How does a USA citizen but resident of Hungary get a credit card?

One avenue you might want to consider - and I have no idea if it would work for you - is to see if you can get a Tesco or Auchan or airline branded card.

Lufthansa and Wizzair have cards, and in English, Lufthansa: Lufthansa Credit Card and Wizzair: Wizzair Credit Card.  I think the fees are going to be on the high side.

BTW, American Express was here in HU for a long time, with an office near Vorosmarty Ter which was mainly a travel agent.  They must have gone as their office is now a restaurant.

Sorry ,
I have no idea about how you could apply for a credit card in Hungary and not just a debit card.
If you already have a bank account in Hungary, why not go in and ask them about getting a credit card with their bank?
We live on cash only and only take out what we need to live on for the month. Great way to save living on less then you need to.
From what I have heard it's harder to get credit in Hungary then in the US. You probably have to show that you are working our have some sort of property or something of high value before they will issue credit. You must prove you are "credit worthy" here because they really want to make sure the loan will be paid back.

FeliciaOni wrote:

Australian Visa, Mastercard etc will issue accounts to "someone living full time in Hungary" but i would have to sign a paper saying i am a Hungarian.

A credit line and credit card is an unsecured loan. But, the bank wants to still "secure" that loan by being able to "go after" anyone who does not pay. And that means being able to deal with a national under that person's home country's laws. An Austrian bank would have a lot of trouble getting its money back from an expat who runs up a large debit, then skips the country they are living in.

If you were a registered permanent resident, with a lot of proof of real physical assets in Hungary, you could ask the bank to wave that requirement in your application. But as an expat without either of those, it is more difficult for you to get a credit line here following all the rules.

FeliciaOni wrote:

Well i told him i am an usa citizen that lives in Hungary he then said "oh it is not legal but in Australia they never check, if so just say you did not know or you had a headache and did not read the fine print". I declined! He then said that "many people in Hungary do this, it is not a big deal!
...
Crazy and NOT something i would ever do! I had like 3 other banks in Australia say this same thing! I do not know why any one usa or hungarian would do this but whatever.

First of all, good for you and your ethics for not taking this "offer". 

But.... in Hungary, having someone do you a "favor" with a "wink and nod" to get things done is actually quite common. Of course, that may be just greasing the wheels (which is in a gray legal area), or doing things not so legal. Either way, it does indeed happen more than you may want to know about. 

Good answer , need a secure loan very hard to collect from someone who is a temp. resident without assets.
In the US it is easy to get a store credit card if you have a job but here even with a job it isn't easy to get credit cards.
It can be very dangerous to get in over your head with any sort of debt. I know, was in over $100,000 at one time, we had secure loans but still, that was very deep water. When you have a large line of credit it is easy to abuse it for sure.
Not so much fun when it comes time to "pay the piper" that's for sure.
If you can get by without taking on any debt, life is so much nicer.
In Hungary they are so much stricter about loans, even secure loans can be turned down if one has any health issues or is too elderly.( not sure but think 60 is "elderly" in HU)
Another reason even for returning HU citizens who are on the national health, they make you pay one year ahead of time before you can use the system unless it is a real emergency, in the past many HU citizens returned after years away from HU because their health was bad. Some came home, ran up huge medical bills and died before ever paying into the system. They sort of test you by making you wait at least one year to use the medical because partly due to these sorts of abuses.
I know a couple here in HU who actually took off owning over $100,000 in the US and moved here to HU. Odd, I know , they moved from HU to the US back to HU then back to the US and now live in HU again. Life is complicated for some people.
It was during the old commie times and they decided living in HU wasn't for them after all.They returned to the US but had to pay back all that credit. They lived in a real horrible part of S. Ca. to save money to pay back all that money.Sounds like I was speaking of myself  but no, this happens to allot of people, a bit of credit and they go crazy spending.
Spoke once about this issue with the lady  in that couple, we both agreed that all those nice pieces of clothing and other items were not worth it in the end.
She did have allot of nice stories about staying in fancy hotels all over Europe in the 80's and getting her hair done by the best then sitting in cafes all day long, too bad the money ran out.

