It turns out that they were delivered by Victor Benavides, the proprietor of Miami-Box, which is located just a few blocks away here in Buceo.

Victor operates a mail receiving service much like any private mail box company in the US–the difference is that the mail comes in from the US Postal Service, and then goes out once a week as air freight to Montevideo, and is then delivered by the Miami-Box van throughout Montevideo.

I arranged for Victor to visit me so I could get first hand information from him. He has a very nice website at www.miami-box.com, but it is only in Spanish, and I am not confidant enough to write much based on my own translating skills. (I still remember John Kennedy telling the Berliners that he was a “jelly doughnut” and Jimmy Carter saying he wanted to “rape” the Polish people–one thing you have to say for King George the Second, he speaks Spanish better than he speaks English–but he still can’t say nuclear because the word is the same in both languages.) Sorry.

As I was saying, Victor was kind enough to visit me and explain how it works.

He has a warehouse in Miami to which your mail can be delivered. You have a street address with an apartment number (your mailbox number). Once each week everything is shipped to Montevideo via air freight. There is no charge for the subscription, only for the freight and delivery of the items.

Victor went on to explain that the service is most cost effective for receiving regular mail, printed matter, books, CDs and DVDs, catalogs and even credit cards–these things sail through customs duty free. If you have software, take it out of the box and just ship the manual the the CD or you might get gigged by the Aduana. This service is not cheap, but it is reasonable and the website makes full disclosure of all costs.

Everything else costs big bucks. Victor has a calculator on his website so you can see about what it will cost to have other items delivered. For example, a US$25 t-shirt weighing up to 1kg (my t-shirts are big) costs US$68.5o–US$15.00 for shipping and the rest for customs….

Miami-Box also has some really cool magazine offers: 60+ magazines with free subscriptions–you only pay the freight and delivery; and another 200 magazines at reduced rates.

You can sign up online with a credit card or arrange a cash deposit. I just signed up in 5 minutes.

This might be a solution you are looking for–especially if you are a magazine addict.

UruguayConnection.com is a combination of Free English Classified Ads for Uruguay AND a Directory of Services where English is spoken.

Like Craig’s List or Angie’s list, you can also comment on the classified ads AND the directory listings.

Debbie Scott has graciously volunteered to be the Editor and Primary Moderator of the new website. She can be reached at Deb@UruguayLiving.com.

With the opening of UruguayConnection.com, our .INFO site at UruguayLiving will be retired. All of the info from that site has already migrated to the UruguayConnection.

We hope you like this newest service of UruguayLiving.com. But please don’t forget our other websites at:

www.UruguayDailyNews.com for Uruguay News in English and our Open Forum, www.SociedadSouthron.net

and coming soon… www.Urupedia.com…

With great sadness, I must announce that Miguel and Fatma Silva have been permanently removed from our list of recommended professionals. This removal is based on clear and indisputable facts, of which I want you to be aware you so you can make your own decision regarding them.

As you will recall, the Copperhead and I hired the Silvas as our immigration consultants in order to secure our residency. You will further recall that we reported to you about their work in the most glowing of terms. We also reported on their success with others. In fact, to date, I have received no complaints about their work as immigration consultants; though I have in one other matter.

The problem is simply this: someone from my office, usually Santiago or the Copperhead, spoke with the Silvas, or sent e-mail to them at least every other week asking about the FBI clearance letters for which the Copperhead and I have been waiting since last August. The response has always been, “we check at least every other week, and they are not in yet”.

After 10 months, I decided to have someone else verify the status of our application. I authorized our law firm to get that information, and to my great dismay was told that the FBI clearance letters for both Copperhead and I had been at immigration since February 23, more than four months ago. Obviously, the Silvas had NOT been checking ” at least every other week”!

I was stunned, and the Copperhead was very angry: I had my cedula “in tramite”, while all the Copperhead had was his visa.

Several days after our attorneys discovered the truth, I got an e-mail from the Silvas saying that our FBI letter had just come in. Obviously, one of their contacts at immigration had warned them that someone else had been poking around in our file.

We asked Santiago to meet with the Silvas in order to hear their side of the story before we reacted. He called many times on both of their phones without a single response. Finally, at my direction, he sent them an e-mail explaining what we had found out. As of this writing we have still had no reply…and that lack of response is deafening.
.

If the FBI reports had come in only a month or even six weeks before, I would have given them the benefit of the doubt. But, four months is simply too much. If they had told me the truth, I would’ve forgiven them. But they did not. They lied about checking every other week. They lied about the FBI reports having just come in. And because of those lies, I have lost all trust in them and consequently can no longer endorse them.

I have given much thought to an appropriate public response, and I have decided to ban the Silvas from the blog, the forum, and our other websites, but I have decided against placing them on a blacklist. I wish them well, but will personally not trust them again. My preference is to deal with this matter once and then move on.

• If you have hired the Silvas as your immigration consultants, I am NOT suggesting you fire them–I am suggesting you learn from my disappointing experience!

• If you are considering hiring the Silvas as your immigration consultants, I am NOT telling you not to do so–I am suggesting that you take my experience with them into account.

The bottom line is this: as of now the ONLY immigration consultants recommended by UruguayLiving.com is the law firm LVM, which is listed on UruguayLiving.INFO under both attorneys and immigration consultants.

http://www.uruguayliving.info/ul-i/immigrationconsultants.htm

The gentleman who sponsors that website, Steve Bowman, was kind enough to write me and tell me about.  I took a look at it and realized that it has some useful information in an area where our own it information is pretty light, the eastern coastal region of Uruguay. 

While I am confident of the quality of the work we’ve done regarding Montevideo, we have certainly given Colonia in the West and all the beach communities in the East less than their due.  I plan to correct that in the second edition of “The Southron’s Guide to Living in Uruguay”, but in the meantime this information needs to be available.

I commend Steve Bowman for his great work and I commend his website, www.coastaluruguay.com to all of you.