After totaling the Meriva we needed cash for a new vehicle.

Bank wire transfers end up costing $60-80 for a realistic maximum of $9,000. Sure, I could have wired $20,000+ but that would have involved jumping through bank hoops. You’re not allowed to just  have money somewhere else. You’re supposed to be able to document where it came from. Our local bank branch is considered by many people to be one of the worst for this type of inquisition.

So I was delighted to find I could send $3000 for only $6. This was through a thuggish untrustworthy mob-like operation (TUMO). I didn’t identify it as that at first. You’re familiar with TUMO. If you’re thinking it-which-must-not-be-named has something to do with a W and a U and started in the 1850s, you’re on the right track. TUMO gets seriously bad Yelp reviews. One reviewer who mentioned (not criticized) TUMO in a blog post got threats for “trademark infringement.”

Of course I had to provide ID to set up the account, as you would expect. Above $3,000, TUMO’s fee increases to $15, so I started sending $3,000 at a time.

Two or three months and over ten transactions later, I went to Abitab. TUMO had told me my money was waiting for me. Then some kind of glitch. The teller asked if I could come back in 15 minutes; no problem. When I returned, she said something I didn’t quite get, but it was clear I wasn’t getting any money.

Back home, an email from TUMO. They had cancelled the transaction (while I was there to pick it up!) and would refund my money within a week. (It actually happened quite quickly).

I phoned, but turns out the Impersonal Customer Scrutiny Department only communicates via email. Here’s the response I got:

Dear ________,

The reasons why a consumer is not authorized to use the services of Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation can’t be disclosed since it is a private policy. [their emphasis]

As a financial institution, it is the policy of Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation (“TUMO”) to conduct appropriate due diligence on consumers who utilize our services.

We are currently working to solve your issue.

Upon completion of the review, we will inform you of our conclusion.

Yes, you are reading that correctly. TUMO does “due diligence” on a customer only after two months and a dozen transfers. I provided them copies of Uruguayan and US passports, and explained exactly what I was doing and why. Two months later, this:

As a financial institution, Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation is required to comply with industry legal and regulatory standards in the countries we do business. Part of complying with these standards involves performing due diligence to determine how customers are using our services to ensure that Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation is meeting its obligations under applicable law.

We have reviewed your reinstatement request and have decided to uphold our previous decision [their emphasis] on this matter. This means Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation will not accept any money transfers from you as sender and will not pay out any money transfers to you as receiver.

Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation’s Money Transfer Service Terms and Conditions provide that Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation and its Agents have the right to refuse service to any person.  Accordingly, Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation has made the business decision to refuse and refund any transactions you may attempt to send or receive in the future.

On behalf of Thuggish Untrustworthy Mob-like Operation, we apologize for the inconvenience this process has caused you.

So there you have it. I can almost imagine an employee wiping a tear from his/her eye while typing that heartfelt last line

 

I made an interesting discovery today. Dispatched to the “hyper” market to pick up crackers, among other things, I saw that my wife wrote “two types.” This caused me to look more thoroughly than usual on the “cracker aisle” (as did the fact that an employee stocking shelves, and two women chatting, blocked further progress).

Low and behold, on the bottom shelf I find flour tortillas, and not the type we’ve been buying, locally produced with the Mexican-licensed “Bimbo” (gotta love it) brand:

So here we have “Azteca Wraps” – kind of fun, because I’ve never seen sandwiches called “wraps” in Uruguay (but they may exist somewhere).

But a glance at the back reveals they’re not just intended for Uruguayans. And they’re not from Mexico, despite the Aztec implication. They’re made in Spain, and the back of the package presents info in twelve languages.

So let’s compare. The product produced an hour away weighs 360 grams. The product produced in Spain, shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, weighs 420 grams, or 17% more. Which do you think is more expensive?

Well, if you’re familiar with how things roll in the socialist paradise of Uruguay, you’ll recognize this as a trick question. Of course the local product, smaller, will be more expensive! In fact 63% more expensive!

And, comparing price per gram, almost exactly 100% more expensive as the imported product.

