| I’m going to talk about MONEY: How to USE money, MOVE money and PROTECT your money. People ask me all the time. How do we move money to/from a foreign country? The international money laundering laws have almost made it impossible to do, even through the banks. Paulo and I do not use bank-to-bank wire transfers to receive money from Canada. We use Western Union Business Solutions out of B.C. I love this company! It’s super easy to use and the people are personable, helpful and offer a slightly better exchange rate than the banks. The only catch is you have to own a business in Canada to be able to use this service and you have to set it up before you leave the country. But once it’s set up, it’s very easy to move money anywhere in the world within 24 hours with an easy online money transfer and a quick email. Currently my contact person in Canada is: Justine Rodi in Surrey, BC., at 1-604-560-8074 ext. 5123. Her email is: saskatoonoperations@westernunion.com Phone: 604.560.8074 I’m sure there are comparable currency-exchanging brokerages in the States for our American friends. Be careful not to confuse Western Union Business Solutions with the Western Union kiosks that you see in the grocery store or around town. They are two totally different things, which brings me to my next point – the headaches using Western Union (the kiosks)! Twice a year the employees down here in Honduras get BIG bonuses in June and in December (not my idea – it’s the labour law). I had forgotten this little detail so when we were a little short on pay day, we had our secretary in Canada nip over to Western Union at the mall and send us a few thousand dollars. We were counting on that money instantaneously. Unfortunately our secretary sent the money to ‘Kathy Berner’, and of course the name in my passport is ‘Katherine Berner’. Big discrepancy? I guess to them, it was. Now this may not be an issue in every Western Union location, but in a country like Honduras, the likelihood that this is going to be an issue is pretty high. What was most frustrating is that this particular WU is located inside the bank that we deal at personally! They wouldn’t give us the money until we convinced them (in Spanish) that Kathy and Katherine is the same name! In the end we got our money that day, probably because it’s a small island and they actually do know who we are. They were just enjoying the power struggle and seeing us sweat, but to me, watching your client deflate right before your eyes and seeing smoke blowing out their ears never serves any business well in the end. The truth is, I can’t stand this particular bank and I make sure to tell every foreigner arriving to the island NOT to deal there. As a additional note, that particular bank recently came up with a new rule – they don’t accept $20 bills! Why? Nobody knows. We have up to 5 cruise ships a day stopping in Roatan with happy shoppers spending wads and wads of $20 bills in US currency and this crazy bank decides they don’t want them! We’re switching as soon as I find the time! They are too dumb for me! The New Credit Card Epidemic Word to the Wise when Traveling When traveling these days, it’s best to take multiple cards with smaller credit limits rather than one card with a large limit. The chances of one of them getting compromised or blocked is increasing every day. I think Paulo and I have had about 4 or 5 cards compromised in the past year. The good news is you never have to pay for the fraudulent charges, but it’s a huge hassle waiting for your new card in the mail. The other problem is that the company starts blocking the card the second they feel it’s a suspicious charge so we constantly have a credit card unexpectedly blocked. It’s becoming the norm for us. Business Owners: Beware of Scams! This story is brilliant (on the part of the scammer). Splash Inn almost got scammed, but luckily I interrupted the process before our hotel lost money. Our reservation girl, who does our direct hotel bookings was fairly new at the time and we had never discussed the return policy/procedure in detail. But in my defense, it was the first time I had ever heard of such a scam so I also was unaware. The scammer booked 2 rooms for a couple of weeks and sent a sizeable deposit by credit card. We received the money in our business account as usual. Then, about 2 weeks later, within the acceptable cancellation period, the guest emailed with a big, long, sad story about his wife falling ill with some life-threatening ailment and coincidently he had lost his credit card while he was rushing his poor wife to the hospital. He then requested if we could we just please return the money to his Pay Pal account. Luckily my employee didn’t know how to send money from the Pay Pal account so she asked me how to do it. I just about fainted when she told me the story. I couldn’t believe that she would believe his story, but I guess she is young and sweet so it’s understandable that she wouldn’t suspect anything odd. I told her I would handle all returns myself from here on in. I emailed the scammer myself and explained that if he really did lose his credit card while he was rushing his dying wife to the hospital, he would have to provide written proof from his credit card company that his card had been cancelled, and that I would return the money right after I verified the proof of cancellation. Needless to say, we never heard from him again, but we still had the problem of the extra $2000 in our bank account. This is where the story gets a little funny. I called Visa to inform them of the scam and advise them to cancel that credit card number. The Visa employee could barely understand my story and treated me like “I” was the scammer. It took me several attempts to explain to her that I had no interest in making further charges to this stolen credit card number and that I was trying to protect the owner of the card by having it cancelled. She was very reluctant to shut the card down because I “wasn’t the owner of the card”. Finally I gave up and said, “Okay. Do what you want with this card number. I don’t care. I’m not going to charge anything more to the card, even though I’m telling you that I CAN because I have all the information but seeing that you are not understanding the point of my call…. Chau!”. Finally, about a month later, Visa called us to discuss how they were going to get their money back. It turns out they take it back by withholding future Visa payments to our company until it is paid back in full, which of course I was totally agreeable to. I was worried they would unexpectedly go into our bank account and grab the $2000 on a day when I expected the money to be there, so I was happy to hear they recaptured the money little by little. I Recommend Not Gambling with the Currency Exchange when it comes to Real Estate Deals For those of you who plan to buy or build in a foreign country, I myself, personally don’t like gamblimg on the currency exchange rates. When you make a purchase and firm up your deal, you know two things on that date. You know how much you are going to need to close and you know what the current exchange rate is. I highly recommend that you consider exchanging all of your money to your new currency as soon as you can so that you know what you’ve got to work with. I’m not a gambler, and in fact I have about as much luck at gambling as I do at fishing, so it seems that the exchange rate always takes a turn for the worse between the time you make the deal and the time you have to pay for the deal. Have Fun! But Stay SAFE! Now might be as good of a time as any to sneak in this last piece of advice. When taking unexpected guests to your hotel room, for whatever reason, make sure your wallet, credit cards, iphone, ipad, computer and passport are safely stowed away – or better yet, DON’T TAKE STRANGERS TO YOUR HOTEL ROOM – NO MATTER HOW CUTE OR INNOCENT-LOOKING THEY ARE! It baffles me how seemingly normal and intelligent travellers (who are usually under the influence) allow strangers into their hotel room, and then are completely surprised when they get robbed. A second piece of advice while traveling: make sure you have a photo copy of alll your credit cards (front and back) and a copy of your passport. You’ll need this information when you call to cancel your cards (once they’ve been stolen or lost). Hopefully the copy of your passport will be helpful when trying to get back into your own country! It’s better than having no information at all. Oh the fun of dealing with money on an international level! The stories are never-ending! Safe travels to all you North Americans who will be escaping the cold this winter! And best of luck to the folks planning on buying or building in a foreign country. By Kathy Berner |
