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| A.M. Costa Rica Second newspage |
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| Costa Rica Expertise Ltd http://crexpertise.com E-mail info@crexpertise.com Tel:506-256-8585 Fax:506-256-7575 |
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 Pollo Campero photo
Thanks to globalization, the Indian fast food outlet isidentical to those in Costa Rica and elsewhere. Central American chicken king is trying its wings in India By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
All those guys and gals who compete with Costa Rican call center employees now have a chance to eat Latin-style chicken. The international firm Pollo Campero said Thursday that it has opened a food outlet in a shopping mall in New Delhi, India. The company said it plans to open 50 outlets in that country during the next five years. Some are company-owned and others will be franchises. Pollo Campero entered the Indian market along with the resident restaurant giant company Lite Bite Foods of the Daburt Group, it said. Pollo Campero now has 300 restaurants in 11 countries on three continents, it said. The firm originated in Guatemala in 1971 and is one of the major fast food chicken outlets in Costa Rica. The company also is involved in a joint venture that will result in multiple restaurant properties in Bahrain, the firm said. India, of course, is home to many international call centers and its a competitor with Costa Rica for that service. Alerts lifted or reduced for weather and volcano By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The national emergency commission has lifted the weather alert in the northern zone and on the Caribbean coast and it has reduced the area covered by an alert prompted by activity in the Volcán Turrialba, the agency reported Thursday. The Instituto Meteorológico Nacional said that a cold front that generated heavy rains and flooding has moved into the Atlantic and that the country is returning to normal conditions for the so-called dry season. It said that the Pacific beaches should have clear skies most of the day. However the weather agency said that air turbulence could be a danger to small planes in the northern zone and warned against crop dusting until the winds die. It also warned of danger to small boats and bathers along the country's beaches due to waves caused by the winds. The volcano alert is now reduced to an area of a two-kilometer radius around the mountain. That includes Santa Cruz de Turrialba, Santa Rosa de Oreamuno and Capellades and Pacayas de Alvarado, the commission said. The mountain still is emitting gas and ash.
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| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M. Costa Rica third newspage |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Jan. 15, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 10 | |||||||||
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Another tale of customer
service in the banking industry
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By Dave Playfair*
Special to A.M. Costa Rica Christmas turned into Halloween this year with a little trick played on Dec. 23. We didn’t notice the trick until two weeks later when we were checking our corporate bank account because of a discrepancy in balancing, as we were preparing for a real estate transaction requiring all the money available in that account. We were shocked to find a withdrawal from our account for USD $ 14,782.30 and a surprising correlation to an existing vendor that takes out about $ 25 a month. We didn’t realize until after our first fit of outrage that the regular automated payment corresponded to about 14,782 colons. After contacting the vendor through a very intensely written e-mail, then through our architect for our project (since my rage eliminated any possibility of verbal communication in Spanish), they assured us that they knew of the problem and that it was a mistake by the bank. The vendor then put us in touch with a company that handles credit/debit card transactions here in Costa Rica (Credomatic), who then assured me by telephone that they were very sorry for the mistake and it would be corrected the next day in the afternoon. He very specifically said it would be late afternoon (on a Friday). Unfortunately, the afternoon on that Friday, Jan. 8, progressed with no action in our bank account whatsoever, and we contacted him again. The story changed slightly to the supposed fact that the money had been credited back to the bank via the card on Jan. 5th, three days earlier. However, strange it seemed that he made us wait until Friday afternoon to tell us this, we contacted the bank through two channels, both resulting in a dead end. The bank told us that there was no record of any credit to the account and that we should bring in whatever documents we have for proof of this. I asked what kind of documents the bank required to prove that the money had been credited back to us, and we were met with stunned silence and then the phrase, “whatever documents they gave you.” I tried to reason with the bank representative by telling her that they had, indeed, just sent us two documents that seemingly showed their internal system crediting back over 8 million colons, but I asked how that was going to prove anything to the bank? I reasoned, if they couldn’t find any money now, why would someone else’s documents somehow miraculously allow them to find the money then? She had no