BsAs Traveller Tips: Don’t forget your credit card
Argentinian ATM’s steal your cards. It’s a conspiracy, it has to be. In the first two months here I left my card in the machine three times. Three! As el ex presidente George Bush would say; … fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — You can’t get fooled again.
Granted, I have foolish tendencies, but leaving credit cards behind is not usually one of them. In the last year I’ve travelled through USA, Canada and Mexico and not left a single card behind. (Well… there was that one card I left behind the bar at MezzanineSF, but that’s because it was holding a $160 bar tab. Plus it was maxed…. so it doesn’t really count.)
The Argentine ATM’s look like regular ATM’s; you pop your card in, enter pin, get money – standard stuff, but that’s where it turns pear shaped, after you get your money there’s a long pause and then the machine quietly asks if you want to make another transaction … there’s no beeps or flashing lights! By the time the ATM has gotten around to asking the question I’m half way down the street waving my money at the churro man.
Do you know how long it takes to send a new card from Australia to Argentina? I would have thought three days, maybe four tops, but what do I know… it took eight fricken days. My card went through London and Madrid before making it to Buenos Aires. My pin number took even longer passing through Germany for some strange reason. It’s like DHL were being extra cautious, sending the card and pin to random cities just in case they were being followed.
The second time I resisted cancelling my card and waited two days for the bank to open (ATMs seem particularly prone to stealing cards on Friday or Saturday nights). Returning to the bank is the correct response. Despite my lack of Spanish I made a few gestures and the teller understood, bringing out a wad of cards from behind the desk. He flipped through them all and sure enough my little blue ANZ card was sitting happily among the other cards… all foreign cards I suspect.
Some phrases you will need:
El cajero se ha tragado mi tarjeta - The ATM has swallowed my card
Yo no soy un idiota, el cajero es un idiota – I am not an idiot, the ATM is an idiot