To answer to your question. I moved here froom the US last year. and applied for a Master card at Budapest bank. I got it no problem. A UPC credit card. You need to take your income verefication. If you get your money from the US you have to transalate the documents at the Országos forditó iroda which will transalate it for you. Hope this helps.

Wishbone wrote:

To answer to your question. I moved here froom the US last year. and applied for a Master card at Budapest bank.

Your bio here states:

I was born in Budapest, Hungary. Moved to the USA age of 18.

Just curious. Are you then a Hungarian citizen? I ask, because if you are, and as I stated above, getting credit cards by citizens is easier then expats who have no personal, national or citizenship ties to Hungary.

Yes thank you Klsallee for pointing this out! I was speaking as i stated as a USA citizen!

So things that someone born in Hungary would not really help. I apologize i did not mean someone born in Hungary or someone that was born in USA but had Hungarian citizenship or someone born in Hungary and then also was a USA citizen.

No i do not have Hungarian family or spouse so no i am not a dual citizenship or anything. Although i am not bothered by hearing from them as it would still be good information.

I do not mind hearing info on any subject from USA or people married to Hungarians or other EU people(hell as i said this is my home now so one day i most likely will be that USA person with a Hungarian or European spouse) so there is still commonality or Expats from other countries. BUT i find it odd and not very useful when being born in Hungary give advice to expats in Hungary. Their situation will never been that of us expats. Just no matter how long i would be gone from USA i would never be able to speak on how or what difficulties someone not from USA would go threw living, moving there cause i was in usa.

Now my mom came from Germany to Nebraska when she was in high school, she never talked me to about expat issues or anything, would of helped really. But then i asked my dad about this, and he said he thinks she is a usa citizen, but never really knew for sure and that she has an "accepted" birth certificate so he thinks so. Course back in the day usa did not check this stuff much. Hell my grandparents should of gone to prison or been executed in Germany and they did not so many countries were a bit looser with things back then. he hee.

FeliciaOni wrote:

.....Now my mom came from Germany to Nebraska when she was in high school, she never talked me to about expat issues or anything, would of helped really. But then i asked my dad about this, and he said he thinks she is a usa citizen, but never really knew for sure and that she has an "accepted" birth certificate so he thinks so. Course back in the day usa did not check this stuff much. Hell my grandparents should of gone to prison or been executed in Germany and they did not so many countries were a bit looser with things back then. he hee.

As your Mom is German, this surely must make you a German citizen?  And therefore an EU citizen? And therefore entitled to treaty rights - residence etc?

I know German citizenship is a complex affair and there have been quite a lot of changes  the past few years - allowing dual nationality in some circumstances is one of those changes.  I was looking into it a while ago (Mrs Fluffy's  great-grandparents were ethnic Germans in Hungary).

No it is a bit complex and there is some legal background things with my family on my mom's side so no i am not a German citizen.

FeliciaOni wrote:

No it is a bit complex and there is some legal background things with my family on my mom's side so no i am not a German citizen.

Could be worth exploring.  They changed the law there recently on dual nationality etc.

I don't know the answer to your question (have you tried inquiring at banks..?), BUT, considering, that:
1. 30-40% interest on credit card debt is pretty common in Hungary;
2. Lots of credit cards have huge yearly fees (think 15-20.000HUF), you'd need to take advantage of all the discounts they offer to balance that (e.g. you might get refunds on certain kind of purchases, but you have to file a form each quarter for that);
3. Banks in hungary tend to change their rules-fees very often, you need to go through their announcements in hungarian regularly to avoid a nasty surprise;

are you sure you want a credit card in Hungary?

fluffy2560 wrote:

As your Mom is German, this surely must make you a German citizen?

Not quite. Depends on time. German citizenship was not available via the maternal line until recently. My mother was a German citizen by dissent from her father. But I can not get citizenship simply because of "when" I was born, which happened before the law changed.

And yes, I have checked on this. And double checked. 

