#319 – Expats in Latin America: Challenges, Legal Issues, and Cultural Quirks

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came up to play and now as I wonder Hello there all you expat wannabes I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America the show that tells you just what it's like to live Work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started Now a lot of you listeners wrote me Oh about three-quarters of a year ago when I read that email coming from a very disgruntled guy living in Uruguay Then after a lot of bad experiences including getting ripped off a bunch of times

[00:45] He moved on to Chile and found it just way too expensive with only about half as many people taking advantage of gringos there Then if you remember the guy gave up on South America altogether and went to Asia and that's where we lost track of him But I'm sure we'll hear from him sooner or later Well, I tell you after that. I got a lot of emails from disgruntled gringos living in various Latin countries Each one it seems telling me a worse horror story and as you might expect 95% of those emails came from people living in gringo tourist areas and by far the most consistently horrendous stories came from people Living in Mexico and Costa Rica with Costa Rica slightly edging out Mexico in gringo complaints Surprise surprise and just a comment here about Costa Rica Isn't it funny that you notice those big international travel magazines and international living and all those retirement?

[01:37] Digest seem to have stopped publicizing Costa Rica as a retirement haven. You know how they say the bloom is off the rose That's Costa Rica. All right Personally, I don't know why it took so long for people to get it through their thick heads that it's virtually impossible To live like a first world person in Costa Rica on a simple social security check, which is the measure every average gringo uses to weigh the pros and cons of retiring in the states versus retiring as an expat in a foreign country and Of course, I don't mean to say that most retirees down here in Latin America lives simply on a social security check But that would be ideal wouldn't it that way you wouldn't have to go into your personal savings Wouldn't it be nice to know that you could retire and keep your entire nest egg intact no matter how big or small it is

[02:24] And have that as a nice big security pad in case some big and unexpected expenses came up Well, you can forget about doing that in Costa Rica believe me that boat left years ago and by the way being able to live on the amount of an average social security check has Always been a measure of not only the individual US guys and gals like you and me but big retirement organizations like Aarp when they decide to beat the drums for a foreign retirement Haven. That's always one of the main bullet points in their spiel Anyway, without further ado I'd like to read this email from a Canadian expat who went down to Costa Rica and Let's just say this guy really lays it on the line He tells it like it is and you gotta know this guy was really pissed off when he was down there because well You know Canadians they're often described as a lighter much less

[03:11] Confrontational version of a US person the fact is people who own hotels all over the world will tell you Canadians are the least likely to complain about anything. That's why I want you to pay particular attention to this one He starts out by saying dear Johnny My wife and I just spent a few days in Costa Rica, and we're glad we're heading back home There are a few things we did appreciate that is people were really friendly especially in towns await from the capital San Jose It's just like you say in your podcast The smaller the town the more friendly and unjaded the people though overall in the end I just have to say Costa Rica really really sucked everything. I mean everything is overpriced I've never spent ten dollars for a single meal at McDonald's in Canada

[03:57] But I did in Costa Rica and by the way I have to paraphrase this a bit to make it flow so bear with me on So then he goes on to say this little country is just a machine Designed to squeeze money out of you to the last bit the infrastructure is terrible the hotel rooms Extremely expensive my wife and I have visited other countries in Central America and had an awesome time with half the money We spent here and by the way this just isn't to complain about money While we were in Costa Rica the hotel right next door to us Resrobbed and the security guard shot in the head which killed him right away So please don't tell me that Costa Rica is safe and that wasn't just a one-off event Everyone we seem to talk to heard of incidents like that not to mention as soon as we got up in the morning while in

[04:48] The city of San Jose and we went out for a walk There was a huge dense cloud of smog covering the whole city. So I ask you what's so green about Costa Rica That's certainly not what they advertise in the travel brochures. Nah, we're definitely not coming back Then he goes on to say Oh Johnny You're so right about Costa Rica when people complain for example at a restaurant or at a hotel the tikos the local Costa Ricans tell us gringos that if we don't like it, we can just leave Imagine that yep, they get 10 points for customer disservice now Don't laugh and here's where you're gonna think I'm off my rocker But in reality, all I'm trying to do is get back a small percentage of the six hundred thousand dollars worth of investments

