International credit card disaster in Brazil: Foreigners unable to use Visa and Mastercard bank cards

Since about 2-3 weeks, foreigners (including me) in the whole of Brazil are unable to use cash machines due to changements in the criteria of autorization of foreign Visa and Mastercard bank cards. If one isn t in a quite protected and networked family environment like my husband s and my own, this must cause very serious trouble and headache to most foreigners stranded abroad without any money for weeks. Let s not even mention the coming international events taking place in Brazil in the next few weeks and months...

But back to the issue: The first thing that probably appears on screen is something similar to ^malfunction^, ^no communication^ or ^Your bank failed to authorize this transaction^.

As most foreigners, I contacted my bank which told me that everything was fine with my bank card and that the problems seems to have their roots in the Brazilian withdrawal system.

There is no official information available, but after hours of research I was able to find the following information on the Banco do Brasil official facebook homepage: ** (portuguese)
in short:
a) the foreigner needs to authorize his BIN, the six first digits of the card number), the fact that the card isn t authorized causes the error messages.
b) the bank advises to contact the emergency phone number at the back of the bank card to receive further advice.

By the way, I checked this information with my bank and got an incredibly rude response that this was no valid information, that the Brazilian bank was inventing something to avoid facing the error themselves and that I needed to decide myself whom I would believe. O. K. :D relax...

I guess there is no other option than wait and hope. We shall never forget that

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE. Yes it is. And life is a waiting game. Don t you know that! ahem...



**a) A bandeira (Visa ou Mastercard) deve autorizar o BIN (seis primeiros dígitos do nº do cartão) a utilizar a rede conveniada no exterior; Caso o BIN não tenha sido autorizado pela bandeira, o saque será negado com a msg "FALHA DE COMUNICAÇÃO","SEM COMUNICAÇÃO" ou"NÃO PERMITIDO".
b) O valor do limite diário de saque é definido por cada banco conveniado.
Diante do exposto, sugerimos que você entre em contato com os telefones de emergência das bandeiras - informados no verso do cartão - a fim de obter as orientações.
Os cartões com BIN ainda não autorizados pela Visa ou Mastercard terão as transações de saque negadas em nossos terminais. A orientação nesses casos é que entre em contato com os telefones de emergência das bandeiras - informados no verso do cartão - a fim de obter as orientações para fazer esse procedimento. Reforçamos novamente que tais ajustes visam adequar o BB a critérios definidos pelas bandeiras Visa e Mastercard.

Travel preparations - baggage allowance - travelbus company Aguia Branca and airline Condor

My Europe tour is coming closer and closer now, so excited!!!

My cross atlantic trip will take a bit longer this time, first I will take a nightbus with the company Aguia Branca to Salvador da Bahia and then a Condor flight to Frankfurt (plus a few ICE trains with the Deutsche Bahn to get to my home town).

Luggage restrictions are quite generous, Aguia Branca allows 5kg hand luggage and a suitcase with 30kg, Condor allows 6kg hand luggage, a laptopbag with one laptop, small handbag, an umbrella and TWO suitcases of each 32kg. I was stunned! I am not sure why they allow so much luggage, but the Condor site says specifically that flights booked from/departing and returning to Brasil have those seperate luggage restrictions. Maybe to get those Brazilians spend a small fortune on German/EU goodies ;)))

Anyway, good for me, I am not going to need two suitcases of each 32kg (also due to restrictions of the travelbus), but the 30kg allowance (instead of 20 as on most flights) means 10kg more than usual and comes in quite handy as I am bringing a few presents with me, planning to stock up on favourite EU goodies and products, and taking a few presents back to Brasil. (I bought a new hand luggage-carryon bag, just couldn't resist the butterflies: <3

False friends - pronunciation: how to order a coconut water in Brazil

During my first degree, I started studying Spanish. It was only a few years ago in London, when I decided to learn Portuguese due to my Brazilian and Angolan friends and the Brazilian community in my Zouk-Lambada dance group.
 
When I met the prince of sun, I completely immersed in the Portuguese language and got reminded of my Spanish language knowledge one embarrassing time in a Brazilian beach café.

Ordering a chilled coconut water, I unconciously used my brain-stored Spanish language knowledge for the pronunciation of "coco" (coconut) which has the following pronunciation and stress:

coco

check:
http://pt.forvo.com/word/coco/

Now in Portuguese, cocô (stress: coco) means shit/poo... Yes...

Ordering a "agua de cocô gelada" meant I was asking for "chilled shit water". 

The correct Portuguese pronunciation for coconut is

What's this name anyway?

The German-Brazilian Londoner.

Let´s try to define in a few words which should be put into whole books and from time to time, will be unfold in future blog posts.

For now:

German = that's what she