I just had a fairly pleasant experience with FedEx replacing a U.S. debit card that was gobbled up by an ATM in Colonia last Wednesday (Nov. 29th). It was my fault, started counting the money and forgot to retrieve my card before it was "collected" by the machine. I went to a teller and they refused to return the card, stating that the bank's policy was to return cards for their customers only and that all foreign cards would be destroyed. Weird policy, but they wouldn't budge. I immediately blocked my card on the bank's (USAA) app and called them to initiate a card replacement. I wasn't terribly stressed about it because I have a backup debit card with another bank.
The replacement card was shipped from Indianapolis on Thursday afternoon with an expected delivery date of yesterday, Dec. 4th. It cleared Memphis on Saturday morning; and then arrived in Campinas, Brazil, on Saturday afternoon, where it was marked as "delayed" until yesterday afternoon, with a revised ETA of tomorrow. Instead, today it arrived in EZE at 1:28AM, cleared Argentine customs at 8:23AM, and was delivered at 11:28AM. So, despite the delay in Campinas, I received the replacement card within four business days from the time I reported it to USAA, and only a day later than FedEx's initial estimate. The FedEx envelope and the internal envelope containing the replacement card were sealed and in pristine condition, so it was obvious it had not been opened or examined during transit.
I was a little concerned that it would be a more complicated process because I found this on the UPS website regarding commodity-specific restrictions in Argentina:
"Debit and pre-paid cards cannot be imported door to door via the Courier system into Argentina. In order to import these cards into Argentina, the ultimate consignee needs to present a Declaration Form provided by AFIP (Administracion Federal de Ingresos Publicos, the equivalent to IRS in the USA), which must be endorsed by BCRA (Banco Central de la Republica Argentina - Argentinas Central Bank).
With this form, the shipment, regardless of value, will undergo formal clearance. Without this form and declaration provided by the ultimate consignee, clearance of debit cards and pre-paid cards will not be possible."
As a result, I half expected that I might have to do some paperwork or jump through some hoops to take possession of the card, but encountered nothing of the sort. All in all, it wasn't much different than having a card shipped to my U.S. address.