ATM's in Rio

[catnip]

After reading posts about bank fees that may be added onto ATM withdrawals, I called Citibank. The rep recommended changing my PIN to a 4 digit number (currently mine's 6) and to look for "International ATM machines." As I have read none of this from Tri, I assumed the lady was full of shit or on something. Just to check, any truth to what she recommends? Will the bank charge just be based on the day's currency rate plus a dollar or two service charge, or is there more to it?

 

Also, while I'm at it, any recommendations for a great, fresh seafood place?

 

Am I ever psyched - 8 days left!

 

Thanks,

[Guest Tomcal_]

I don't know about the 4 digit vs. 6 digit, but the fees for the citibank and for HCSB which is about 200ft, north of the Blockbuster/citibank location were minimal! Use HCSB if citibank is out of cash which it usually is by Sunday! both machines have English instructions.

[Driver]

Is was charged about 1.5% ban fees with a minimum of £1.50 ($2.30) which is the same if i used my visa card here in the uk. For seafood I recommend the place on the front by Leme called soemthing like Marius. It was excellent. There was a seafood orientated buffet with cold sihes and soups and hot dishes. A mountain of oysters and queen mussels. Salmon disheds, prawn dishes etc. In addition they carried around trays of other dishes like Lobster and Stuffed crab etc.

 

Was very yummy. Mainly business type patronage so maybe trousers woulld be in order but i was served with my shorts and t-shirt.

[+ Axiom2001]

In regard to ATM PIN numbers, my two accounts have only four digit PIN's. and they worked well at Blockbuster's Citibank ATM last October.

 

As far as a seafood restaurant is concerned, check out one of Mavica's most recent posts. You can also get good recommendations via www.ipanema.com.br's site. There is an extreme wealth of information regarding eateries by type.

[trilingual]

I don't know if there's a limit to the number of digits you can have in your password. Mine only has 4, so I haven't experienced any problems. I rather doubt that it makes much difference, though, because I think the password is maintained on your bank's computer, so whatever you punch in is going to be compared to your account number by your bank, not by the ATM in Rio (or the local bank that operates it).

 

As for letters vs. numbers, it IS a good idea when traveling abroad to have an all-numeric password because the keys on ATMs outside the U.S. don't always show letters. So, either use an all-numeric password, or know the numerical equivalent of your password if you do use letters back home. (For example, TOAD = 8623.)

 

Besides Marius (which has separate meat and seafood establishments which operate on the all-you-can-eat basis) an old, traditional seafood place in Copacabana is A Marisqueira on Barata Ribeiro near Mascarenha de Moraes, if you're not feeling up to a "rodizio." Downtown, near the ferry terminal to Niteroi, is the Albamar, in a gazebo-like structure that's left over from an old municipal market or somesuch that once existed on the site. There are restaurant guides in the "Guia Quatro Rodas" (Brazil's answer to the Michelin guide) and the weekly entertainment supplement to "Veja" (the leading newsmagazine). Both are sold at any newstand. Look under the heading "Peixes (Fish)/Mariscos (Seafood)" for listings.

[trilingual]

P.S. Back to ATM's. In Brazil, Citibank's linked machines will have a sign saying something like International Banking Center. Some of their branches have other machines just for local business, like making deposits and paying bills, and they may not be linked. I haven't tried.

 

Like Tomcal, I've been able to use my card at HSBC machines. Also, in airports and shopping malls there are often a lot of free-standing ATMS scattered around. It's kind of hit-and-miss with those, but I've had luck at Bradesco machines.

 

I don't recall any extra fees getting cash abroad, but anything's possible considering how banks try charging for everything nowadays. My bank is Citibank, and there weren't any extra charges when I used my card at their machines in Brazil last month.

 

A few other things: If you can't find a machine that works, you can get money on your card inside a bank, if it's during banking hours. Just try to find a manager ("gerente" pron. zheh-rent-eh), show your card and say "Preciso tirar dinheiro." At the international airports, there's usually a 24-hour branch of Banco do Brasil where you can do this. Also, with very few exceptions, ATM locations are usually closed after 10:00 p.m. to cut down on crime. If you're going to need cash, be sure to get it during the day.

[axebahia]

Satyricon, Ipanema for fish.

 

Re: ATM never had a problem at the Citibank in Ipanema. Grab some coconut water across the street after your withdrawal.

