Is the lockdown causing more problems than COVID 19?

There are 96 replies in this Thread which has previously been viewed 16,373 times. The latest Post () was by Splinter.

    Quote from serafina

    Regardless of your age, you can always get a Cuenta Gratuita Universal (GCU), provider you don’t have other bank accounts here.
    It seems to offer the same functions as the pensioners’ one.

    Seem to remember my wife saying it wasn't worth me having one due to the charges. Plus as I don't have a tax number I wouldn't be able to have one anyway.

    I have credit cards and never use them.

    • Official Post
    Quote from UK Man

    You know I haven't had a KitKat for about two weeks now. Don't see them around as much as I used to. Here's hoping they haven't decided to stop selling in Argentina. Although I wouldn't be at all surprised if they have as the supermarkets were charging ridiculous prices for them. :thumbdown: I don't understand the way supermarkets operate here....just doesn't make sense unless they're being forced to do it that way.

    This government website allows you to report price abuses which I would have no hesitation in using with Chinese supermarkets being the main culprits.

    https://www.argentina.gob.ar/preciosmaximos

    My wife deposited 18,000 pesos the other day into her Banco Nacion account using the machine with the envelope. Next day she checks her account and sees the 18,000 was desposited with a 360 peso charge for the privelage. She then saw that the 18,000 pesos had been withdrawn.....cue panic attack!!


    Yesterday she got in touch with one of the bank staff who she's known for thirty years....she's a lovely person. She told my wife as she has to work this morning she would look into it and get back to her. She's just been on the phone to say she has no idea how it was withdrawn but has put it back into her account. Human error or something more sinister? Wife went online to see the amount has indeed been put back...trouble is another 360 peso charge has also been charged. Unbelievable.

    • Official Post

    That is indeed crazy UK Man

    I just asked Adri about the pensioner fiasco and she gave me the example of her mother who is 83, very bright and able to walk to the shops and do other chores. Her pension is paid into her bank account and she has a debit card and online banking.

    Up until now she has been going to the bank and withdrawing most of it in cash personally, not at an ATM, but personal attention. It's been pointed out to her on numerous occasions that it's risky doing that under any circumstances and walking home with a bag full of cash. Her reasons for doing it are that she likes to have the cash in her house and maybe there still lurks a mistrust of banks, although she didn't admit to that.

    Since the lockdown, Adri has been paying her mother's bills online (she has always had access to her mum's account anyway for security reasons), but her mum still insists on having cash on hand, although not as much as before.

    It's also true that ALL those pensioners queuing up have bank accounts and debit cards but for some reason are unable to get their heads around pin numbers and suchlike.

    Quote from Splinter

    It's also true that ALL those pensioners queuing up have bank accounts and debit cards but for some reason are unable to get their heads around pin numbers and suchlike.

    I suspect many have never used an ATM because of the security risk while some just prefer dealing with a human. I doubt very much my wife will be using the envelope to deposit cash at the ATM again. She had no choice as the machine kept spitting out her cash probably due to it not being emptied.

    • Official Post

    My grandma had a store for 40 years in Italy and she was a cash-only person, too. She had a bank account, a card, checks... but that's as far as she went (checks). She never used the card and when she tried to use it, she didn't know how to navigate the ATM screen and the machine 'ate' the card. I was 10 years old back then, so I was useless in front of an ATM because I didn't know what the various options prompted meant, I just knew how to push the buttons - it never occurred to her that maybe she had to push the buttons on the side of the screen to select an option - she stopped at the keypad.


    When I was a teenager I had my bank account and my card and tried to convince her to use it. I was using mostly because it was cool (none had a card they could use by themselves, without parental supervision) and the 'cool' argument was never convincing enough for her.


    In her eyes, the money was not safer in the bank, it was just harder to access. Suppose you needed the money, but pushed the wrong buttons at the ATM... you would have ended up with no money and no card, so more troubles than what it was worth.


    Instead, she always kept a wad of cash at home (about €5000 in current money), and even when shopping in bulk for her store, she always paid cash. She retired in '99 or around that time, so this was 20 years ago, but I doubt much has changed in Argentina, where many people are wary of banks here and have tried to avoid them as much as possible.


    If people haven't been used to banks / bank services for most of their adult life, they will hardly join the banked squad when they are older.


    I have had the opposite issue when we moved to Argentina. I always had very little cash in my wallet when I was living in Italy. I could pay by card about everywhere. The only cash I needed was for drinks and coffee, because at that time no shop accepted card payment for smaller amounts.


