"Fishface" said:
I got the AR$300 limit in the past couple of days - was AR$1500 before.
This was on a DD card not credit card.
I took out AR$300 6 times then it hit its limit.
Then I got a call from HSBC fraud prevention.
They explained that the AR$300 limit was fraud prevention and there was a lot of fraud in Brazil - hmmn
The guy in the bank said Banelco was having discusions and it would be resolved next month.
Who knows - its a f***ing mystery.
It sounds like some petty minded marketing bint with a bright idea to scrape pennies.
Fishface, any back to back transactions 6x in a row, especially within an hour period would raise flags for any bank regardless of the amount (think of the kidnappings to withdraw until the withdraw limit is maxed out in Belgrano a month or so ago). Why are you taking out that much anyways? I haven't made a $300 ARS withdraw since Easter. If you need to pay rent, the best way is to do a bank transfer to your lanlord's bank account here, and each time you do a withdraw, it costs $3.00 USD for a non-(your bank's name here) fee plus a foreign fee of another $1.50 USD. That's nearly a $5 USD loss per transaction, miltiplied by 6, that's $30 USD loss!!! It's cheaper to do a direct transfer for a 1 time fee instead of a multiple transaction fee for each $300 ARS withdraw. You can also do a 1x charge if you're in a hotel and they have a CC terminal (depending on how shady the hotel/lanlord/apt. manager/staff is, sometimes it's better to do a bank transfer). If you have a bank account in Argentina, some banks like Citibank will allow you to have your bank account in US Dollars, the service charge is $14 ARS per month, and no transaction fee if you're using one of their ATMs. International banks like Citibank and HSBC are great, the lines for ATM are shorter (sometimes none) than say Banco Provincia, Banelco, or any of the local banks, where lines could sometimes wrap around the block, plus with banks like Citibank, you get a 10% discount on your purchases at certain stores.
Mike