answer for this, so I continued with the possibility of e-mailing these documents to her and her supervisor, to which she responded that we could indeed do that. Of course, they may not get to it for a week, she said, but I took it that she thought it couldn’t hurt. She mentioned that it was late on Friday afternoon, so there was little she could do. Feeling dizzy by the run-around we appeared to be getting down every path, I e-mailed Credomatic again with this news, and they responded with a name and number at the bank of a person who apparently was aware of the situation. Why, again, he chose to hold this information until that point we’ll never know. We called that number late on Friday, not expecting any answer at that point, but assuming that we could leave a message. It rang busy. It rang busy all the next day as well, and we gave up, finally figuring out that the number was incorrect. During this little adventure, we made the decision to bring our lawyer into the matter, so we arranged with him to meet us at the bank Monday morning with the documents Credomatic supplied us. I joined our lawyer at one of the branches and went through the paces of explaining the situation, showing them the documents from Credomatic and having the representative make some phone calls. She then assured us that the money would be in the account “mañana.” Further, she said that the fellow in charge of this was making an “exception” and would get this done by tomorrow, as if giving our money back was some great favor. Apparently, the credit wasn’t going to be applied until the following Friday.  |
 Now, knowing Costa Rica the way I do I didn’t have a lot of faith in the idea that their version of “mañana” and my version of tomorrow were in agreement. However, we left giving the bank the benefit of the doubt. What is funny is that I didn’t even bother asking for the interest I should have earned on that money for the three weeks, or any other reparation that I’m quite certain I would have asked for and received in Canada or the U.S. My expectations were lowered to simply getting the money back — sometime in the future — and making certain this could not happen again! “Mañana” came and went. No money appeared in the account. The day after, the money finally arrived in our account, and we were overcome with glee. Exactly three weeks, many phone calls, and a visit to the bank with my lawyer was all it took to fix a banking error. Of course, there are many issues with this scenario that concerns us now and in the future while banking in Costa Rica, but there are some precautions that can be taken as well. The issues are as follows: • The vendor that received over 8 million colons just before Christmas should have notified us of this situation, but decided it was best to avoid it until we contacted them over two weeks later. • The credit/debit processing company, Credomatic, could have also contacted us since they have accepted responsibility for the mistake citing “Por un error en nuestros sistemas,” but again, they decided not to bother. • The bank, apparently clueless to the situation, let over $14,000 leave our account without any question or holdback. Given this was a regular transaction for about $25 to the same vendor every month, you would think that there may be some checks and balances for this sort of thing. For example, we were travelling in another city in the U.S. recently and made a couple purchases, only to have the last one (for a measly $600) stopped and verified by phone by the credit card company. You would think that the bank would do the same thing, but no. It would seem that they would have released every dime in that account if a transaction went through for that amount. Further, this bank seemed unconcerned about the issue and certainly didn’t show any motivation to fix it. What strikes me as ironic is the fact that interbank transfers within Costa Rica (SINPE) are highly scrutinized and have a limit of around $3,000. Apparently, no such scrutiny is applied to credit/debit card transactions. • The recourse has been to discuss this issue with multiple parties, have assurances given to us, only to find that nothing happens and we are without the money indefinitely. The resolution finally came after bringing our lawyer to the bank with us — for a banking transaction error! Some precautions that could be taken in the future: • Do not leave a great deal of money in an account attached to a bank card, or do not give out that bank card number. Instead, keep a minimal amount in any account attached to a bank card/Visa/Mastercard that you use in Costa Rica and transfer money from another account when needed. Of course, you must ensure that the accounts are not connected, as banks in Costa Rica will simply remove money from another account, if the first account is to be overdrawn. They will only reject the transaction if they can’t find any money in the account or accounts. • Ask that a limit is set on the amount that can be withdrawn from a given bank account, but don’t rely on it. • Keep all your money under your mattress. (Just kidding.) *Mr. Playfair is a real estate and health resort developer. |
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| A.M. Costa Rica fourth news page |
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| Even on a luxury cruise Mother Nature is in full control |
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| I think it was Robert
Burns who wrote “The best laid plans of mice and men aft ga'en aglae.”
