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It's funny how all of a sudden, thanks to Brazilian banks, you now only have real control over your hard earned money for 16 hours per day. You've lost 8 hours when you can withdraw funds from the branch ATM, you can't pay bills or do any kind of online transactions all in the name of "security", and worse yet nobody even asked you if you wanted their #&@%ing protection in the first place! Yet, this is Brazil and in true Brazilian fashion nobody ever complains about anything even when they're taking that big "verde, azul e amerelo bilau" right up the wazoo  Gotta really wonder about these people!

As if the banks aren't already making obscene enough profits on our hard earned do-re-mi, that they're doing us the "favor" of allowing them to safeguard for us, or with the astronomical fees they charge for service of any kind wasn't already bad enough, they're constantly reducing services available to us mere mortals too. Try paying your light bill, water bill, etc., at a teller now, not possible!!! You can't do that anymore unless you do so online or at the ATM, what the Hell is THAT all about? Pity the poor jerk who doesn't have a bank account or access to internet, he's doomed to stand for hours on end in the line-up at the Casa Loterica waiting to pay the light bill that's already overdue because he couldn't pay it at a bank.

Now they have to "PROTECT US CLIENTS" from blitz kidnappings and blowing up ATMs. Really, where does that come from? What makes that their responsibility and not the governments? Why do they think that they can just jump in and be my "saviour" without even friking asking me if I want them to??? Well it's actually quite simple, see the Brazilian government isn't doing diddley to protect us from crime, never has and never will - so Brazilians have always had to resort to paliative measures to resolve problems. They even have a name for it... "jeitinho brasileiro". The only problem here is that in most cases these paliative measures not only don't work, but they often make the problem even worse or create other problems far worse still.

Paliative measure No. 1.  The bad guys are blowing up ATMs and making off with "MY" money, that the "BANK" has generously allowed me to have them safeguard (Not mentioning how much they're raking in for this). These very same bad guys are usually blowing up the bank machines at night. So in order to protect ME and MY MONEY the generous and caring BANKS simply empty the ATMs and lock the doors between the hours of 10pm and 6am. Those nasty bad guys with their "bananas" of dynamite can't blow up the ATMs and get MY money anymore. Problem solved!!! But wait a second here, hold on!!! What happens now if I have some kind of emergency and need some cash between 10pm and 6am? Oh right, the ATM at the convenience store!!! Oops, forgot they've almost all disappeared in every location other than the bank branches, because of all those bad guys who blow them up. Owners of these establishments are no longer willing to accept the risks to themselves, their employees and customers by having ATMs. "Houston we have a problem!"

Paliative measure No. 2.  Bad guys are stopping decent, hard-working citizens, like YOU and ME, or breaking into our homes and kidnapping us to get our bank cards, extract our PIN numbers by force and threat of death so they can go on a spending spree and they can hit the ATMs until they wipe out our accounts. So now between the hours of 10pm and 6am you can't make any financial transactions online either. Geez, now I feel much safer!!! I mean really if somebody is going to kidnap me, take my account information, my password access my account online, enter my password, enter the additional code from my "token", type in the bar code of my bloody light bill and pay it after midnight, am I gonna complain?

WTF is this all about for God's sake??? Do I need this level of protection at all? Did I ask for it? Did they ask me if I wanted it, or consult me on the necessity for it??? So are they really protecting ME and MY money, or are they just robbing me first???

So let me and my simple little mind run through my quick checklist here to see if I'm understanding this correctly...

1.  I work my bag off to earn near-slave wages.    CHECK
2.  Kindhearted BANK offers to "safeguard" MY money for me.  CHECK
3.  Same kindhearted BANK charges outrageous fees for any kind of services that they do offer, and constantly reduces the number of those services available to ME.   CHECK
4.  Kindhearted BANK closes its doors between 10pm and 6am, denying me access to MY money, while THEY invest it and make outrageous profits on it.  CHECK
5.  Kindhearted BANK no longer allows me to access MY funds between 10pm and 6am and to move them around in any way even online, because THEY have to protect ME from bad guys who are out to kidnap ME and rob ME of MY money.  CHECK
6.  Same kindhearted BANK has full control of MY money 24/7 and continues making obscene profits on MY money between the hours of 10pm and 6am when it is unavailable to ME in any way.  CHECK

Yep, I guess that's pretty much it. Oops forgot one last item.

7.  Am I happy that I don't have a bank account in this screwed up country?  CHECK and DOUBLE CHECK.

Are Brazilians foolish enough to believe the banks are actually protecting them? They must be because they're taking it up the wazoo without a wimper. Am I that stupid as to believe they're the least bit concerned about protecting ME??? Not a bloody chance!

Cheers,
James       Expat-blog Experts Team