Services such as PayPal provide an invaluable service on the internet, bridging the gap between different currencies with some success. Different nations have different ways of handling things, and back in 2011 Argentina took the odd step of restricting purchases of United States dollars.
As a result, PayPal has been cut back to international payments within the country. Argentinean PayPal users discovered they could bypass this restriction by dumping money into their account, then opening a second account and transferring the cash. As part of the transfer process they could then convert the pesos into dollars, ignoring the limitations.
The government's decision came about as an attempt to cut dependencies on the American dollar. This also helped Argentinean users to get a better deal, more in line with the official exchange rate. The inflation rate in Argentina is well documented, hence the numbers of people trying to put their savings into a more stable currency.
In September the Argentinean government nitroduced a 15% tax on foreign purchases. PayPal, Amazon, and eBay were all impacted by this. Complaints were made and PayPal did what they could, but this is the best solution they can come to.
The restriction will come into force on October 9, so there are still a couple of weeks to dump cash into another currency.
Source: BBC
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