Yes, dear world, getting your money in Argentina can be that difficult!

This was originally meant to be a "thank you" article to everyone who has purchased my two books: The World of GoldenEye and The Bond of The Millennium, but the misfortune of living in Argentina in 2019 has changed drastically the original nature of this piece. This said, thank you all for your purchases, they really meant a lot and at least I could enjoy some of the money I was rightfully paid for that. Why did I say some? Read the full story.

My first book, The World of GoldenEye, was published by Amazon on June. The royalties from KDP, the Amazon Publishing services, came by late August. As many Latin American fellow writers should know, Amazon will only deposit your royalties on a US or Europe bank account, that's why there's a site called Payoneer who allows you to transfer money from Amazon to your local bank account.

Things went well with the first transfer. By "well" I'm omitting that the bank takes a percentage for each transaction. They took over AR$ 2000 out of AR$ 12 000. But I had been starving for weeks, so I didn't care. The second transfer I did for the next day also went smoothly. Yep, they took the money, but I understood those were "the rules", so no regrets.

Things got awry for September 2, 2019. That day, the Argentinean Central Bank sanctioned a resolution, number 6770, which made everyone to fill a form before sending money abroad and present an affidavit to withdraw payments from abroad. I was surprised not to see the money I withdrew from Payoneer to my bank account for days. Then I got a mail from the bank telling me they had the money but after the 6770 resolution I had to go to the bank to fill one of these declarations. So I did, and in the next day I got the money. Part of the money, actually, because there were some 104 dollars in a limbo, money I sent to my local bank account and I had no news even after I complained loudly. They said the'd be checking it out,

Last Monday, I withdrew some 50 dollars. The next day, I got the notification. I went there, signed it, and hoped to get the money on Tuesday. I was even happier when on Tuesday they called me from the bank and told me they found those 104 dollars, that I had to fill an affidavit for both of them. I was supposed to get the money yesterday. Instead, I got an email (at 2.50pm, right before the bank closed its doors) informing me that they couldn't process the operation because they needed "documentation proving the origin of the funds".

Sick of death of this wallet rape, I woke up early today, printed the Amazon listing of my book, the details of the recent transactions from Payoneer, the royalty payment detail from the KDP site, and a paperback copy of my book. Sat in front of the bank employee, asking him to "explain me" what was this all about. I showed him the things I considered as "documentation": the first thing I did was placing The World of GoldenEye in front of his eyes: "This is it. This is the origin of the money. I wrote it, Amazon publishes it and pays me for the royalties. There's nothing more to explain", I said while also showing the other stuff.

He takes a photocopy of all of this and asks me if I had some kind of receipt. Of course not, it's not a "service". I don't know who the hell buys the book, could be anyone, anywhere, with a credit card and the chance of Amazon reaching his letterbox. Okay, he got the stuff and told me he was sending it today to the Central Bank, a.k.a. The Kidnappers Of The Money That Is Rightfully Mine.

I just got a mail asking me to bring "a commercial invoice" before 10 working days or the money will return to the destination account. I'm considering the second option and see how I can withdraw it from Payoneer without involving the bloody bank and this bloody country.

Well, that's pretty much it. That's Argentina for you, who would adore living in South America. The dream of Stalin and Lenin came true thanks to a president who pretended to be the exact opposite, a charlatan who promised to "place us in the world", a man who is every day looking more and more as his apparent enemy, the enemy he used to make a campaign based on "vote me or she'll be back". Seriously, mate, you aren't giving me strong arguments to make me think you are better than her. In fact, I think you are quite worse - which doesn't mean she's exactly a saint. Definitively, you are NOT getting my vote and I hope you have an humilliating defeat in October.

Argentina is every day looking like The Village from The Prisoner, and every honest guy and middle-class worker feels like Patrick McGoohan's Number Six. The big difference with The Village is that, of course, things seem to look better than in this filthy place.

This said, I will continue to write and publish books. I have yet to finish the Spanish translation for The Bond of The Millennium and I'll have another project in mind, that I'll start as soon as I finish with this.