IT was the quintessential immigrant moment. Two weeks after my family and I had arrived in New York, a friend drove me to Costco. Half an hour later, at the cash register, I was hidden from view by the pyramid of diapers, napkins and other paper products in the shopping cart. My friend laughed and snapped a picture, promising to post it online with the caption, “Masha comes to America.”

And then my debit card did not work.

This wasn’t just any card; it was a Citibank gold card, the kind that warrants a special line at the bank’s offices and obsequiousness from the tellers. And it was linked to the account that, for the moment, held all my money: We had sold our apartment in Moscow, jumped through an assortment of Russian tax hoops and transferred the proceeds to the United States, where we now lived.

It made me nervous to have all that money sitting in one virtual clump in the bank — but not nearly as nervous as having the card connected to it not work. The experience was also humiliating. In one moment, I had gone from being a Citigold client to a deadbeat immigrant who couldn’t pay for her son’s diapers.

I called Citibank as soon as I got home.

“Your account has been closed,” a woman informed me, without a hint of that special precious-metal politeness.