(or words to that effect). This must especially be true when we go down
to the sea in ships. Mother Nature finally is in charge. And that
is what happened to us on the Windstar our second night on our way to
Nicaragua. Hurricane strength winds made the Windstar bump and sway and tilt from port to starboard while white caps splashed against the portholes. At midnight our captain decided that things were not going to get any better and that risking the lives of his 139 passengers and probably as many crew members was not a good idea, so we came about and returned to the calmer waters of Costa Rica. When we awoke early Monday morning we were safely anchored in the harbor of Playas del Coco. , This was fine with me and my still queasy stomach, but it did play havoc with my poorly laid plan to pick up the T-shirts for my son that I had ordered from the Vanstone Group. Poorly laid because it did not include a plan B (like bring Charlene's phone number in case anything went wrong). But I went ashore and waited in front of the police station as planned in case the people ashore had heard of our change of plans. They hadn't. My daughter had signed up for the zipline tour, so while she was flying through the air (10,000 feet up, she assured me later), I found a netcafe in the rather funky Coco beach community. My patience ran out before I could send a successful message, so I imagine the next morning Charlene was waiting in front of the blue and white police station, wondering why there was no ship in the harbor. And thus, the saga of my son's T-shirts continues. Still on shore, a gentleman from the ship asked me why I had chosen Costa Rica to live "since it is just as expensive as the United States.” Word has got around that besides Carlos, the crew member who is our resident naturalist, I am the only person hailing from Costa Rica. This passenger's shopping experience had consisted of paying $8 for a pound of coffee in a gift shop. I tried to explain that one could still live reasonably here, but he had already compared the prices in the Coco beach supermarket, so he wasn't buying what I had to say, like there are other reasons than cost for living in Costa Rica. After leaving Coco beach, the current insisted on rushing north as we bucked it sailing south. We still managed to dock near Flamingo. On Wednesday both Lesley and I took the mangrove boat tour. I learned the value to our survival of these strange trees from our expert guide, Andy. We also watched the antics of |
 A.M. Costas Rica file photo
Windstar at Playas del Coco on a previous voyage.a troop of whiteface monkeys who
have secured their survival by being omnivores.
Although exhausted from more sun and humid heat than I needed, I still enjoyed the on-deck BBQ and the line dancing by the crew and passengers. Although there is a variety of the plentiful food, I have found nothing exceptionally good except the beef carpaccio. I have not noticed the aroma or taste of garlic or herbs in any dish. It is as if the executive chef's aim is to not shock (or even tickle) anyone's taste buds. But the friendliness and helpfulness of the entire crew, beginning with the captain, has been superlative, and it has been both an exciting and pleasant cruise. As it is probably safer to say when you are at sea – so far, so good. |
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| A.M. Costa Rica fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, Jan. 15, 2010, Vol. 10, No. 10 | |||||||||
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| A.M. Costa Rica sixth news page |
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Latin American news Please reload page if feed does not appear promptly |
Canadian on
run for years detained in Playa Hermosa By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A convicted Canadian murderer ended 20 years on the run Thursday when law officers closed in. He was identified in Costa Rican terms as Marc Joseph Fournier Marquis, 70. He was detained in Playa Hermosa de Sardinal on the Pacific coast of the Nicoya peninsula near Carrillo, said the Judicial Investigating Organization. Local agents of the International Police Agency participated. The arrest was sought by the Canadian Embassy here. Investigators said that Fournier was convicted and sentenced for a double murder in 1971 and then granted parole in 1989 after 17 years in prison. He skipped shortly thereafter, investigators said they were told. Fournier managed to obtain Costa Rica citizenship, said investigators, but the Registro Civil started an action to annul that status in December. Under Costa Rican law a citizen cannot be extradited regardless of the crime. The Poder Judicial said that the Tribunal Penal de San José would handle the request to have the man sent back to Canada. There was no explanation on how a man who has been convicted for two murders could obtain citizenship here. Typically an applicant's fingerprints are submitted to the International Police Agency, INTERPOL, for a worldwide check.
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