Preferred Method Of Receiving Salary

Cecil Fox Palmer

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My boss who spends most of his time in the US wants to pay me thru Paypal at Blue rate. Up to this month I would get paid in pesos cash that were received by a co-worker (who will no longer work in Argentina) thru a wire transfer. Apparently wire transfers have gotten too expensive for him. Paypal won't work for me since I have a 60-peso fee for every 1500 pesos (at official rate) I take out of the ATM. I cannot pay directly with my debit card anywhere and it would complicate something as simple as paying $3000+ monthly rent. Not to mention, my Argentine co-workers don't have US bank accounts.

So my question is, what is the 2015 BAExpats Forum ® Officially Endorsed Method of receiving your salary?
 
There are very few "good" ways as far as I know. If you are not doing all the legal requirements to report your income earned out of the country and go through the hoops required to actually receive wire transfers into your bank account here (which, of course is not good either because you will receive pesos at the official rate, after conversions and fees and such) you have a few options and only one of them I consider "good", although they all involve going through some hoops and costs to get the money.

To get the money down here:

1) Send your money through Xoom or Azimo. You still have to declare the source of your money (and the fact that it's going to you, keep in mind) to them to bring down any kind of consistent quantity (a lot of threads have talked about the limits and the requirements) and although you get better than the official rate, you still get below the blue rate.

You can have your employer send directly to your account outside the country and you send the money to yourself, or you can have the employer send to you directly through the service.

2) Go to Uruguay and pull your money out in dollars at ATMs. Obvious costs are time, tickets on the ferry, ATM fees.

Your employer would need to send to your bank account.

3) Find a cueva and wire money to the banks accounts outside of Argentina that they point you to. You are probably looking at 4-6% payment to the cueva for moving your money. The advantage is you can have dollars, or pesos at a good blue rate based on the amount you sent down.

Money can come from your bank account or direct from your employer.

4) Find someone here who wants to get money out of the country. Could be expats who sold a house or something, people of whatever nationality who have businesses that generate a lot of cash, etc. The good thing about this is that it generally doesn't cost you anything except transaction fees. wire the money to their account outside of the country and they give you the cash here, at whatever rate you may have agreed to (I use Ambito nowadays and average the buy/sell price). These are not easy to find, and what i call the "good" way.

Again, money can come from your bank account or direct from your employer.

All of these involve some sort of cost. Wire transaction fees, ATM fees, etc. I don't know anyway to get around that at some point in the transaction.

I think someone mentioned previously some kind of a "co-op" like organization that organizes send and receive needs between parties to give a solution like #4, but I don't remember where I remembered seeing that, or when.

I won't mention BitCoins... :D

Oh - and never take money out of the ATM or pay with an international credit card unless you have no other choice whatsoever.
 
Say what you will about Bitcoin, but it's improved a lot. You can now buy Bitcoins through the Coinbase exchange instantly at no fee (with USD), and send them immediately to whomever is buying them. The currency fluctuation risk to you is almost zero. You have to be a U.S. citizen (I think), and the state where you have your "U.S. residence" has to have provided Coinbase with a Money Transmitter License, if the state believes that BTC operations qualify as money transmission.

In Argentina, the key is finding someone who will pay you a good rate for them. They're out there, though...

This is a legal service: https://satoshitango.com/
 
I actually think Bitcoin has a lot of promise, or maybe a system that follows it. If people can agree to have faith in the Dollar they can agree to have faith in something like Bitcoin. With some of the problems it's had, though, I'm a bit wary of it. As long as you are not speculating and are able to run your currency through the exchange process it could work.

I knew if I mentioned it in a serious light the naysayers would flood the thread, but now that you have, I'd agree it's a possible method, though maybe a bit complicated to enact on both ends. I didn't have a chance yet to rad how easy it is to use the system at the link you provided though.
 
Getting your salary through PayPal seems like a win to me. You pay tax on your nominal usd salary multiplied by 9 and can leverage it here at 12.5. Get a PayPal debit card, take the cash out in Uruguay once per month make your boss pay the fees.
 
Getting your salary through PayPal seems like a win to me. You pay tax on your nominal usd salary multiplied by 9 and can leverage it here at 12.5. Get a PayPal debit card, take the cash out in Uruguay once per month make your boss pay the fees.

Paypal cards are VISA or Mastercasd issued?? only these options work in Colonia. ATM Witdrawls are $300 per try. Some banks only $200 and also daily limits for amount and tries exist. In addition only 2 banks in Colonia accept the new CC cards issued with a chip :eek: ....!!
 
Opening a Banco Republica (BROU) account isn't a bad option if you really need to go the Colonia route. I have two debit cards and can get up to USD1200 per card per day (last time that I tried it...much more than other cards). I have a trusted friend who goes for business and picks up cash for me from time to time.
 
El CordobÉs,

Brou has given you ATM card or debit card ( I opened my BROU account in 2007 and I still have ATM card, with a updated one in 2010).

what do you mean "two debit cards"? two for one account?

Thanks
 
Getting your salary through PayPal seems like a win to me. You pay tax on your nominal usd salary multiplied by 9 and can leverage it here at 12.5. Get a PayPal debit card, take the cash out in Uruguay once per month make your boss pay the fees.
Not sure what you mean by paying taxes on salary multiplied by 9.

To go to Colonia, you have to buy a ticket to get there to begin with, plus deal with the fees attached to multiple withdrawals (does Paypal not charge ATM fees?). Although you can end up with dollars and change them at the blue rate, the reality is quite a bit more in expenses just to get there and back. One would not end up with a real exchange rate near 12.50 by the time all is said and done, which is why going to Colonia for whatever reason is doable if you don't have other options, but not all that good. Factor in the time spent and it gets even worse.

However, i did mention the ATM withdrawal in Colonia and forgot to mention as part of one of my options above that he could indeed get a Paypal debit card and take it out directly from there. Which is silly of me because I have a Paypal debit card - although I've never used it since I got it for a "just in case" because I haven't had an emergency big enough to make me pull pesos out of an ATM here for years, and I've never needed to go to Colonia to get money out.
 
For most people, I expect, Colonia's not a very practical option - unless you happen to be going to Colonia anyway.
 
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