[05:35] I've made here. So don't laugh because I'm crying Get this I bought my dream bed and breakfast with a bar and restaurant and put another $130,000 into new furnishings, etc. And how's this for a welcoming party just two months later Right before our grand opening two cops broke into my place and took everything including the outlets from the walls the toilets Everything Oh and Johnny the OIJ caught them and by the way, the OIJ in Costa Rica That's nothing more than a police investigative unit. And what are they like picture a corrupt CSI detective unit? Who've all had lobotomies? Anyway, the email goes on to say when the OIJ caught these crooked cops

[06:22] They had all my things but needed to keep them for 30 days as evidence When I went back 30 days later to get my stuff from the evidence room. Guess what? Everything was gone again and get this when I went to court the cops that took my stuff Produced a signed statement saying they had permission to break down my doors and take everything. How do you fight that? I mean really nobody could make this kind of stuff up, but the nightmare gets worse I had transferred another hundred ten thousand dollars down to a Costa Rican bank called Bantec B-A-N-T-E-C a private bank in Urica, Costa Rica. Guess what? It went bust and depositors insurance There's no depositors insurance at all on private banks

[07:10] But the state-owned banks of which there are three have depositors insurance and about 20 years ago The state banks went through a severe test when one of them Banko Angelo failed because the board of directors looted it and fled The country and in that case all the depositors got their money back, but it took about five to seven years Anyway, I had another one hundred fifty thousand dollars in another Costa Rican bank And yes, it's gone, too And I don't even want to go into that story because it still makes me cry then I had another 141,000 with a Canadian developer a company with over a hundred fifty one million dollars worth of property in Guanacaste, Costa Rica That's in the northwestern Pacific coastal part of the country anyway I couldn't get my money or satisfaction out of those people so I had to put them into

[07:58] Bankruptcy and the head of the company of fellow Canadian now finally deposited the money with the court That was two years ago, and his Costa Rican tikka wife is contesting it So I wait and I wait and I wait now my last 135,000 dollars I put with an investment company called the vault VA UL T now the Costa Rican government office of Investigation and regulations assured me they were registered properly Absolutely safe and in good standing in the business community yep They went bust but luckily enough they had assets to pay over 50 cents on the dollar though as usual my own bad luck Held out because finally just before I was to get a payout the court

[08:44] Actually gave the money back to the wife of one tikka owner and to the other two owners who were the very people that ran Off with the money in the first place so now as you might have guessed I'm nearly busted I found a $500 a month dump to live in no stove heat or air conditioning, and I stay awake night after night Listening to the taxi drivers honk the tikka was shooting off their fireworks on top of the dogs barking and the roosters Crowing and yes after I tie up a few loose ends I am leaving with pleasure good riddance then finally he goes on to say when a country Misrepresents itself the way Costa Rica does the world deserves to know about the tactics used to lure foreign investors here So more people don't end up broken and desolate like me other than that I agree with what you say Johnny if you don't like it leave right away

[09:33] Which is what I plan to do when I'm legally able to do so somehow there should be a way for people that change their Minds when doing business deals something like a buyer's remorse clause or at least some way to get out of a contract early on So people can change their minds about living and doing business here and be able to return to their home countries without losing everything Then he says unfortunately that rarely happens here nearly everyone I know who came down with money has at least one sad rip-off story to tell and then he adds by the way For all you women who are thinking of coming down to Costa Rica You've probably read about Costa Rica's official women's equal rights laws. Just like the ones passed up in Canada Yes, they exist down here. All right, you can look them up They're there, but they're never enforced in conclusion. He says Costa Rica

[10:22] Advertises itself very well. It's very green lush and it's an environmentalist paradise So they say the real truth is much dirtier just have a walker drive through any Costa Rican town and keep your eyes open garbage is just thrown out of car windows and Many of the lauded blue flag beaches have actually lost their blue flags already due to fecal coliform Contamination and yes, there's recycling but the only people that recycle are the gringos not the locals And of course Costa Rican buses and trucks belch out enough foul exhaust and soot to make Beijing look like Aspen And I've yet to see a river or a stream near any populated area That doesn't look like it's running with a million nasty chemicals and various forms of garbage

