warsaw offered to sign a bank contract between the bank and the person with no vision under the public notary act.
There also exist a possibility of establishing a plenipotentiary by a person who cannot see, who, in the name of the patron, will sign a contract with the bank under the public notary act. This means that a person who cannot see can endow the plenipotentiary with the right to sign a bank contract without giving him access to the account itself.
We hope that these solutions will satisfy your expectations.
Sincerely, signed and dated December 14, 2009
At first, I was too stunned to catch the meaning of the words. Luckily, I wasn't alone. Izabela held me, sat me down, and handed me hot spiced cider pouring it into my favorite, depression glass cup. I studied the rough and smooth texture of its flowers, glad that this beautiful thing had come all the way from California.
It was ten minutes before I was able to channel what we had read. The letter contained two important facts. First, Citibank had lied. In person, they had insisted that the plenipotentiary would have to continuously sign documents related to the account, Here, they claimed that it was only a matter of signing a single bank contract. Second, and most crucial, they defined me as illiterate. Now, I know that talking computers and audio books are new inventions, relatively speaking. But Braille has been around for over a hundred years. I have read Braille since the age when other kids started reading print. Within minutes, I laughed.
“Well, Izabela, sorry to tell you—you have an illiterate for a girlfriend!”
Izabela tucked the letter into the special Citibank folder. "I wonder how you got a Master's in English."
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