During the 27 months I was in Costa Rica I was cheated, scammed and lied to by so many people that it is hard to keep track. However, the misadventure that is foremost in my mind happened almost immediately after my arrival there. It was my first encounter with a real live cannibal.
One of the realtors (an American) told me about a man by the name of Richard Blum, an American Expat who offered a cheap call back service to the US—he had an arrangement with one of the big VoIP companies. What he was doing was technically illegal in Costa Rica, but it seemed like all the Americans knew about it and used it. So, we met him and paid him in cash for the service.
During the course of that meeting we talked about the availability of internet and specifically of broadband service. He told me he had inside connections in the state telephone company and that he could get us broadband service like he had—for a fee.
I paid him US$1500 as a consulting fee. That was supposed to get us a 1MB broadband connection and was supposed to include any “honorariums” that needed to be paid to people in the state-owned phone company.
I never got the 1MB connection. Ten months later, after dozens of phone calls and innumerable broken promises, I ended up with a 128KB line—one-eighth of the bandwidth I had been promised.
By then, of course, I had checked around and found other people that Richard Blum had scammed; almost all of whom were newbies from North America.
Richard was a cannibal: one that preys on his own kind and consumes them for his own benefit.
Costa Rica was so full of cannibals that it was as dangerous dealing with expats as it was with locals—the major difference was that the expats lied in more fluent English…
Unfortunately, there are cannibals here in Uruguay as well!
The first one that comes to mind is a Russian who lives on the Coast between Montevideo and Atlantida. He has been scamming poor Russians who want to better themselves and charging them US$4000 or more to help them get their residency here. Then when they do, he tells them it was gotten by bribery and that if he is not paid “protection” he will have their residency revoked and they will be deported.
I do not know how many people he is victimizing, but I know of one family that gave up and returned to Russia because of this would-be Russian Mafioso. When they refused to pay his protection, they were harassed, then threatened, and then he sued them in labor court claiming they owed him US$5000 per month as a “translator”.
I hope he is investigated and expelled from the country—the last thing Uruguay needs is the Russian mafia—even in a weak and haphazard form…
Right now, he is the only cannibal in Uruguay I know about. But, there seem to be cannibal wanna-bes in the works.
I have heard about some other immigrants here who are going to set themselves up as “immigration consultants” and then offer their “expert services” to newcomers, despite the fact that these so-called experts have been here less than a year!
I hope that these rumors are not true. I hope that I did not hear what I think I heard.
But if I the rumors are true, and the would-be cannibals become actual cannibals, you will hear more about them here. I suggest they get into real estate speculation instead.
It is absolutely imperative that we in the immigrant community police ourselves, or there will be a scandal and the doors will close, or the bar for entry will be raised that much higher—all so a few flim flam artists can make a buck.
After all, this is Uruguay, not Wall Street…
(Lest someone accuse me of hypocrisy in publishing my book, I hasten to point out that it is a true account of my own personal experiences here, and not an expert opinion on anything. The book does have expert opinions, but they were supplied by qualified professionals, not by me. Let me be clear on one thing: no one makes any profit on UruguayLiving.com, UruguayDailyNews.com, SociedadSouthron.net or any of our associated Uruguay projects! These projects are totally paid for by the Capital Conservator Group as a public service without any outside support.)
Cannibalism or “man” eating virus, there always seems to be a nasty element which rears its ugly face when there is too much goodness about.
The hospitality and unifying spirit of Uy Living and its offspring presents and easy target for the bottom feeders, scavengers and cannibals. Since there are more good folks than evil it should be relatively easy to police ourselves and maintain the integrity of the ‘community’.
Thanks UY Living and keep up the great works!!
Left by clara on July 28th, 2007
Talking about cannibalism I want to take this opportunity to make some comments on “American immigration policies.” Recently congress passed laws that reminded me of… Let me see, Adolf Eichmann and Hitler himself!, it’s sad to mention but America is shifting from is classical right-wing mentality to a Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (commonly known as Nazi party) one.
Before I continue, I’d like to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about my American experience.My name is M.Schwartz and I’m Uruguayan, seven years ago came to the States as a tourist and I liked it, thus decided to stay to finish my career. I must say that I committed the mistake of overstaying my visa, thinking that somehow I was going to solve the ‘document question’ later, like I said It was a mistake and after trying every legal way, I couldn’t change my status and therefore I couldn’t get a permit to stay. After a while I decided to find a job and of course I experienced this underworld of being undocumented (having no civil rights at all let me tell you!), exploited and work crappy jobs. However I paid taxes though! (since the first day) and I didn’t have any kinds of benefits whatsoever, ( I hear a lot of ignorant people here talking about welfare state and illegal aliens abusing it, there’s no such thing, not even for citizens!) After all this time my life here turned a nightmare, actually it’s 4painful to live day by day without rights and being insulted at the same time by the authorities, I’ve been called criminal, border-jumper, Mexican (although I’m a tall white, blond green eyes guy,but I think that’s ’cause I speak Castilian, sorry I mean Spanish). And a burden to the tax system and to society among other things. Now ‘due to this current situation I’m being forced to leave the country, nobody wants to hire illegal aliens, police and other local and sate enforcement groups are allowed to semi-function as ICE, not to mention that USCIS made an increment (July 31st) on grenncard application fees from 600 to 2500 dollars, (now that’s cannibalism!).
>>The America in which I once believed does not exist anymore, which is why I am here. It is a cause of great personal sorrow to me that “the land of the free and the home of the brave” is changing into a corporatist evil empire; unfree at home and bullying abroad. The day after I become a Uruguayan citizen I will be sending my US passport back to Washinton…
Left by eastcoastnightmare on August 24th, 2007
Mr. Southron I heard some rumors about Americans trying to get Uruguayans ID’s and passports just to enter Brazil thus avoiding the restrictions imposed on Americans citizens (reciprocity policy) , what could you tell me about it?
>>Thank you for writing. This is one of those silly rumors that simply have no basis in fact. Why would anyone go through the time, trouble and expense of getting a Uruguayan Cedula just to avoid spending US$100 for a Brazilian visa. It does not make sense and I have never heard of such a thing.
Left by eastcoastnightmare on August 24th, 2007
I agree with you Southron, something must be done about that Russian guy breaking the law in my country !
By the way I want to tell you that I like your blog, Mr.southron.
Left by eastcoastnightmare on August 24th, 2007