| By Majormajor on Thursday, August 22, 2013 - 09:41 am: Edit |
I know, getting money at an ATM in Argentina is not the best thing to do when you can exchange $s at the rate of 8 / 9 pesos to one $ if you know the right place to go.
However, there are times that one does not have any money, and you need to go to an ATM to tap your bank account.
So, the ? is, what are the daily limits for an ATM withdrawal in Argentina?
I would greatly appreciate your answer.
Thanks.
MM
| By Mrmeaner on Sunday, August 25, 2013 - 05:07 pm: Edit |
I'm in Argentina now with lots of updates pending.
I made the mistake of not researching the currency situation as I've been here enough times to know about almost everything else or find out quickly. You really do want to bring cash and preferably large bills as the official rate is 5.5 and you get further screwed by card fees.
I had some cash but still needed to visit the Citibank ATM once so far. I withdrew 1500 pesos but there were default options for more. The top option was 2500 pesos ($455 US) or higher. If you withdraw 2500 pesos you'll lose over $170 US on the exchange.
In my past experience, the local banks have much lower limits but you could make multiple transactions, but I don't have any recent experience on what those single transaction or total transaction limits are.
For those unfamiliar with the black market currency exchange (called blue market rate) you basically need to exchange with an individual or business doing it on the side. You can find people offering "Cambio" all up and down Florida Street. You should also be aware of the process to spot fake bills.
One can find highly detailed descriptions of spotting fake Argentine pesos on the internet, but I'll go ahead and mention what I think seems to be the quickest with good accuracy.
Larger bills have a silver foil dashes with small writing on them. When held up to the light, you'll see it's actually a solid line interlaced into the bill. You may want to also do a quick flip to make sure the other part of the line isn't printed on the back of the bill. You can also can confirm the watermark is a true watermark and not printing on the back of the bill.