Unfortunately, I don't have a US bank account. So I thought maybe I should get one.
Spoke with my daughter, who talked at length with her own bank, Wells Fargo, and found out that they won't accept a check endorsed over to her. But they suggested I apply online for a new account. Sounds like a good idea, right?
I visited Wells Fargo and several other online US-based bank websites to sign up for a new account. I was able to fill out a form up to the point where they wanted an address. There it stalled. Either their form would not accept a non-US zip code or it only had a drop-down menu of US states to choose from, with no space to type in any other state or prefecture name. Also, no space to type in country. Result - unable to submit application.
On this topic, there seems to be a lot more opinion than fact going around, even within the banks themselves. So I'm going back to the drawing board. Will visit a bunch more online banks and see if I can slip through the filters at any of them.
If that doesn't work, I'll start personally calling bank support numbers and try the "your call is important, so please wait for a hour" routine
This is starting to seem like a lot of work for such a small slice of "free" money.
So if none of the above ends up working ... well ... fuggit.