Insecurity Here is Real

[Desde2008]

Not quite zero crime there. I have been ripped off by a couple of restaurants there. The SCAM is that they will take your credit card and then come back claiming that it wasn't accepted...then you pay with cash. Well guess what...it did go threw! You check the card online the next day and there is the charge...so they got that PLUS the cash!
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Thanks for the heads up on this. It never amazes how many different ways there are that people can be ripped off. But can't you challenge the charge since you never signed/authorized it?

 

[notebook.fix]

Hola..sorry to butt in but can you tell me about a Loan that Scioli took on for the provincia at the end of last year...do you know about it?

If I can remember correctly he was asking to borrow US$700,000,000 at 8.5% but ended up getting a loan three times -2.1Billion...and listen to this vital detail...the interest rate was at a much higher rate of around %11.

I may be off with the exact figures but if this is true then Scioli has just condemned the people of Buenos Aires to more misery with the international loan sharks.

What do you know about this?

Cause if this is true...then K Scioli is just as criminally irresponsible as Menem in his blind ambition to be re-elected in the next election.

Actually no, poverty has fallen drastically since the crisis 10 years ago.

Inflation is a hidden tax, so we are effectively paying for the debt incurred during failed neo-liberal experiment that Menem implemented.

 

[xibeca]

Thanks for the heads up on this. It never amazes how many different ways there are that people can be ripped off. But can't you challenge the charge since you never signed/authorized it?

You can always do a chargeback. The credit card company almost always sides with you. Plus they get hit with a chargeback fee.

 

[John.St]

Not quite zero crime there. I have been ripped off by a couple of restaurants there. The SCAM is that they will take your credit card and then come back claiming that it wasn't accepted...then you pay with cash. Well guess what...it did go threw! You check the card online the next day and there is the charge...so they got that PLUS the cash!

If your credit card company doesn't cancel when you tell them you have been ripped off, find yourself another company.

E.g. mine (EuroCard) has a simple rule: without signature = without value if I say no. A slip without a signature is just any piece of paper.

If a charge has been rejected there is a rejection slip, which you should ask for (tell them you are going to complain about it being rejected and they'll feel the ground burning).

 

[2GuysInPM]

Lee, which restaurants? That would help others avoid. Thx.

 

[citygirl]

Actually no, poverty has fallen drastically since the crisis 10 years ago.

Actually - no. Poverty is at its highest level since 2001. Over 30% of Argentina lives below the poverty level.

 

[dr__dawggy]

Actually - no. Poverty is at its highest level since 2001. Over 30% of Argentina lives below the poverty level.

The Economist agrees with you.

http://www.economist.com/node/17851493?story_id=17851493&CFID=163112329&CFTOKEN=17979688

...despite years of rapid economic growth under the Kirchners, Argentina has a large underclass. High inflation, though masked by doctored official statistics, has eroded the incomes of the poor, who comprise up to a third of the population. Inflation also explains the scarcity of mortgages, now widespread elsewhere in Latin America. Rents rose by three-fifths between 2007 and 2009. Villas (shantytowns) have expanded by at least 50% in a decade. Many have become havens for drug traffickers and other criminals.

 

[citygirl]

To be fair, I'm basing that on what independent, not-partisan economists say. I believe the "official" poverty rate is only about 12%. But much like the inflation numbers released by INDEC, the poverty levels aren't exactly trust-worthy.

But from an NY Times article:

Even as the government says Argentina’s economy grew by 9.5 percent in 2010, the nation’s poverty level topped 30 percent of the population, the highest since poverty exceeded 50 percent after the 2001-2 economic crisis, private economists said. “The poverty level is higher now than the worst moments of the 1990s,” said Domingo Cavallo, a former economy minister. “Without a doubt, inflation is increasing poverty.”



And with increasing poverty, you have increasing crime.

 

[marksoc]

And with increasing poverty, you have increasing crime.

Inequality is predictor of crime, not poverty alone.

Domingo Cavallo

Shoot the messenger!

Inflation also explains the scarcity of mortgages, now widespread elsewhere in Latin America

I´m kinda against widespread mortgages. They never were common in Argentina.