[11:10] Plastic bags and bottles now, you're surely gonna think I'm nuts when I tell you that I still prefer Costa Rica over Canada I'm not holding up Canada as a shining example of clean Believe me witness what they're doing with the oil sands up there to find out how bad things can really get signed a Canadian expat Hmm all I can say is Wow. He's right. You really can't make that stuff up Now, you know, I gotta say that's one of the saddest stories I've ever heard Personally practically everyone I know in Costa Rica has been ripped off at one time or another through land and investment schemes and by lawyers And such but usually people are more cautious than that. You know the old saying once bitten twice shy I learned that one from my grandma when I was 12 years old though

[11:56] It's hard to admit. There are a lot of very nice North Americans and Canadians who come down to so-called gringo Paradises like Costa Rica and Panama all starry-eyed and ready to get on what they think is the ground floor of the next greatest Land or development boom or whatever I've seen green gringos and expats like that get bit and then body slammed a few times Some people are born suckers and some people have an invisible target painted on their back But in this Canadian guy's case, he was smart enough to somehow get his hands on nearly a million bucks I certainly don't know that part of the story So who knows and someday I'll tell you the story of how I got screwed out of 25 grand in Costa Rica by a lawyer No, less who 20 something years ago forgot somehow to dot all the I's and cross all the T's on a land deal And this was a lawyer by the way who taught at a Costa Rican university

[12:45] And if you met him, you'd say he was a very gentle soul After all to his credit he had two books of poetry published though Unfortunately, he had a wife a Costa Rican social climber who thought she was a gringa and just had to make occasional trips to Miami To buy all the new fashions and thus her lawyer husband was always broke Which is why I think occasionally he didn't dot the I's and cross the T's So I was out 25 grand though. It wasn't the end of the world It still burns me up when I think about it though I did learn my lesson once bitten, you know, and now you might think I've said just about enough about Costa Rica But I have one more thing to add now I don't know if this news hit up in the first world yet or if it ever will it is something crazy enough that Just might get picked up on the big wire services, but I doubt it Anyway, just recently in San Jose Costa Rica the police have cracked an illegal human organ harvesting operation

[13:35] Turns out they arrested three surgeons at a hospital in San Jose and a Greek pizzeria owner So what does this Greek guy and his pizzeria have to do with harvesting organs? Well, he was the guy responsible for recruiting donors They'd give these people the so-called victims who were in dire straits and those with little economic means a cash payout from about Six to twenty thousand bucks along with home delivery of a large cheese and sausage in a six pack of Pepsi Just kidding about the Pepsi Anyway after the organs been harvested and transplanted by one of those surgeons at this particular San Jose hospital called Calderon Guardia. Well, that's when they divided up the big money and yes I once had a house in San Jose, so I remember that hospital

[14:21] Well, though that wasn't the only hospital that was involved. They also mentioned a hospital called Hacienda Penilla in Guanacaste which happens to be right where one of those land swindles took place for that poor unfortunate Canadian. We just spoke about Anyway wealthy recipients who generally flew into Costa Rica to receive those transplants Ended up paying about 80 to 100 grand for the privilege now Like I've said so many times before the wheels of justice work very slowly in Latin America when they work at all It's a conclusion you surely might get from this story When you find out that this little ring and the pizza parlor connection has been in business since about 2008 So they were able to keep authorities in the dark about this harvesting ring for five or so years yet

[15:08] It turns out almost everyone who worked at that pizza parlor and nearly every regular customer who ordered a cheese and sausage Knew in a roundabout way what was going on behind the scenes there and the moral of that story Beware of Greeks marrying pizzas and come on even without the kidney connection Only in Latin America could a Greek make a pizza parlor business fly or maybe in this case the guy's pizza business Didn't fly at all and thus he started with the kidney pies And after that crude reference we'll have to move on now if you remember last week I had that little discussion about expat Eddie and his rat problem the eight rats that were living in the headliner of his bulletproof Jeep, how can you forget a story like that, huh? And again, I'd like to emphasize that only idiots narcos and guys with very small

[15:55] Penises have their cars bulletproof down here though. It's a very big business In fact in any large Latin American city You can't drive two kilometers on a main thoroughfare and not see a sign for one of these big bulletproofing outfits And they'll set up just about any car with what they call level one two three or four And of course the level of bulletproofing is directly proportional to the caliber of the bullets that the armor is supposed to stop Now you'd think with all these bulletproofing joints around many so-called rich Gringo expats would jump on that bandwagon But guess what they don't in fact in the 20-something years. I've been down here I've only met one Gringo expat who wasn't a US government employee stationed down here or Embassy personnel that actually has or had a car bulletproofed and he's so well off that he has his kids flown from his house