Better? Hard to imagine. The local Bimbo tortillas are not special in any way.

 

 

It was a little past four in the afternoon. I was driving the dogs back from walking with Syd and his dogs. Since my wife has been under the weather and not feeling much like cooking, I stopped in a place I had found to buy a rotisserie chicken. No sooner had I gotten into the car with it, than a rental car pulled up next to us. The dogs started barking like crazy, so I got out of the car to find out what they needed. When they learned my nationality, they started speaking in English, telling me about various relatives in America.

So far, so good.

They said they were Italians. The driver’s name was Marco. The passenger might have been Giulio, but I’ll call him Guido because it sounds sleazier. As you’ll see, that serves.

They worked for a company called Telarini, I think he said. Something about steel. Had I heard of it? No.

(Doesn’t matter; it doesn’t exist.)

They had a flight out tonight, and their manager had given them a parting gift of two boxes of tools their company manufactured for German companies – or something–, telling them they could sell them for [whatever they wanted]. They couldn’t take them on the plane tonight, they said, so they needed to sell them first.

OK, why? Even if they had to pay for extra luggage, if these tools were worth what they said, why wouldn’t they? And why are they waiting until the last minute to try to sell them?

They were looking for people who spoke Italian or English. Because they didn’t speak good Spanish, they didn’t want to just sell them on the street.

Umm, so what exactly are you trying to do here?

The boxes were in the back seat. He opened the first one, which had a very impressive looking hammer drill and cordless dril, with just enough charge to make it turn a bit. “It even has the diamond bits,” he told me.

He then opened the second box, with several shelves, which he said contained 200 tools of Vanadian steel. I think the number was a tad exaggerated, but the tools – as with the drills – certainly did look good. Better quality, at least, than 95% of what you can buy in Uruguay.

The he pulled out a “factura” (invoice; he had previously waved a piece of paper in the shape of an airline boarding pass to underscore their desperation), “since we’re gentleman.”

Yes, we’ve just met for the first time on a dirt road alongside a highway, so of course we’re gentlemen. Got it.

The “factura” had no currency indicated, and showed a total, with 23% IVA, of 2,800+. He said this is the dollar amount the  Sheraton sells them for.

Aha! So now Sheraton Hotels sell tools, and your manager gave you a gift with an invoice? This narrative is getting rich!

Did I want to help them out by buying both toolboxes for $2,000 US?

Uh, no. The tools look impressive (that price is outrageous), but regardless, I need few tools, and don’t collect tools (or anything, including carcasses of ancient cars) for fun.

But I know someone who does! That guy could also evaluate their quality better than I. And he’d know what to really pay.

Enter Burkhard. I called. He was in the middle of something – slaughtering and dressing out a sheep, it turns out* – and couldn’t make it for an hour. Can I just lead them out there now? I asked. Sure: so ten minutes later, I pull off Ruta 11 and beckon them to turn in the driveway. I don’t plan on hanging around for long. We wave at Burkhard, who’s maybe a hundred meters away with a couple of people with a pickup truck, a carcass hanging from the raised front end of his tractor. With the remote, he opens the gate to the driveway and starts up the rise. Guido yells to Marco to pull the car in. More than once. Marco is busy playing with his cell phone.

Hey Marco, you’re going off script here – we’re supposed to be eager to sell some tools. Pay attention!

When Guido walks down and taps on the hood of the car, Marco snaps back into character. Within a minute, he’s got the car pulled in, Burkhard joins us, and Guido’s got the back door of the car open, displaying the tools. I bid them adieu, and Marco thanks me, calling me a real gentleman. But of course.

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*Burkhard had sold some sheep to a pig farmer, and was amazed to learn that guy could skin a sheep in five minutes, something that took Burkhard an hour. So he arranged for him to help with this slaughter, and learn some new skills.

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Back home, a while after dark (we’re at winter solstice, so that’s fairly early), when I figured they must be through, I called Burkhard on our land line. No answer.

After a while more, I get a little apprehensive. As I reach for my cell phone to send him a text message, our land line (with no caller ID) rings, and I pick it up saying, “I was just about to send you a text message. What happened?”

