Thread: Worst thing about Panama

Originally Posted by nakedguydb

LOL that shot was not at you , it was for the other whinner , but wait , i am reloading LOL

lol yeh i figured

Originally Posted by nakedguydb

and isnt all the attection great LOL never got that at home i bet LOL

lol yep they are very serious about their customers :P

For Panama to be a better country, it would require a lot and a lot of years ! It is a very beautiful country with people who have fundamentally not a tourist friendly mentality. Why? Because, all they try to do is to extract any money they can, under any circumstances they can from you. And it does not matter that you are a smart person. You have not been raised in this soul crumbling and distorted culture and you could not imagin that to "steal in the day light" is considered to be a new human norm here and basically considered for just being smart. I am sure, it is not how most of us were raised or understand the basic human relations.It is the eye opening culture. I have never seen another country like that! And I have traveled all over the world. I have been raised in a country where the facilitating corruption was a normal thing and it is not what I am talking about. There are certain norms in any human society of any country. The excepted norms here are very troublesome and sad. That is a reason why I would have never brought up my children here. I think it is important to bring up children in this world with good human values and not to let society like that to corrupt their souls from early on.

Originally Posted by hummerdefender

For Panama to be a better country, it would require a lot and a lot of years ! It is a very beautiful country with people who have fundamentally not a tourist friendly mentality. Why? Because, all they try to do is to extract any money they can, under any circumstances they can from you. And it does not matter that you are a smart person. You have not been raised in this soul crumbling and distorted culture and you could not imagin that to "steal in the day light" is considered to be a new human norm here and basically considered for just being smart. I am sure, it is not how most of us were raised or understand the basic human relations.It is the eye opening culture. I have never seen another country like that! And I have traveled all over the world. I have been raised in a country where the facilitating corruption was a normal thing and it is not what I am talking about. There are certain norms in any human society of any country. The excepted norms here are very troublesome and sad. That is a reason why I would have never brought up my children here. I think it is important to bring up children in this world with good human values and not to let society like that to corrupt their souls from early on.

so why are you here in panama ? you do know that there are planes that fly out of here everyday ,

Panama is an awesome country with so much potential. However you are spot on describing the people and culture here. They are nice in general, but when it comes to money things change quickly. They will lie to your face to separate you from your money. Don't ever do business in Panama because you will see an ugly side of people that most retirees don't see. If you need to work, stick to making money online or remotely via the internet or offer a service that caters to gringos. Stay away from doing business that requires interacting with the local people, banks and municipal authority. They have their own 'club' and if you are not a member then you are simply prey to them.

I enjoy living in Panama because I live in my own bubble doing my own thing and taking in the natural wonders here. There's lots to savor. I stopped interacting with the local people other than surface level interaction like waving and saying buenas and it's working out great. I no longer hire locals to do menial work because I got sick and tired of being lied to and let down all the time. So I do all the work myself now. It's great exercise anyway. I only have a few trusted gringo friends because expats are just as messed up... Panama attracts some peculiar characters. Adopt stray dogs and they will be your best friends and keep you company. Overall, don't let all the trash talk on this forum scare you away from moving to Panama. Just keep to yourself and enjoy the good things about Panama and stay away from the bad things. It's important to know what the bad things are and you will hear people vent on this forum so listen to their advice. That's the way to successfully roll in Panama.

Originally Posted by hummerdefender

For Panama to be a better country, it would require a lot and a lot of years ! It is a very beautiful country with people who have fundamentally not a tourist friendly mentality. Why? Because, all they try to do is to extract any money they can, under any circumstances they can from you. And it does not matter that you are a smart person. You have not been raised in this soul crumbling and distorted culture and you could not imagin that to "steal in the day light" is considered to be a new human norm here and basically considered for just being smart. I am sure, it is not how most of us were raised or understand the basic human relations.It is the eye opening culture. I have never seen another country like that! And I have traveled all over the world. I have been raised in a country where the facilitating corruption was a normal thing and it is not what I am talking about. There are certain norms in any human society of any country. The excepted norms here are very troublesome and sad. That is a reason why I would have never brought up my children here. I think it is important to bring up children in this world with good human values and not to let society like that to corrupt their souls from early on.

It is true that the only way to live in Panama is to live in your own bubble but you can not always do it. You have to get to that point that you can live there without interactions with locals(and it would take anyone a while to do so) Also you have to get to the point that you absolutely refuse communicating with locals to get anything done. The comment about"plans flies to other places" is not a thoughtful one. If you think about it for a second more, you could possibly see that once you started anything, it is not necessarily that easy to change at once. Another advice, hire Colombians. In general we found that Colombians in Panama are just interested to get the job done and get paid. We will hire the Colombians next time.You think you can always protect yourself. It is not true either. Making the long story short... About three months ago we hired the registered architect named Carlos Melendez in Panama City to help us to resolve the issues with the apartment( as the floor tiles were breaking as it was badly installed and many more issues.)and to do anything we wanted inside the apartment to make it nicer. We signed the contract, we gave him half of the money upfront as he asked.At the end he only completed about 30% of the job, has never managed to get promoter to change the floors (although the promoter changed the floors in in 30 other apartments). We were referred to him by his family member who we have known for several years.In the process Carlos Melendez extracted much more money from us.He also asked for another half and we paid. Why? Because he refused to continue the project. That how they operate. We have already given him the money for the workers and so on... We are educated and successful people, it is not because we do not know how to deal with people in business either. Now our apartment is only 30% completed, Carlos Melendez is currently holding $2800 that he has not given to the workers or to us. We discovered that the money he said the workers needed to start the job was about half Carlos Melendez asked us to give him to start the job. His tile people turned out to be incapable, has not finished the job they've paid for and we instructed Carlos not to give them any more money. But it looks that Carlos has other plans...
We just want to show that nothing is as straight forward as some makes it to look. We do regret that we got anything to do with Panama, we would not advise anyone... But again, Panama is a beautiful country and when we finish the apartment, we are planning to use it for it's best, for the proximity to the tropical islands. By the way, country is becoming more and more expansive. The cost of food is about twice it was 5 years ago. Local flights are much more expansive now and gas on average about 20% more than in US.

Sorry to hear about your bad experiences. I have been through 100x worse than you and felt exactly how you feel right now about Panama. This country has a lot of problems not mentioned by the promoters but it is still a viable place to retire to and enjoy. I turned the corner by distancing myself from business and the local people. I agree with you that living in a bubble is not ideal but right now it works for me. Even the gringos are a bit dicey here so one must be careful choosing friends. So many opportunists land here looking for prey.

I agree with you about Colombians. They have a much better attitude and work ethic. Night and day difference. Makes we wonder how in the world Panama was actually Colombia before it was annexed? Regardless, I have nothing against Panamanians because they are who they are. It's not in my place to judge them. They are a different breed than me which is why we don't mesh. That's ok because I don't need them to be happy.

In your case it sounds like it's time for you to move on. Panama will not suddenly change to your liking. I doubt it ever will. There are a lot of great options for you if you keep an open mind. But there is no reason to discourage people from retiring to Panama. Some people can successfully live in a bubble and actually prefer it that way. Others can't and need more out of life, like interacting and meshing with the local culture. So it depends on the person not the country. Good luck on whatever you decide to do.