I would not recommend getting a credit card in Hungary if the percentage rates were so high.
German citizenship, not sure what to say about all of that.
My grandfather was born in the US but both of his parents were born in Germany
S. For the longest time I thought he was also born in Frankfurt.
My cousin in the US has just wrote me telling me she has found our "long lost cousin" who was in many of the old letters she had translated from Polish to English.
This cousin is 78 now and in good health, her daughter runs a dance studio in Gorlice Poland, they both have returned to Poland after a 20 year stay in the US.
I am overjoyed to know my cuz had a good life and did become the educator she wanted to be. I will be contacting her soon to introduce myself.
Her grandfather was my grandfathers brother.
She moved back to Poland in 2014 we just missed her return when we had our family reunion in Gorlice.
I often wonder why it took me about a lifetime to find all these people I am related to.
Just very strange. Guess my lineage is both German and Polish. No wonder I can't take the sunshine for long.
So basically 3/4 of me is either German or Polish....A bit of Mohawk  and Brit to add the needed spice!

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

As your Mom is German, this surely must make you a German citizen?

Not quite. Depends on time. German citizenship was not available via the maternal line until recently. My mother was a German citizen by dissent from her father. But I can not get citizenship simply because of "when" I was born, which happened before the law changed.

And yes, I have checked on this. And double checked. 

Wandering off-topic but to wrap it up....

Bit of a blow that - I bow to greater knowledge although reading the Wiki pages, it seems to give the impression it might just be possible - on a sunny day with the wind behind you.  OP might be in a diffferent age bracket.

We had very similar nonsense like this in the UK including as recently as 2005 but they had to modify the law as it was clearly violating people's equality rights - including my own daughter's right to UK citizenship (resolved).  Some of my relatives had their Australian citizenship revoked for about 10 years and then got it back as they changed the law again there - point is, it's quite dynamic.  Maybe a challenge to the German version in the future will occur or has already occurred and it's not yet common knowledge.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

....So basically 3/4 of me is either German or Polish....A bit of Mohawk  and Brit to add the needed spice!

Maybe we should move to Absolutely Anything Else on this stuff....go here: Transfer to Absolutely Anything Else

Thanks for the info on credit cards both for here in Hungary and in EU in general.

If the rates are that high and bad terms then yes that would not be needed!

Oh i know of the trap and negative things debt can do! I am young but not that young! I know debit can be. I plan on paying off the ones i do have.

I was just asking about this as sometimes credit cards are ok when traveling or the like. (like when we were staying in temporary weekly rentals they company showed us a room we booked it and put our stuff in. It was our 2 week with the company all their rooms were in 5. Ok after we paid and put our stuff in and went to look at places for a long term lease we found our stuff was moved to a "different room of equal status" without our consent! This other room was awful! Nasty and ran down! I phoned the owner and he was rude. So i took photos of the damage called and emailed the credit card company. Their policy was since i have an issue on something i paid for, they put a hold on the money to him and investigate. Ok so then he saw that the money was pulled back out of his account. The credit card company saw the photos and what happened and said he had 48hrs to make it right or the money was going back on my card. Later that day we got the first room we were in in the first place. The point is that i really doubt if i had paid in cash or something he would of responded. So this helped. Same thing when we booked a rental car, the guy when we went to pick it up first tried to give us a stick, we paid extra 50 euros for automatic, then the car was empty i mean light on empty and dirty. Same day as this happened we reported it to both the booking company, and they said they would just refund the car immediately. The guy at the rental car place was fuming when we took the car back and told us in perfect English that this is why he does not like the west and capitalist ways like credit cards because it makes unequal people be treated equal to others. I was nice to have someone on our side in a foreign land with these type of issues. As i told both of these companies you are not dealing with me and this, you are dealing with the card company i will say i want this payment resented and then you or the company have to explain why and what happened. I will say in the times we have had to do this we have been happy. I do understand that most people in Hungary do not use credit cards too much as awareness of this seems low)

This was just something i knew nothing about, when i tried to find an answer i got some unusual results, i found no info or nothing that helps(i since first posting looked further and found some info on usa citizens getting credit cards from some bank in Dubai and then i had someone here in Budapest tell me about going to Bank of China to get one. That person also told me Bank of China will do a home loan to USA citizen with residence permit to get a home loan for a house in Hungary at their branch in 5 District. Have no idea if that is true! Just what someone told me)

I know many americans have credit cards and many americans are expats so i was curious as what they have or are doing in this regard.

