Monday April 8, 2013

Monday April 8, 2013  update #416

By the way, Bella is elated at the good times they are having at the new Bridge Club.  They had 12 people there yesterday and everyone is raving about it.  That is what she needs to get it rolling into something substantial.

Today was a most interesting day.   I woke up worrying about the liquidation of Banco Territorial and the procedures to cash in our CD before their 30 day time limit was up, and we had no idea when that was.  

We would not have known anything about this if one of my Blog readers hadn’t emailed me because I had mentioned that we had dealings with them.   We don’t get newspapers or listen to radio or watch TV.  Getting any news or sports is really hit and miss and we normally don’t think much about it.  It seemed that GringoTree or GringoPost let us know of any major happenings which we can then check out on the Internet.   This kind of event could have cost us $28,000 had we not been alerted.

We had emailed the Bank Superintendent and he had responded with a name, phone number, and email of a Carolina Pesantez that we had to contact.    My email of Friday had been unanswered so I composed a detailed list of questions in a new email that I fired off at 8:19.

We had nightmares of being forced to go to Quito, hoping at worst to go to Guayaquil, and were making preparations to go on Thursday, our only free day.

At 11am I tried calling the phone number with a Cuenca prefix and it just rang and rang.  I then called Oswaldo and emailed him my list of questions and all the information.   He also tried the Cuenca prefix and also got no response.   Then he tried a Quito prefix and managed to talk to this Carolina.   He asked us to meet him at Banco Del Pacifico at 2pm with all our paperwork and he would explain then.

We arrived and he explained that Banco Del Pacifico is partly Government-owned and they would handle the transaction.  He said that Carolina told him the deadline was this Saturday!!  We asked one of the counter reps where to go and they said simply to go to a teller, so we got in the short lineup.

This teller, another cousin, according to Oswaldo, lmao, gave us $16 back from our small savings account and everything was going smoothly with cashing the CD until they compared my passport number with the information they had on file.  When we had begun the process from Canada in 2009 I still had my old passport so this account had that information.  Since the number changes with every renewal, nothing seems to match.  So Oswaldo and I roared back home where I still kept my old passport (Bella had told me I’d never need it again), then stopped to get 2 colour copies, and we were back there in an hour.

Again everything was going fine until they now asked for a passport history document…  Oswaldo blew up at his cousin and the supervisor telling them they have to stop asking for silly documents that don’t exist!  Everyone in the lineup was listening intently by now.  Anyway, they relented and we not only got our full principal amount but also our full interest to date!

We then went to Coopera to deposit the money there for now and had a long chat with the Manager, Juan, about their situation now that they have a new Superintendent for Credit Unions.  They are going through an audit stage run by a bunch of former bankers who are not kind to Credit Unions so it could be an ordeal yet.  Juan figures they will be forced eventually to reduce their interest rates a bit to appease the Banking Gods.

Upon arrival at home I fired off the following information to my informant and GringoTree and GringoPost:

Banco Territorial is under liquidation by the Bank Superintendent of Ecuador.  You have only until Saturday April 13th to recover your money, guaranteed up to $31,000.  Do not delay!

The Superintendent's website claims that you have to go to the Guayaquil or Quito branches but this is not necessary.  You are able to get your money on-the-spot in Cuenca at any branch of Banco Del Pacifico, which is partly Government-owned.

There are two Banco Del Pacifico branches in Cuenca, the first is just east of Las Americas on Gran Colombia, and the second is just south east of the main stadium.

Bring any original documents, CD's, Bank books, etc as well as the identity documents used to obtain the documents, ie. old passport, new passport, or Cedula, along with 2 color copies of each.  You just get in line to see a teller and they will handle the transaction easily.

Hopefully this will save a few souls a lot money as well.  We are so thankful to everyone, Trudy, Carolina, and Oswaldo for simplifying things and saving us a lot of worry and needless travel.

Sorry, no time for photos today...

That was today’s excitement.   Hugs to all.  Please see all new photos at http://souvenircuenca.blogspot.com/