[Tango-L] Cellphone rentals in Buenos Aires

[Janis Kenyon]

This is important information for those planning to travel to Buenos Aires
in the new year.

A friend of mine stays every year at Casa Tango on Independencia.  Since
there is no longer a telephone in that guest house, he decided to rent a
cellphone.  Some friends of his were staying at the guest house of Maria
Teresa Lopez, who provided him with information on where to rent a phone.
When he told me that he was going to pay a peso per minute for out-going and
in-coming calls, I knew that he had been taken in a cellphone scam targeting
tourists.

These are current phone charges in Buenos Aires:
Residence phone:  a two-minute call during normal hours (Mon-Fri 8am-8pm;
Sat 8am-1pm) is .046900 centavos.  During the reduced hours, a four-minute
call is the same rate. (Mon-Fri 8pm-8am, Sat 12am-8am and 1pm-12am, all day
Sundays and holidays)
Locutorio: a three-minute call to a residencial or business phone is 25
centavos; different charge for calls to cellphones.
Residence phone to cellphone: 22-33 centavos per minute depending on the
phone company plus 21% tax

Obviously, NoliTEL (downtown office on Alem) where he rented the phone was
overcharging him.  They claimed the rental charge was ten pesos per week,
but he was charged ten dollars per week.  They requested his credit card
number and processed the charge immediately.  Two days later, Mastercard
tried to reach him by phone in the USA, and they followed up with a letter
which he read upon his return.  They were alert enough to see that the 266
peso charge for a rental phone should be questioned.

In the end, my friend rarely used the cellphone during his eight-week visit,
although he was charged for three hours of usage by NoliTEL aka
Rent-A-Phone.  A Mastercard representative suggested he file a complaint
letter about the charges as they were explained and later billed.

There are alternatives: (1) purchase a chip for your cellphone to use
locally in Buenos Aires, or (2) purchase a used cellphone and phone cards
with minutes to enter as you need them.