For the first time… at Chile’s sole public bank, Banco Estado de Chile, I was asked for my RUN while depositing CASH into the account of my wife (have been paying bills this way for 20 years or so.).
This corresponds with the crackdown on paying taxes from MercadoLibre and similar online sales sites of many "informa"l Chilenos (which I wrote about in a previous post) vs. street vendors, mainly foreigners these days, who are free to do their thing; the push to eliminate the under USD $41 import tax exemption; and other desperate money generating schemes of a throughly corrupt Commie government and now this.
To explain this as the government attack on the
narcos
and out-of-control
crime
is utterly ridiculous and more than stupid given the real-life situation of the countryin which WE live.
It is like living with the sherriff of nottingham(robin hood) except he is everywhere now…collecting taxes for poor old prince john…ahem
The family that pays together, stays together.
We see this sort of illconcieved logic playing out in western nations where they do stupid stuff trying to improve factor X and then EVERY TIME it causes utter meltdown in factor X.
Now its the same song and dance here while we are supposed to pretend they are worthy of basic respect and civility
What is the point of being here when it is like this?
La CuentaRUT es una Cuenta Vista con la que podrás administrar tu dinero en forma rápida y segura, a través de todos nuestros canales disponibles. Sin mayores requisitos para abrirla, no necesitas acreditar renta ni antecedentes comerciales.
Anyone who has attempted to open a regular Current Account here knows how difficult it is. Faced with a large number of individuals with criminal instincts, banks are extremely cautious, and generally want to know all about a prospective account holder to ensure they won’t get burnt.
The BancoEstado CuentaRUT is a Cuenta Vista that attempts to democratize the banking system, by allowing access for people who wouldn’t normally qualify for a bank account.
Unfortunately the easy access makes for abuse. Accounts opened with false credentials provide handy boltholes to stash ill-gotten gains from online fraud, drug sales, undeclared income, etc, etc.
So once again as in so many aspects of life here, criminal activities are making life difficult for the law-abiding.
(I could have added “majority” to the end of the last sentence, but I’m not sure its true any more.)
I hadn’t thought of it that way before. You make a good point.
I have a regular checking account. For a few years, I took a “real” job (not freelance) and had a work contract. The company had agreements with a few banks that allowed employees to easily get an account.
The old allchile.net forum had frequent posts on the difficulties expats found in trying to obtain a current account, something that is essential when starting a business, for example.
After several rebuffs, we eventually got one through a pituto, a friend of a friend. It s a lot easier when a history of verifiable local income through tax returns becomes available.
But I guess Chile doesn’t attract many incomers these days, except for illegals, so its a moot point.
Since Hotel Termas Puyehue Wellness & Spa Resort does not take foreign credit card for reservation payment or bank transfer Chile or international, my only option was to use their domestic debit and credit card processor MercadoPago. So I had to withdraw money via ATM, deposit in my Chile bank and then do multiple electronic transfers to my MercadoPago account to reach the little more than 1.7 palos to prepay for our stay last month. Now I receive the above message from MercadoPago with no option to explain this was savings from my US accounts (another pain in the ass KYC country whose rules predate narco-Chile rules).
Will update with more demand emails and the probable blocking of the account as the weeks roll on.
That sucks. A big hotel like that should accept dollar CC payments, even we have that facility. In fact I prefer receiving USD payments from visitors as the dollar is holding its value a bit better than the CLP.
I sent in a US bank statement saying the money was from savings and it was rejected.
I then put together an elaborate PDF presentation which took more than half my day with highlighted transactions which included an explanation page, four account number redacted US bank statements and the CuentaRUT statements of my wife and yo. And then paranoia hit me.
Given all the “foreigners” from the Caribe that work for MercadoLibre-MercadoPago, I just do not want to identify myself to bad elements. Just not worth it.
If I lose my MercadoPago account, I will purchase on MercadoLibre via other Chilean family member and if I need to pay for a resort like Puyehue in the future, with advance planning I will arrange a way to pay via foreign credit card or Chilean credit card via family.
Don’t know if refusing to send anything more will put me on some kind of “list” and if some authority questions me in the future, I’ll say that honestly, it sounded like a scam (as no CuentaVista ever asked this for 1.7 palos moving through) and of my fears for my personal and family security in Chile.
An update on deposting cash. Made two deposits to other persons account. One was for 1.1million pesos and the other was 977k. Both at BCI. It went very smooth and they didn’t ask for any id info from me. Ill be trying Bice in a couple weeks for somewhat larger amount and see how it goes
For me, the BancoEstado carnet thingy was a one time thing and was not repeated. There was another occasion where they consulted a printed booklet list of some kind again never to be repeated.
