Peter Glover is a Realtor for Bamboo Group and has a few notches in his belt
This is an opinion piece on doing business in Guatemala. This isn’t a piece about how I hate Guatemala, or that the people here are stupid: Quite the contrary. The people are smart, and it is a wonderful country. But the politicians are stupid, those who have boots on the ground, who work for the ministers in power who make the decisions, have been pinned under thumbs for generations, and the country is being controlled by outside interests that do not allow it to mature and make the most of its potential.
The other day I did something I have not done in many years with a newborn client from the United States we will call, Bob from Accounting, or just plain Bob. It was a straightforward day; go to the city, buy a car, get a cell phone, a little bit of shopping, return to Antigua.
We started with the car. We arrived in the city around 11am and went directly to a car lot referred to us by a mutual client of ours. The lot is a reputable lot in Z15, referred to us from a noble family here in Guatemala. It took us a whole 15 minutes to review the car, assess the maintenance of the vehicle, and Bob decided that the previous owners kept it in excellent condition and would be worthy of the purchase. A test drive was undertaken. It was approved. Bob did not wish for an inspection, the understanding of no warranty acknowledged; giddy-up!
So far so good right? Next step was the purchase. The car company requested we pay with a certified cheque. We asked if we could pay CASH. By all means they told us: NO. Now please understand, Bob had been pulling cash from the ATM machines all over Antigua to pull together 25,000 Q (or $3,000 usd give or take the funds in his pockets etc.) because cash is king. The total purchase price was 25,000 Q. So having no choice, we set off to a bank to have them issue Bob a certified cheque so we could purchase the car.
We arrived at BAC (Banco American Central) in Z15, stroll up to a teller for a quick transaction, and are informed, NO. Bob, ready to make a purchase of a vehicle, is getting gringo already. We have cash; we just need to convert it to a cheque. We are never informed why, but the request is not possible. We are then informed he needs a bank account. So he pulls out his passport, several of his cards, and asks to create an account. NO. He is a foreigner and cannot open an account in Guatemala (now this is not true, many foreigners have accounts in the Antigua regions, especially with BAC.) Fine, I am a resident, I say I will co-sign the account, so he can open the account, deposit the funds, issue the cheque, and we will close it the following day. NO. We can make the deposit, but the funds will have to be retained in the account for 7 days. WTF??? I do not mean to curse, but why in the world is Bob not able to purchase a car with cash in the first place, not a great deal of an amount, why can we not convert the little amount of cash we have to a cheque, and then move it over to the car company.
What retarded (and by no means do I mean this in a derogatory snipe to individuals who are challenged in any sense, or to consider myself Anne Coulter) individual came up with this plan in any level in any country and said, OH YES, THIS IS POSITIVELY A GREAT IDEA AND WILL FORWARD OUR PEOPLE TRIUMPHANTLY.
We repeated this push forward multiple times, suckers for punishment, gringo blood boiling, because in Bob’s reasoning, Citi-Bank will rubber stamp our request because, they are an American Bank and will see-through the crap of logic we have encountered. NOPE. They were just as willing and without explanation, because none is needed of course, as to why cash cannot be converted to a cheque. This went on all afternoon. Western Union, DITTO.
We finally had a break, after beating the bushes, that the owner of the car company would accept a deposit directly into their bank account. WTF! It was by then a 4 or 5 pm timeframe and we still had some items to purchase outside of the phone, traffic was setting in, and we had to get to TIGO for a phone in Z10, because of logistics, we still had to sign papers… omfg… this took another hour.
We sat around to find out the car company didn’t have all the papers and asked if we would be willing to come back! Not the most brilliant customer service experience and for a simple matter and a lack of respect towards Bob who made a quick decision to purchase a car, not having another mechanic inspect the car, demonstrating good faith, to then to be bullied into getting an impossible payment arranged, to then be told, oh, hey why don’t you just put the cash into our account, and if that isn’t good enough, sit on your asses for an hour until we tell you we don’t have the papers and they wont be arriving today. In the end, Bob was able to drive the car off the lot.
We made our way down to TIGO next. Oakland Mall. Bob was impressed by the grandeur and the style, and the cleanliness of the place. There was a good hustle-bustle going on in the mall, seemed as if people were feeling good about the economy. It has been some years since I had witnessed this normalcy again in peoples shopping habits, bags were filled with items that people really did not need.