I haven't heard of any hungarians getting credit cards so that they can request the transaction to be reversed if they're ripped off, I don't know if that'd work here. Hungarians use credit cards for two main purposes: the smart ones take advantage of the bonuses and refunds, that allows them to save up to 200$ or even more per year; the dumb ones see it as a big bag of money and end up buried in debt.

atomheart wrote:

I haven't heard of any hungarians getting credit cards so that they can request the transaction to be reversed if they're ripped off, I don't know if that'd work here. Hungarians use credit cards for two main purposes: the smart ones take advantage of the bonuses and refunds, that allows them to save up to 200$ or even more per year; the dumb ones see it as a big bag of money and end up buried in debt.

Just a thought from elsewhere...it's VERY desirable to use CCs in some places simply because you get that Big Brother looking at the retailer over your shoulder. 

In my own country (UK), anything bought with a CC over £100 is basically bought under a general loan agreement, so in effect you're not getting what you paid for (i.e contract is broken) if the retailers stiffs you or sells you duff goods. Moreover, the CC company is liable if the retailer goes bust since again, you don't get what you paid for.  Hence, in my own country, we always pay for things with a CC if it's over £100.  Imagine being 2K out of pocket on cash paid air fares when an airline goes down or a hotel that goes bust etc. 

And of course, the CC company has a reputation to maintain which really comes down to customer service, and as we all know, is sorely lacking in these parts.

Yes Fluffy260 gets it and thanks for adding this in as you understand where i am coming from!

Like i feel for the people that booked on Monarch Air right now or RyanAir!

I guess it is an english speaking country type thing as you understand what i am talking about and yes the only clear answers  i did get were UK.

Thanks everyone.

FeliciaOni wrote:

Monarch Air right now or RyanAir!

Both protected by ABTA & ATOL.

But its common practice no matter what country you are from, you have to be in the said country a number of years.

SimCityAT wrote:

FeliciaOni wrote:

Monarch Air right now or RyanAir!

Both protected by ABTA & ATOL.

But its common practice no matter what country you are from, you have to be in the said country a number of years.

After the regulator put the boot in, Ryanair will now honour its obligations under EU regulations and provide alternate routings or refunds.  Schedule changes are different (obviously) to ceasing trade. About time O'Leary's customers got a bit of schadenfreude.

But you are right, no-one will be out of pocket because Monarch went bust. Basically everyone is insured automatically.  Government will bring them back to the UK - largest repatriation scheme since WW2.

atomheart wrote:

I haven't heard of any hungarians getting credit cards so that they can request the transaction to be reversed if they're ripped off, I don't know if that'd work here. Hungarians use credit cards for two main purposes: the smart ones take advantage of the bonuses and refunds, that allows them to save up to 200$ or even more per year; the dumb ones see it as a big bag of money and end up buried in debt.

My card data was stolen in Barcelona last year, and a few days later, someone used it to purchase I believe shoes in Oxford. I went into MKB, and told them it was fraud. Showed them the printed transaction history that I couldnt have used the card in Oxford if I had used the card 1 hour before in Árkád at Örs vezér tere, and the transaction was reversed in a few days.

Rawlee wrote:

.....
My card data was stolen in Barcelona last year, and a few days later, someone used it to purchase I believe shoes in Oxford. I went into MKB, and told them it was fraud. Showed them the printed transaction history that I couldnt have used the card in Oxford if I had used the card 1 hour before in Árkád at Örs vezér tere, and the transaction was reversed in a few days.

I was pickpocketed in the mid-1990s.  This was in a now-defunct place called New York Bagels in Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út.   They took my passport and amongst others, my American Express card.  These were in the days before PINs were common on point of sale machines. I was amazed - within a hour of my cards being lifted, they had tried to use my cards in multiple shops.   

