Buying Car In Dollars

[newarrival]

Hi guys/girls,

I would like to buy a used car, i'm willing to pay around 6000 to 10000 dollars. The problem is I can only pay in dollars and need to do a dollar bank transfer, I don't have an Argentine bank account and 150000 pesos all my cash is in dollars euro's.

Any advice or recommendations

Thanks.

 

[HenryNisental]

Make yorself a tranfer via XOOM

 

[newarrival]

Think XOOM has a max transaction limit. $2000 dollars plus the exchange rate is crap 13.7

 

[r2d2]

There are cuevas that allow you to transfer USD to their account abroad if you exchange a larger amount of money. That might be an option if you are exchanging 10k.

 

[Rich One]

Go to a used car dealership , like Dietrich and explain your payment plan, they may have suggestions. Finding a particular that can accept a transfer may be harder and time consuming.

http://www.onlinedietrich.com/contacto/

 

[steveinbsas]

There are cuevas that allow you to transfer USD to their account abroad if you exchange a larger amount of money. That might be an option if you are exchanging 10k.

But do the cuevas allow the transfer of dollars into Argentina (which is what newarrival wants to do)?

A casa de cambio may be able to facilitate this transfer. It would be interesting to know their rates and what sort of documentation they require (regarding residency and the origin of the funds).

 

[r2d2]

But do the cuevas allow the transfer of dollars into Argentina (which is what newarrival wants to do)?

You wire the dollars onto their dollar account abroad and they hand you the pesos here.

 

[steveinbsas]

You wire the dollars onto their dollar account abroad and they hand you the pesos here.

But will they also hand you dollars if you pay an extra fee?

Newarrival needs dollars to purchase a car.

I once used a casa de cambio to transfer dollars from the US to Argentina...tens of thousands of dollars to buy an apartment.

The dollars were first converted to pesos and then back to dollars.

That was before the currency controls went into effect, but now that they have been lifted perhaps it can be done the same way.

 

[ElQueso]

A cueva will do transfers and give you dollars. You have to have a contact to do it (which can be found) because they operate in the gray area of the law. Casas de Cambio indeed will have to go through the hoops Steve talks about because they are official and transfer the money through the central bank, while cuevas work through public bond trading and such and local dollar/peso exchanges which are off the books. You transfer the money to a bank account outside of Argentina (as r2d2 mentioned) and they will give you dollars or pesos (your choice) here. When they give you pesos, they will give you a good rate because you've already paid their transfer fee.

Notice I'm not talking about arbolitos, or the unofficial change houses like what you find on Florida street or other places - arbolitos are like the public branch of cuevas (that's where they get their cash from, if you've ever been in an arbolito and seen a guy with backpack come in and talk with the guy changing money - he's brought fresh pesos from a cueva) and you can't really get introduced to a cueva that will handle transfers like this through them, unless you've been going to one for a while and make "friends" with them and they trust you enough to go to the bosses to find out what can be done. Some arbolitos don't even have enough pull to ever make that kind of a contact with the guys upstairs, or maybe they're independents who don't have cueva contacts.

A problem with cuevas used to be that Cristina was making life very difficult for them and they were charging 6% or more of the transfer amount because of the risk and difficulties involved. I haven't used a cueva for money transfer for two or more years (once they hit 4% it was way too much for me) so I don't know what the current condition is, but I would expect these "informal" transfers to go back down to 1% - 2% before too long, if they haven't started coming down already.

Also, to the OP - you can find people here who have dollars and bank accounts outside of the country and would be willing to make the trade. May take a while to find people to do this, but maybe a little bit here with a private individual, some with Xoom, maybe a trip or two to Uruguay to get dollars out of the ATMs, maybe even someone bringing cash for you from the States, etc.

Welcome to Argentina, where not very many things like this are easy to accomplish

 

[r2d2]

Oh the car can only be paid in dollars? I missed that part, sorry. Honestly I have never asked them if they would pay out dollars or if they would exchange to pesos and then to dollars first. I got my cash dollars always via Chile in the past.