Tuesday 2 October 2007

Venezuela and the lost dollar


As you know (or should know), in Venezuela we have an exchange control that's been going on for years now -_- so we can't buy dollars, euros or any other currency for that matter and we are stuck with the bolivar or buying a very expensive dollar in the black market.

If you don't know what we are going through and you think we should stick with the bolivar and stop complaining, then bite your tongue and don't speak please, because we are very tired of fighting with everyone that think they know but know nothing about it, but if you are curious and just want to know more about it, just say it :)

So you could ask, "then what do you do to save dollars?, or going to another country without starving?", well, we think of several ways of "cheating" that exchange control. If you have a credit card of your own, you are entitled to $3000 for electronic transactions a year (only the right to buy in dollars for that amount, not the money), and $5000 a year to use outside the country ONLY if you show your 2 way ticket, thats it, not a dollar more.

What do you do? you can travel and get $500 cash from the ATM machine a month (they take it from the $5000) and deposit that money in a bank account in the country were you are (you can't do it in Venezuela). What else? You can buy that dollar from another person that wants bolivares...ohh, but thats easy, right? Well, no, because our official dolar it's 1 dollar = 2150 bolivares, do you know how much is that dollar in the black market? 5300 bolivares! MORE THAN DOUBLE!!!

We are stuck, we can't do much more than buy that dollar in the black market and say goodbye to our savings :( Last week that dollar was in 4800, today its 5300, next week? who knows... this is so sad...

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I don't know if u can exchange your savings in the country u are going to or don't they accept the venezuelian money there ?

Aiglee said...

Hi Richard!

Well, with the exchange control we have, the venezuelan money is useless, they wont accept it anywhere :(

What we have left it's credit cards ($5000 in stores and $3000 with Internet) and the $$ we have in the USA. Those dollars are very hard to get because we can't buy them freely, so we have to buy them in the black market...

Unknown said...

That's really sad to hear :s

I might be a bit naive but i remember when i used to go with my parents to romania when the dictatorship was still in effect.

My father used to change his money for the local currency with "slighty normal people" against a bit better trading wage.

Isn't it possible to change your money with some tourists against a slightly better deal for the tourists then normal ?

Aiglee said...

Hi again Richard :D

It would be better to buy from the tourist, the problem it's that it is very very very hard to find a tourist that haven't sell their dollars. On top of that, there aren't many tourists any more, and some of them don't bring dollars and just buy with their credit cards, so it's not an easy task :(

To make things even worst, there are crazy people that wants to sell at incredible high prices. Today the official dollar is 2.150Bs (like every day), the black market dollar is at 5.350Bs and I just saw someone selling his dollars at 5.600Bs, so it's getting worst :(

alfredo argotte said...

Hola como estas? yo soy venezolano y pronto voy a ir a Toronto, por favor, respondeme cuando puedas, si alla cambian bolivares, y en donde ahy lugares para comer barato y tambien comprar, qu elugares hay de ocio, por favor que estoy perdidisimo en cuanto eso xD, muchas gracias
aaronargotte@hotmail.com por favor agregame

Aiglee said...

Alfredo, en ningun lado hay cambio de dolar desde bolivares por el control cambiario.

Lo de los lugares de ocio, comida, etc. todo esta en mi blog, no me doy abasto para dar mucha mas informacion que esa!

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