Interestingly, over the next few weeks, I received regular updates on where my stolen cards were being used - I had to say which transactions belonged to me.  Looking at a map, I could see the thieves were on a round trip around the southern part of Germany in the area around Passau - closest place in Germany accessible to Hungary.   They would go to a shop, buy a suitcase (presumably for the booty), then visit multiple shops, buying cameras and all sorts of other goods, then return in a loop (on the map) buying again and again the same kind of items, often the same shops just a few days later.

My estimate is they managed to get away with about £20K before the card was "retained".  I, of course, paid nothing.

That sort of credit card scamming was huge in S. Ca. in the early 1980's
Hate to say it but a HU ring was involved.
The FBI was called in.... Not sure what happened in the end,we stopped hanging with these people as soon as we realized what they were into. Actually some of those "players" moved back to HU over the years... Some are still here, not sure what to say about that but they are now all retired, hope retired from crime as well.
As far as the "grapevine" goes, we never heard of anyone standing trial or going to jail
I do know that sometimes stolen cards were used but mostly it was the numbers used by the general public at different places where a Hungarian worked as a clerk in a store.
They sold the numbers to others who actually went out and used the numbers.
Very nasty stuff.
Because of all we know about that scam, my husband never ever really used credit cards.
I used to use them in major shopping stores for clothing etc. But mostly we always used cash to be safe. We never used credit cards when we traveled other then to book a hotel room with.
Gave up using credit cards in 1999, a debit card works just as well to book rooms and that way with only using money you already have in your account, you do not make so many silly purchases as if it was on credit.
One may ask why we didn't "spill the beans" to the police, well we didn't want to get one in the back of the head.... This was some serious money and a well organized operation. We thought it best to just go out quietly and mind our own business.
One of these players died here in HU less then 2 years ago. My husband went to his funeral, I didn't.
There was a huge thing made out of it, even some minor HU singing stars went to the funeral, this guy was popular and had a fun personality... As long as you didn't cross him that is!
I sometimes wish I didn't know as much about life as I do, we have always worked for every penny we had and it turned my stomach how everyone made a hero out of that guy.
You may ask, why did my husband go to this person's funeral. I asked the same thing.Seems people were flying in from Ca. and other US states to pay homage to him!!! Dang they even closed a waterfront property on the Danube to hold a party in is honor that same evening.  Special invite only, we had a invite but no thanks Husband didn't go to that but it was packed with HU celebs and his former co herts... Disgusting really, Not sure what to say about it all, hardworking people are forgotten and these sorts or honored? Crazy world.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

That sort of credit card scamming was huge in S. Ca. in the early 1980's
Hate to say it but a HU ring was involved.
The FBI was called in.... Not sure what happened in the end,we stopped hanging with these people as soon as we realized what they were into. Actually some of those "players" moved back to HU over the years... Some are still here, not sure what to say about that but they are now all retired, hope retired from crime as well.
As far as the "grapevine" goes, we never heard of anyone standing trial or going to jail
I do know that sometimes stolen cards were used but mostly it was the numbers used by the general public at different places where a Hungarian worked as a clerk in a store.
They sold the numbers to others who actually went out and used the numbers.
Very nasty stuff.
Because of all we know about that scam, my husband never ever really used credit cards.
I used to use them in major shopping stores for clothing etc. But mostly we always used cash to be safe. We never used credit cards when we traveled other then to book a hotel room with.
Gave up using credit cards in 1999, a debit card works just as well to book rooms and that way with only using money you already have in your account, you do not make so many silly purchases as if it was on credit.
One may ask why we didn't "spill the beans" to the police, well we didn't want to get one in the back of the head.... This was some serious money and a well organized operation. We thought it best to just go out quietly and mind our own business.
One of these players died here in HU less then 2 years ago. My husband went to his funeral, I didn't.
There was a huge thing made out of it, even some minor HU singing stars went to the funeral, this guy was popular and had a fun personality... As long as you didn't cross him that is!
I sometimes wish I didn't know as much about life as I do, we have always worked for every penny we had and it turned my stomach how everyone made a hero out of that guy.
You may ask, why did my husband go to this person's funeral. I asked the same thing.Seems people were flying in from Ca. and other US states to pay homage to him!!! Dang they even closed a waterfront property on the Danube to hold a party in is honor that same evening.  Special invite only, we had a invite but no thanks Husband didn't go to that but it was packed with HU celebs and his former co herts... Disgusting really, Not sure what to say about it all, hardworking people are forgotten and these sorts or honored? Crazy world.