[16:43] Every day to school in a helicopter and you know to us average folks It might seem like extreme overkill But who knows how you or I would act if we had that kind of money a couple of young kids and a very high profile Which means you end up mingling with people in a similar social situation After all a person like that living off the Gringo tourist trail in Latin America has a completely different lifestyle than you and I And even if you personally reject all that your kids are going to school with other kids in that social bracket So they're gonna be exposed to that excessive expensive rarefied stuff all the time Which is another big reason why I don't recommend Gringos have young kids down here But that said almost no one ever takes my advice on that point. So why beat that dead horse, right? Anyway, if you happen to be one of those rare Gringos who happens to have a bulletproof car like expat Eddie does though

[17:33] As you might recall from a previous show he bought it used it was a good deal and he paid no extra for the bulletproofing He didn't care one bit about that. So that was a completely different case Anyway, if you're one of those wealthy Gringos, especially if you're living far off the Gringo tourist trail All of your wealthy acquaintances are probably gonna have bulletproof cars, too. Now, don't get me wrong I'm not insinuating that wealthy Gringos have Narco's for friends because by far as you'd imagine Narco's have the greatest need for bulletproof vehicles since they're always fighting it out in turf wars or revenge or whatever What I mean to say is that Latins with bulletproof cars generally have small penises meaning they have big-time Self-esteem issues. Yes. I know I said that already, but I knew you got a kick out of it the first time

[18:19] And I thought I'd try it on you again So you might ask how can I get away with making a blanket statement like that? Well, here's the reason listen to this When pressed for an answer any bodyguard driving one of these cars will admit criminals thieves and kidnappers almost Never attack you when you're in your car Sure, occasionally you see on the news a car that's been riddled with bullets. Well, that's almost never a random thing It's rarely about robbery or kidnapping but most often about hatred and revenge I repeat not robbery or kidnapping. The fact is 19 out of 20 of those shootouts involving cars did not have occupants who were Gringos Wealthy or otherwise or in fact any foreigners or expats at all. So who were they? Well

[19:07] 95% or more the occupants were politicians high-level government workers elected officials Lawyers and bad guy criminal types like small-time narcos who can't afford to have their cars bulletproofed And there's another thing that bodyguards know They'll tell you that people rarely get robbed or kidnapped whether they're riding around in a bulletproof car or a regular one The fact is people get robbed and kidnapped when they're walking to and from their cars not when they're in them Bottom line bulletproof cars are one big expensive show for superficial people with self-esteem problems Notice I didn't mention that penis thing again And one last thing a lot of people want to know just what it might cost to have your car bulletproofed

[19:54] Well, I just happen to know a latin guy with a brand new Chevy Tahoe And he had it in the shop for level 3 bulletproofing which set him back about 12,000 bucks US And added about 1200 pounds to the car too So now it's really a pig gets about nine miles to the gallon, you know And by the way, I know what you're thinking this guy's got to have a very small All right But before we move on I mentioned expat Eddie's recent light new car purchase and the eight rats that were living in the headliner By the way, like I said, he's got it up for sale since his girlfriend refuses to go near the thing Anyway staying for a while on the subject of rats It turns out a lot of gringos and expats get awful confused when that word comes up in conversation

[20:41] What I'm talking about is all the Spanish versions and permutations of the word rat It's one of those funny language use cases where Latins use the word or very similar versions of it to mean Completely different things or very similar things depending for example Latins use practically the same word for a rat as for a mouse a Mouse is a rat tone RATON Rat tone and of course a rat. The RATA is a rat Whereas a tiny mouse is a rat tone seat though Because if you remember like I mentioned in past shows when you put the suffix or ending C TOC ITO Or in some cases just ito ITO on any regular noun

[21:28] It always means a smaller or diminutive version of it Like for example, a car is a caro and a small car is a car ito Now if like I said a small mouse is a rat tone seat, though What would you call a small rat a small rat? Well, guess what? Apparently there is no ending or suffix that you can add to rata to talk about a small rat So does that mean there are no small rats in latin america only giant ones luckily? That's not true at all. Instead. You'd call it a rata pequeña pequeña meaning small and by the way You can use the word pequeña or pequeño to refer to anything that small Like for example what we mentioned before about the owners of those bulletproof cars, but let's not go there again

