My wife and I had occasion to be in South America recently. Whilst in Buenos Aires, we had a contract come through for sale of our home. Anyone who has sold a property knows about the archaic requirement to have your signature(s) witnessed - a signature only, no other details like printed name. After printing the documents we requested several people in our minimal SA Spanish vocabulary to witness our signatures - all of whom declined as they could not understand our request - we hit on the idea of visiting our Australian consulate in Buenos Aires for a couple of signatures. An easy taxi trip away. We phoned the consulate and were astounded to learn that (a) we needed to make an appointment for the next day - useless as we were departing on a cruise then, and (b) we would be required to pay $65 for the privilege of visiting our own taxpayer funded embassy!!!! WTF!!!
Taxpayers fund these people. They are there to deal with Australians who have issues whilst overseas. I have to ask myself what they do for the rest of the week after smoko on Monday morning. Plenty of cocktail parties, I guess.
Has anyone else had issues with this so-called overseas service for travelling Australians?
Cheers
