Advertisement
Published: November 9th 2007
This place makes me want to cry. I got sick of getting out piddly amounts of money at a time, so went in person to various banks to try to withdraw more. The usual response was to try a different ATM or to contact my bank or Visa, which I did. ASB bank told me to go in person to a bank to ask Visa for a cash advance, the banks in Argentina asked me to contact Visa, and Visa asked me to contact my bank at home. I went to the Visa building in person after trying to call without success, and the security guard didn't let me in, but gave me another phone number to call, and I was finally able to set up an emergency request after explaining that I had already called my bank and checked that the limit was $800 NZD a day, not the 300 pesos (around 120 NZD) I can get out at the ATMs.
I thought my problem was solved. I was wrong. Visa wanted to send me the money by Western Union, but apparently there are no Western Union offices in San Telmo, where I am staying. I recalled I had seen a Western Union sign in town, so went there yesterday. It was at Banco de la Nacion and I was too late as the bank closed at 3pm. So today, I left a tango lesson early to make sure I would get to town by 2:40pm. There was a long queue which went out onto the street. I waited patiently for half an hour before getting to the front and being told that the bank did not do Western Union transfers despite the big yellow signs they had both outside and inside the bank with the words 'Western Union'. I managed to find another place, but after filling in the form, I was told that they didn't have USD in hundreds, only twenties. I went away without the money because my hostel won't accept USD in small denominations, because the bank had stopped accepting them. How annoying is that?
So now I am sitting in an internet cafe trying to work out where to go next. Most of the addresses listed are at various branches of Banco de la Nacion, and I am afraid I will have to queue up for ages only to be turned away again. I am also not too sure whether anything will still be open... This has got to be one of the most frustrating things about Buenos Aires, but I guess if you have a bank account here, life would be easier.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.118s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 11; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0978s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 3;
; mem: 1021.3kb
tangotoes
Sarah Young
Grrrr
Checked out various places that were closed before going back to the only place I knew was open to try getting the money in pesos. The man behind the counter said my name in the transfer request didn't match the one in my passport (it only had my Chinese name, not Sarah), and had to call his supervisor. After the call, he said he couldn't give me the money. I would have to call Visa to get my details corrected. This I did, after waiting for ages to speak to a person, and Visa called Western Union, where the person said my details had been entered correctly and I should try again. I returned to the money exchange for the third time, where the man said 'Oh yes' and finally gave me my money. From the time I left to catch the subway into to town, till I was able to return with my money, it was a total of 4 hours. On the upside, I did discover I can withdraw 700 pesos with Mastercard at Banco de la Nacion.