[22:14] Okay. Now here's where those spanish words for rat and mouse get strange if not funny Now like I said a rat is a rata, right? But down here in latin america the word rata also refers to a common thief. Okay. Well, that's pretty straightforward, right? But how about this the word rato? Rato has nothing at all to do with thieves or disgusting little creatures that are underfoot Get this the word rato Rato is it the vision of time? For example, if someone says they're on their way to visit you they'll be there in un rato That means soon maybe an hour maybe two maybe five. This is latin america, you know But if someone says they're on their way, they'll be there in one ratito

[22:59] That's r-a-t-i-t-o Ratito well that turns out to be the diminutive form of rato Meaning much sooner than an hour two hours or five hours more like one five ten minutes or even a half an hour So for example, if you call a plumber and he says he's gonna arrive in un rato You might as well go for lunch and then to the shopping mall to check out the new flat screen tv's However, if you call the plumber and he says he'll be there in a ratito Just pour yourself a pina colada or a daiquiri and by the time you're done, he'll probably be there Now since we're on the subject of the oddities of the spanish language, like we don't have any in english, right? I just have to tell you about what happens to gringos and expats down here When latin's mangle our names and they do all the time

[23:47] Now if you know any spanish at all you learn soon enough that the spanish language almost never has words with back-to-back Double consonants in them and in english, we just have thousands of words like that. For example cinnamon You know, it's got a double n in it, right or take the word beginning also two ends back to back Well, let me tell you that never happens in spanish unless a foreign word like an english word Comes into very common usage down here Like for example the word pizza of course pronounced pizza here and because it's such a common international word They'll keep the two z's Even though it does rub latin's the wrong way to have two identical consonants like that back to back Same thing goes for a word like the car company nissan with two s's back to back

[24:32] That kind of a grammatical weirdness for them is not at all easy for them to get used to now There is an exception to that double consonant back-to-back rule and that's when you see two l's together now a double l in spanish You'll see once in a while and it has a different kind of sound when you see it. It's pronounced as yeah And more commonly spanish words with a lone standing l in them have the usual l sound like we do in english So again that double l is an exception and it's actually considered another letter in the alphabet So here's how all this stuff strangely affects us expats down here and expat wannabes and gonabes, too If for example, you have a name with two back-to-back consonants in it like for example, johnny

[25:19] J-o-h-n-n-y or harry h-a-r-r-y Every single latin person who writes your name down for any reason is gonna skip one of those consonants And why would they write your name down? well, for example oftentimes you have to give a plumber a contract or a maintenance person or The propane gas delivery guy your phone number and when he writes your name and phone if you've got a name like mine They'll write it j-o-h-n-y Which looks to us english speakers like jonie or let's take harry again They'll write it down without one of the r's and it'll be hottie And if your name's donny the end will get skipped and you'll be donny And yes, that's the way they'll pronounce it, too In fact all the latin people I know call me jonie and you know

[26:07] I've long since stopped worrying about correcting them too Because when you do it only works for that moment because the next time you run into them You're jonie all over again and expat eddie Of course, they drop the d and call him eddie And of course, they'll do it with your last name too like they do all the time with my last name They skip one of the l's now You might not think that makes sense since the double l is the exception to the rule in spanish So latin's should be accustomed to seeing the double l like that But the fact is it's pronounced mueller which to them means one l instead of muyer Which by their linguistic reckoning would support that double l exception to the rule The longer you're down here The more you're going to find out that your name's been written wrong all over the place

[26:57] For example, if you're having a pizza delivered or pharmacy deliver some medicine to your house and yes pharmacies have home delivery Anyway, when the little guy delivers your stuff with a double consonant name like that It'll be wrong and that goes for making reservations at hotels and events and restaurants, too Not to mention if you get a printed invitation like for a wedding they'll screw your name up on that, too Expat eddie says he knew he was down here way too long when a few years ago He unconsciously started dropping one of the d's from his own name. Now. Don't laugh. It could happen to you You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america coming to you twice a week from somewhere south of the border

[27:43] Email me the expat files at gmail.com And don't forget to check out expatwisdom.com to sign up for your free reports on latin america See you next time nos vemos