The Buenos Aires Deputy Ombudsman, Walter Martello, requested this Tuesday that measures be implemented to avoid undue charges or discounts for late payment to retirees, monotributistas or informal workers who are beneficiaries of the special bonus of $12,000 or $18,000 announced by the national government.
Martello recalled that in 2020, during the payment of the Emergency Family Income (IFE) that was implemented to alleviate the economic effects caused by the pandemic, “numerous claims were registered as a result of discounts that were mostly the consequence of loans granted by financial and banking entities.
For this reason, the deputy defender said in a statement, Anses issued Resolution 84/2020 and the BCRA Communication 11,966, and “in both cases it was established that the amounts of the IFE had food character, they are not subject to any discount or computable for no other concept. In addition, if debits have been made, said discounts must be immediately reimbursed to the beneficiaries,” he stressed.
For Martello, at that time and “from the claim made by organizations that are dedicated to defending consumers, the full refund of the illegally deducted amounts was achieved, which, in many cases, represented more than 60% of the amount assigned by the IFE”.
“The fine print of many contracts that are signed with financial companies establishes that, in the event of the slightest delay, they are authorized to debit money from any account in the banking system that is in the name of the debtor. We are talking about loans that have exorbitant interest and financial costs: they average 250% per year,” he explained.
Another precedent of illegally applied discounts cited by the deputy defender occurred in 2019 with the extraordinary subsidy granted by Decree 73/2019, amounting to $3,000 to retirees and AUH beneficiaries.
“This motivated the BCRA to issue a communication in which it established that it is not appropriate to deduct any type of concept from these benefits, either for operations arranged with the paying financial institution itself or with third parties, such as installments of loans granted with a discount code. , commissions or charges for additional services to the account contracted by the beneficiary, automatic debits for the payment of taxes, services and other concepts”, Martello quoted.