    When we moved to Argentina I felt very controlled because I needed cash for everything, and my husband kept the accounting. I still cannot go on a shopping spree unless we plan for it in advance, and then I feel bounded to buy because maybe we have changed money on purpose, and the longer the money sits in our hands the less it's worth. Sometimes I have to ponder whether to buy something non essential or keep the money for the food because it's Friday and that money has to last until Monday. Or maybe because I would need only $2000 more, but the minimum amount you can exchange is a 100 USD bill which is about $8000 nowadays. What to do with the remaining $6000?


    Overall, it's a continuous calculation and pondering, not to mention the discomfort of having to look for a place to exchange and go around with a lot of pesos, becoming a potential target. Money management is a worry I didn't have in Europe.

    this whole story with the old people just makes me both mad and sad! When people mistreat "normal" people is one thing, but when it's old, handicapped, people that cannot move, I find it extremely perverted!!!! Old people or children cannot protect themself and there is many things they can't do same way as "normal" aged and fit people!

    What happened Friday was a DISGRACE!!!!!

    But looking through the news and coverage, seems like the 🤡 and his "scientist" goons will just get away with it! With and average incubation time of 5-8 days, we will see how this will play out!!!!

    few business are profiting from the huge mess.....except media....they are having crowned days....and all of them feeling like they are contributing enormously......but sad enough, I really really really doubt that they are showing all what is happening here......they like to show the horrendous situation in Ecuador, the deaths from Europe, the military revolt in Brasil......but I would like them to take a tour to conurbana and watch, maybe visit the emergency rooms......haven't seen just one clip from any infected people in emergency here......isn't it strange????? I make a million bet all media have been told to hold back a bit!!!!!

    Here's my summary of the total lockdown.


    I make no apologies for the length of this post.

    In Argentina, the lockdown was announced by the president live on TV at 22.00 on 20th March 2020 and I immediately jumped on my motorcycle to stock up on one or two necessities before the hammer came down at midnight.

    The following day when I walked out of the front door, it was like a scene from a Wild West ghost town without a sound to be heard, except the birds (who were exempt, apparently) in the trees. And we all sensed fear, but not from COVID, but from the authorities.

    The next day, my wife needed to see her Mum of 85 years old who lives about six blocks away, but she was stopped by a police checkpoint two blocks from our house. Documents were demanded and she was turned back until she could provide the correct certificate 'to be on the street'. She got off lightly because others were detained. She also turned on the tears.

    More fear.

    Since I'm a motorcycle courier, I managed to wrangle/blag an exemption certificate for essential services (food, medicine delivery etc) and from day three I was travelling hither and thither around the city of Buenos Aires which had become a fortress due to the ring of steel erected around it, quite literally.

    I should point out here that Argentina is no stranger to states of fear, having endured numerous military coups d'etat over the decades, the last being from 1976-1983, where states of emergency and curfews were almost daily occurrences and there is always a remnant of that fear, that it could happen again in most Argentines minds.

    Well it did happen again and the fear for most people was being caught unauthorised out in the street. The fear of COVID was unanimously overtaken by fear of the state.

    There were incidents of men and women being dragged bodily off buses, trains and other locations, yet the populous accepted it all. What could they do? Plenty really, but it was a rock and a hard place.

    Both the city of BA and the provincial area where I live were infested by armed police checkpoints. And when I say armed, I'm not talking about service revolvers, but huge, long shotguns and semi-automatics. If you didn't have a good reason to be out and about, you were detained. More fear.

    I wised up very quickly, plasticised the exemption certificate and stuck it on the bike's windshield, so that I could get through the enormous traffic jams more quickly, without having to stop and show them every document I possessed. It worked.

    Steel barriers were erected on every exit and ingress of the main city ring road/motorway which mean that a journey which would normally take thirty minutes, took more than twice that time.

    In the meantime, the president was hosting birthday parties for his pals at the official residence just down the road from where I live and when the vaccines arrived, they started by giving their pals and notable VIPs jabs before the rest of the population.

    For me, the final straw was when I parked the bike in a deserted recreation area next to the Rio de la Plata and strolled ten meters to the river bank. Before I knew it, two police officers on motorbikes came tearing across the grass, jumped off their bikes and told me to move away from the river bank. As my jaw fell to the floor, I looked around and couldn't see another living soul and asked them what the hell they were talking about. They insisted that I walk back to my bike in the car park not ten meters away, but I refused.

    At this, one of them began to quote verbatim, the actual presidential decree, which incidentally was unconstitutional, until I stopped his rant by showing my exemption certificate, more out of frustration than anything else. A long conversation then ensued, the end result being that if I didn't move away from the river bank, I would be arrested and would need to accompany them to the comisaria. I should really have let them arrest me, but instead reminded them of their military dictatorships as a comparison to their behaviour which seemed to soften their attitude. But they were on auto-pilot, determined to enforce their interpretation of the decree, so I shambled back to my bike as they glared at me every inch of the way.