A Car - Michael

"Have you ever seen the movie, Rat Race?"

That's what Sylvia asked me today as we left another Western Union in another city without being able to get the money that we hade wired to ourselves to be able to buy the car.

I had to laugh, because it did feel very much like that movie.

I'll give some quick details on the car and then some on Western Union, and a little on the car buying process (in case it can benefit anybody else who may end up in a similar situation).

The Car

We got a '93 Isuzu Trooper, because it's one of the few vehicles around that has more than 5 seats. This one has 7 seats, but we need to install seatbelts for the back two. It seems to run fine, but there are a few minor issues. One being that the speedometer and odometer don't work. I'm guessing that the 99,928 miles (suspiciously lower than 100K) on the broken odometer is missing an additional 50-90 thousand miles. Still it will likely meet our needs while here.

It has 4-wheel-drive. I wasn't real concerned about having that; however, I did want the additional clearance and didn't want to get into a position where I wished we had gotten a 4x4. A lot of people recommend them. Also, the 4x4 is said to add to the resale value.

Parking

One of my concerns in getting a car was where to park it. I didn't want to park it in the driveway, because then it would block my view from my bedroom/office window. Nor did I want to park it where it would block my view, when I sit outside and read on the patio. Nor did I want it to block the view from the front windows. I compromised and parked it at the far corner of our house, so that it only blocks the view of one of the three front windows.

Western Union

If there is company you should ever avoid doing business with, at least in Costa Rica, it is probably Western Union. On Thursday, we drove down to San Jose to check out this car and stopped at a Western Union in a city called Santa Ana. Before we even asked for money they said that they didn't have more than about 200 colones ($400). They gave us a number to call in the morning to find out where we would be able to get the large sum we were looking for.

I should explain that for us to go down to San Jose, it would be similar to going from Park City to Salt Lake City, but with a road to get down into the valley like that of the Alpine Loop that connects Provo and American Fork Canyons. It's a beautiful drive but can get tedious at night.

On Friday I called Western Union and worked out a place to get the money. I Left work early to get to the Western Union in Escazu before it closed. Again, before I even could ask anything, they told me they didn't have any money and to go to a specific one in San Jose. We went there. (In light traffic it would have taken an extra 20 minutes to get there, but it took us about an hour). Again, no money, but we were told to be there in the morning and they could get us the money. Since it would be Saturday, I could go in the morning.

This morning we were about to leave and called to make sure there would be enough money. With that call, we learned that since my middle name was not included in the transfer we had set up but was on my passport, they would not give me the money even if they had it. That would have been useful information to know when we were setting up the transfer online, especially since there was no middle name box on the form. We then spent a couple of hours on the phone trying to get that fixed, in part because they were insisting that we call from the same number that was associated with our account (our home number). Long, long story short, we finally got my middle name added.

After that we had to spend additional time on the phone with a more local division of Western Union to try to determine where we could get the money. They told us we could get it at a Western Union in a Wal-Mart in San Sebastian, if we could get there in 45 minutes.

We got there in 55 minutes.

After more time on the phone, while at Wal-Mart, they told us we could get it at another Western Union that was about 20-30 minutes away. At this point we are really invested in making it work--and making it work today.

Because of certain limitations with Western Union, we had wired the money in three transactions. We headed over to this Western Union with the understanding that they could give us the money for two of the transactions. We would then have to wait an hour and a half for the third installment.

When we got there, we found out that by law they can only do two transactions per day; however, they did have enough to give us the two biggest, which would be enough for the car.

Lesson Learned: Before leaving the U.S., we should have opened an account in some international bank, even though I normally wouldn't consider using one. That would have made it slightly easier to get our money. Also, avoid Western Union.

Car Buying

This has been a long post already, and I wouldn't be surprised if nobody makes it this far.  

Buying a car is a relatively straightforward process. Like the U.S. you exchange money, but here you need a lawyer to officially sign-off on everything. It helped having two Ticos with me, who could also read through the contract and felt like everything was fine. If it is possible to have a native accompany you. I would recommend it.

Part of what the lawyer is supposed to do and what your Tico friends can do is look up the car's license plate. Tickets and things like that are always associated with a car, not a driver. Thus you could theoretically buy a car that has heavy fines associated with it that you then become liable for. Fortunately there is also a national registry that tells you what fines, if any, are associated with the car.

I'm hoping that everything was accurate.