We strolled into TIGO, Bob looked at the newest Samsung Galaxy II phones with cappuccino making abilities, ordered two of them. I had thought to myself, this is what Guatemala needs; it needs people to come from other countries, fall in love with Guate-Linda, and buy things locally to spur the regional growth that has been lacking for many years. We sit down with our reps, great young guys, forward thinking, bilingual (KUDDOS TO THEM AND TIGO) and we hit a snag. Since Bob is a Gringo (okay they said foreigner) he needs to SHOW them his credit statement online. WTF? For one thing, Bob just needed to slip 100q and say they reviewed his online statement; nobody would ever be the wiser. The rep was not required to take a photo, have a copy or a receipt, just witness the page. Bob agrees and shows him one account where the kid falls off the chair with the amount of Zeros on the balance sheet. There is the snag, MasterCard wasn’t working that day within the Tigo systems so they asked if he had another card to use. Why yes, out comes the Visa card, but wait, Bob has problems logging in. Guess what. We cannot grant you two phones today, get one and come back in three days and you can reapply for another phone at that time!
Now here is the rub. Regardless of the value, Bob cannot make a car purchase (even though we did, the dynamics were against us). Now these laws are created primarily against Drug-Trafficking. Yet, it is like gun laws, laundering laws, and drug trade laws, they do not, have never, and will never work. All they do is create problems for ordinary people to do normal things in life. These laws are created by really dumb people. They are concocted by idiots, who are extremely unintelligent, and lack common sense, we have names for them and that name is a bureaucrat. I have never met anybody who said, I am a criminal, I will abide by the law. (I have never actually met a criminal and had this conversation). So instead of enacting laws that make it easier to live, they create laws that make it mostly impossible for people to get through in life in a simple manner, to accommodate instead of punish.
Bob runs a company somewhere, has some cash in his pockets, wishes to just purchase a Car and a couple of Cell phones. Instead, he is met day one with a very difficult pursuit of logistics. This isn’t a necessary pitfall. It is man made, created by people who are puppets for other stupid people.
Guatemala is better than this. In today’s world, we are allowing the inmates to run the society, and if by referring to politicians as criminals, I would resist to call them that. I believe criminals are extremely smart and proficient people. It is a shame when the company is wrong, delays a client, creates obstacles for them because it suits the company better, that more people should say to these companies, FUCK YOU. I will not stand for this abusive treatment. I do not think if I choose to spend my money for a product or service, my resources with any company that they should expect for me to lose my time for their convenience.
The car company should have acted intelligently in the first place. You like OUR car? You waive an INSPECTION? Why Mr. Bob, step this way, thank you for your money, here are the papers, and in 1 hour we should have been out of the lot on to our next investment. Hello Mr. Bob, you want 2 phones? Why not 3! Well, our system is messed up with MasterCard today, but we have a service where we can ensure you get your second phone today. Why, we are not a stupid company, we want your business, not only that, we will strive to get all your business because we care about you. And NO, we need not look at your personal statements, your private transactions, give us your card, we can credit report you quickly, painlessly, and get you on your way with the products and services you want, we are after all, an INTERNATIONAL company and pride ourselves in streamlining our business to offer you services you will enjoy.
I do not write this asking for a utopian dream. This blog helps me to remember about where we came from in the past. How we use to work, earn our money, and go to the store and purchase bread and milk. The people who control institutions and governments, they are not like you and me. They avoid reason and commonsense and never think of the betterment of man. These people cower in the face of adversity and stand not in defiance, but bow in the amusement of others, who have no idea what life is like in a better world.
Bob is one example of many who are herded into lines here in Guatemala and asked to perform really outrages tasks on a daily basis. The triplicate demands and photocopies of endless documents, ornatos, cedulas, DPIs, go to this office, pay at the next, back in line, stamp it on the 4th floor, come back here. The logistical acrobatics the common people and visitors to Guatemala are asked to perform are geared to prevent misuse. The funny thing is, it creates more holes in the system and further abuse. It costs the government. It costs businesses. It makes living here more difficult and less enjoyable that people get fed up and want to find a better place to live.
As I began this article I told you this was not an article against Guatemala. It is a beautiful country coast to coast. The good people who are here, they are amongst the best people I have met in my life, even some of those whom I do not see any longer, I hold them dear to me in my heart. I see they are tired of this abusive stupidity. NITs. Ornatos. Duplicate and triplicate requirements that have existed for generations and bear no relevance. These processes and systematic bureaucratic atrocities is a major cost to the economy and a better life potential for citizens, the poor, and the well to do. Lets face it, Narcos will always find a way around the system, so stop putting in place structures that only impede the good and the honest.
Having recovered from the nightmare experience, if you wish to join me on another excursion, I can be reached at peter@bamboogroupsa.com or 502-47698027.
Well we are proud. We are into our 10th year in Guatemala. What an experience it has been and working in 
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