He told me that a couple of years ago, in the process of trading his chacra in the boonies (Lavalleja) for a gorgeous hilltop property on Ruta 11, and there talking to Sr. Fiore, the seller, one of these same two guys came by, also in a rental car, with the same story about the airport et al, and tools to sell.

“Incredible!” I said. “So did you send these guys packing?

No, he replied, I bought them for USD 500.

In fact, during the previous encounter, he had wanted to buy the tools, but so had Fiore, and Burkhard didn’t feel he should upstage him.

In this encounter, when Burkhard told Guido that they’d met before, Guido insisted it was impossible – before taking the cash, and returning to whence they came, to emerge another time with (smuggled? stolen? counterfeit?) tools they have to sell “before their flight tonight.”

Sounds legit to me, eh? FWIW, I find no evidence that a company called CAM Germany exists.

 

You’ll recall that I (charitably, I now think) attributed a botched attempt to buy a mattress on Mercado Libre to retrograde Mercury. I’ll get back to that.*

When we arrived in Uruguay in September 2009, we had bought an unfinished house. By the time we were ready for furnishings, there happened to be a sales-tax-free (at some places) weekend. We took advantage of it to avoid an involuntary 23% donation to the government. Turns out the stove we bought was 50 cm wide, but the opening in the countertop 60 cm. Since we had kitchen cabinets built a little taller than standard, the stove was also a bit short. I may lack the resources (and motivation) to restore an antique car, but I have no problem cranking up the table saw and making a little riser and side shelf for the stove.

However, after over eight years, with paint wearing off the front, and the mechanical connection that pulls out oven shelves when you open the door completely shot, I decided it was time for one that both fit the space, and looked good.** And I found one on Mercado Libre:

So I ordered it, said I’d like to pick it up myself in Montevideo (after the mattress fiasco, I don’t want the wrong product delivered to my door).

The seller sent me instructions how to pay. And asked for my phone number to coordinate delivery.

So I went to the bank, withdrew cash, took it to Abitab and paid.

And they called. I asked if I could pick it up the next day. Since they apparently had to deliver to a third-party warehouse, the woman said she’d call me tomorrow with more info.

She didn’t (BTW this is a common theme in Uruguay), so I sent a reminder email that evening. The next morning, I get a message from them: lamentablemente (also a common theme here) we don’t have this stove, but for USD 30 more we can sell you one similar. Or refund your money.

Incompetence and passive acceptance of mediocrity comprise the warp and weft of many, if not most, economic transactions in Uruguay, at least at the retail level. I’ve had years to get used to this. Even so, I was irate. Rather than tell them to give me my money back and insist that I would never buy something else from pond scum like them, I filed a complaint. Said they were doing false advertising, and should not be allowed on Mercado Libre. Maybe someone at Mercado Libre will read it some day, but in the end the message went straight to the vendor.

Before getting to their response, let’s review:

1. Vendor offered an item for sale
2. I ordered it (“bid on it” in their terminology for some reason)
3. They sent payment instructions and accepted payment
4. They contacted me to coordinate delivery
5. Two days later, tell me they don’t have the product but offer to upsell me something else

And so, what is their response?

– It’s a shame the customer has to have this attitude. After all, he never asked us if we actually had the item in stock.

With that, the issue was closed; I couldn’t reply. So I went back to their listing page, and posted that I’m sorry to have caused a problem. I’m not from the Third World, and in other places companies don’t advertise and accept payment for products they don’t have.

Too harsh? You tell me.

More likely – if you live here – you’ll have similar horror stories. Feel free to vent– beyond having a heroic sense of humor, or devolving to subservient acceptance of abuse and mediocrity, what else do you have besides wanting to break things?

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* I now tend to think the vendor never had the mattress he advertised, but hoped we’d be the “acceptance of mediocrity” part of the warp and weft and accept whatever he sent us.

** regarding the stove we now have: between our house, casita, and the house in the country, we have three kitchens to furnish and only two stoves, so the replaced stove will fill a personal need.