Not to make myself seem like a "Highly moral person," which I pretty much am, a big Girl Scout in the end.
But ,I literally had a booking for oral surgery the day of that guys funeral.
I didn't think he was worth the effort to change my plans on getting surgery that day.
Wow, what a insult to him after all, one would rather have Oral Surgery then attend their funeral...

Rawlee wrote:

My card data was stolen in Barcelona last year, and a few days later, someone used it to purchase I believe shoes in Oxford.

Had my US credit card stolen in Italy many years ago. immediately reported it. Days later the thieves were still charging on it. I was shocked. At some point this really is a communication problem with the credit card companies and banks. Ridiculous.

Another time, my wife used her Swiss credit card in Panama. She got a charge on her statement for thousands in jewelry in Spain. Spain? Yes. Spain. Her card was not stolen, but the numbers were apparently. And from Panama to Spain = International mafia.

Now there is the Equifax hack. That is bad enough. But who knows what has been hacked in Europe given European greater "secrecy" and lack of transparency. I mainly pay cash in the stores, and "cash on delivery" these days. No, not paranoid. Just lack trust with credit companies and my information. Especially after I learned at one on-line payment site in Hungary that my card info was being routed via a bank in SE Asia.

I did try to mention without really getting into it too deeply, how way the heck back in the late 70's/early 80's the HU mob in Ca. did credit card scams to the max. The FBI even took notice of it, that along with so many, many auto accidents that were taken to lawyers for personal injury.
I know another HUGE scam involving the S. Ca. school district with the HU mob but even to this day, I will not expand on it... Too many people involved are still living... Maybe one of these days I'll open up , not that I know a ton,I worked for them totally without any knowledge for about a week, I quit on my own because between the piles of Coke on the tables and the BS going on, I just got freaked out and didn't want anything to do with it. Never even saw a penny for my effort either.
Guess I should be glad I was left in tack and left alone...
We also learned to not use credit cards unless it was a business that seems legit ( and who really knows) and we had the backing of our bank behind us.
Scams , so many of them , mostly from Hungarians who didn't have any real job skills and got super greedy after coming into the US.
I will honestly state for fact there were 2 sorts immigrating into the US in the early 70's. Those with energy and smarts to do something with themselves and those who saw the holes in the innocent culture in the US and moved in for the kill.
Good or evil not much in the middle coming in. That is sort of what upsets me about the EU just letting in the flood gates from the middle east, God only knows what will really happen and what is really going on with many of these people.afraid to say, we will soon find out one way or the other.

No offence, but I really think you should seek professional help. 

If your talking to me, then offence taken, rude  and mean.

atomheart wrote:

No offence, but I really think you should seek professional help. 

I think we all need professional help sooner or later.  No exceptions!

fluffy2560 wrote:

I think we all need professional help sooner or later.  No exceptions!

IMHO, the ones that need it sooner are the self entitled posts who think they can tell others to "seek help".

klsallee wrote:

IMHO, the ones that need it sooner are the self entitled posts who think they can tell others to "seek help".

I'm waiting for a pizza, when the dude arrives, imma tip him lavishly. Can we be friends..? 

I am so over being insulted, One has to deal cards to drunk manic's at 3 am to understand how over it I am...
I know at some point people should at least try to move out of their parents basement.

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

I think we all need professional help sooner or later.  No exceptions!

IMHO, the ones that need it sooner are the self entitled posts who think they can tell others to "seek help".

True enough.

Maybe they are all in denial.