[Mavica]

During my recent visit, I patronized only one ATM machine . . . the Citibank machine adjacent to Blockbuster on Av. Copacabana . . . and I encountered not one problem. Using ATM machines to get your cash gets you the best exchange rate, from what I understand of the process. Each receipt you receive from the Citibank ATM discloses the rate of exchange. Maybe it's because my bank in the U.S. is Citibank . . . but I've not yet been charged a user fee for my withdrawals. After reading ALL of the posts on this topic that are archived here . . . I believe people encounter difficulties with the ATM machines because they don't withdraw enough money each visit and they attempt to access the ATM's during the peak weekend periods. Hotel rooms have small safe boxes to secure valuables, and it shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure-out that you withdraw extra money to cover the weekend and stow it in the secure box, thus avoiding the shortage issue. My traveling companion had never used an ATM card in his life . . . and he changed all of his money at the hotel front desk, and received a reasonably good rate . . . and he didn't have to schlep to the bank like I did (he traveled with US$1,000 in currency). I don't know about 6-digit PIN's, because I've only had one with 4. A side note: I'd read some posts about people encountering difficulty changing "larger" denonomination bills and finding smaller denomination bills. Well, I had the opposite experience. We didn't encounter problems changing bills BR$100 and $50, and we had pocket-fulls of BR$10, $5, $2 and $1. Maybe we were lucky.

[elpaso]

For what it's worth, there is an International ATM on the second floor of the Le Meridien Hotel, outside the cafe, near the pool. It accepts all Cirrus and Plus System cards, offers English translation, and is extremely well maintained (unlike the finicky Blockbuster ATM). The Le Meridien is careful about who it lets beyond the lobby -- so don't have any sauna boys tagging along when you make your cash run -- but if you look presentable and tell them you're going to have a meal in the cafe you shouldn't have any trouble.

[catnip]

What a wealth of helpful information - ou deverai dizer informacoes (damn, how do you get a tilde in the USA!). Thanks, all - and I'm beside myself with anticipaton!!!!

[trilingual]

If you're using a Mac, just press alt+N to create a tilde, then type the character that goes underneath it.

 

On a PC, one way is to get a chart of ASCII characters with their alt codes. You then hold down the alt key while typing in the code number (like alt+0231) and you'll get the character.

 

Another way is to go into your Windows setup (sorry, I'm not a Windows expert and currently typing on my iBook) and add a Brazilian Portuguese keyboard to your keyboard options. You can then toggle back and forth between U.S. and Brazilian keyboards by pressing alt+shift (or maybe control+shift?). It should be explained in Windows help, or maybe one of our PC experts can verify the exact keyboard sequence.

 

In any event, when you add another keyboard, there will be a little blue window added to the bar at the bottom of your windows screen which will show EN or PT depending on which keyboard is active. Once you activate the Brazilian keyboard, you'll have to try out the keys to discover which symbols are under which keys of the English keyboard, but ç is usually under the semi-colon key, the tilde and circumflex accents are under the apostrophe/quotation marks key, and the grave and acute accents are under the brackets key next to P. The umlaut is in the upper case of the numbers keys (I think maybe number 6 but I don't remember for sure). The aposrophe and quotation marks in the Portuguese keyboard move to the key to the left of 1, the semi-colon and colon, if I recall correctly, go to the English ? key (or is that the Spanish keyboard I'm thinking of?). If not, the semi-colon is upper case comma, and the colon is upper case period. You'll have to play around to find the other symbols, like the question and exclamation marks.

 

By the way, you can add as many keyboards as you like, and then select from them either by clicking on the flag symbol on your whatever-it's-called bar, or by using the toggle procedure described above. Just keep an eye on the little blue box with the abbreviation of the language to know which keyboard you currently have active.

 

You can add keyboards and switch between them on a Mac, too. However, I haven't done it much because on a Mac all of the Western European characters can easily be generated using the alt key. Tilde is alt+n, ç is alt+c, ˆ is alt+i, ´ is alt+e, `is alt+ the relfex accent left of the number 1, and ¨is alt+u.

 

Hope this helps. . .

[Mavica]

Character Map

 

Some of you may have seen this already, but here's a link to a basic Windows Character Map that I find very helpful:

 

http://www.kelseypub.com/irc/charmap2.html

 

I've printed copies that I have alongside my computers at home and at the office, and I travel with one to use in the internet cafe's.

[catnip]

RE: Character Map

 

Thanks, Tri and Mavica!