Retirees in Mexico say their life savings were stolen by a Mexican bank

[Hydrogen]

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, MEXICO — Not long after Kathy and Jim Machir retired nine years ago, they left San Diego for a new home along the cobblestoned streets of this vibrant mountain town four hours northwest of Mexico City.

"We had been on vacation to San Miguel once and loved it," Jim Machir, now 72, said.

San Miguel de Allende is famous for its colonial architecture, bustling art scene, mild climate and low cost of living.

It has long been a magnet for American retirees, and more than 1,000 U.S. expats now call it home.

The Machirs sold their house in the U.S. and used the proceeds to begin building a new house in San Miguel de Allende.

But their retirement dream turned into a nightmare in December 2018 when they suddenly found themselves unable to pay their contractors.

Their story may send a chill down the spines of the more than 1 million other U.S. citizens, many of them retirees, who live in Mexico. The life savings they had entrusted to their local banker of more than six years had all but disappeared.

"I was speechless," said Kathy Machir, 67, recalling the moment she found out she had roughly 40 cents left in her account. "It just gives you a sense of ultimate betrayal, loss, horror…"

But the Machirs weren't the only ones.

NBC News spoke to nine American families who say Marcela Zavala Taylor, a former banker with Grupo Financiero Monex, had gained their trust only to disappear after they discovered money had gone missing from their personal accounts. These families, whose estimated losses total more than $7 million dollars, all say they were blindsided by what had happened.

NBC News has chosen not to disclose how much money each individual said they lost over concerns they expressed about their safety.

Jim Karger, 67, and his wife Kelly, 59, moved from Dallas, Texas to San Miguel to retire nearly 18 years ago. The Kargers said they began to rely on Zavala after the brick-and-mortar Monex branch in San Miguel had closed. She continued to represent Monex and handle the accounts of several clients in the area so they wouldn't have to travel.

"She was a very warm person," said Jim Karger, who, like the Machirs, alleges Taylor took advantage of his trust.

The Kargers and various other individuals say that Taylor's family is well-known in the area. Her father, Manuel Zavala, was once the town's mayor and her mother was an American. This, they say, contributed to their trust in Taylor. Taylor's parents are not accused of any wrongdoing.

"She wanted to know about your family. I knew about her family. We didn't consider Marcela Zavala our banker, we also considered her our friend," Karger said.

For a while, the Kargers said they had no trouble accessing their money as periodic statements would come in and money would be available through a runner.

And even last June, when the Kargers stopped receiving bank statements, they said Taylor told them that it was because Monex had been upgrading its computer system. At the time, they believed her. But by December, they finally realized something was wrong.

"She became harder to find, which was never the case," Jim Karger said. "Getting money was more difficult."

Karger's worst fears were confirmed when he visited the Monex branch in the nearby city of Querétaro.

"He said to me, 'It's all gone. All the money is gone,'" Kelly Karger said, recalling the phone conversation she had with her husband as she was out having lunch with a friend. "I just remember bending [over], just stopping in the street thinking, 'I'm going to be sick.'"

Devastated, Karger said she was eventually able to go through years of bank statements and determine that money was slowly siphoned out of their accounts.

However, it wasn't just regular clients who had allegedly lost money at the hands of Taylor, but family too.

Lani Van Petten, Marcela's U.S.-born aunt, said she was comfortable having a family member look after the money she had saved to buy a house and pay for her granddaughter's education.

"It worked smoothly because I never asked questions," Van Petten said. "I never got a statement. I thought, 'Oh well, you know, Marcela's on top of it, no problem.'"

That is, until December came around, and Van Petten needed to pay for her granddaughter's schooling.

"I had been telling her since mid-December, 'I've got to pay for Maria Jose's school, so, you know, send the money,'" she recalls telling Taylor.

But Marcela never answered, she said.

Van Petten then called Monex.

"They told me she no longer worked there," she said. "And they told me I had 1000 pesos in my account [about $50] and that it was all gone. I started to cry. That was the obvious thing to do."

In a statement to NBC News, Monex said 45 of the 50 complaints received from clients have been resolved and that the remaining five are still in negotiations.

"Monex reiterates that it is an institution that acts with strict adherence to national and international rules that all its businesses and operations fulfill according to law and are regulated and supervised by the corresponding authorities," Monex wrote in a translated statement.

Several of the people NBC News spoke to say getting their money back from Monex has been an uphill battle, especially when it comes to getting refunded for 100 percent of the amount they say was initially in their accounts. They also told NBC News they were upset with the way Monex responded to their concerns and believe the bank was involved in the alleged fraud. But many of them, including the Machirs and Van Petten, have since settled and said they were asked by Monex to pursue legal action against Taylor. They have signed confidentiality agreements that keep them from disclosing how much of their losses they were able to recover.

Monex also said it has initiated criminal legal action against the former banker and has strengthened its internal controls. However, Monex declined to say where or when it had filed any lawsuit against Taylor.

NBC News checked with Mexican legal authorities who said they have no record of any complaints related to the alleged fraud.

Taylor did not respond to several requests for comment.

Van Petten said that if she saw her niece, "I'd probably hold her hand and say, 'Marcela is this possible? Could you really have done all this?'" But Van Petten claims she has not been able to speak to Taylor or any of her family members.

The alleged victims say they don't want the hundreds of thousands of other Americans living in Mexico to go through the same thing they did and advise expats against placing all of their money in one spot.

"I think it comes down to doing your homework before you make any decision, and especially if you're going to do it in a foreign country," Kelly Karger said.

Kathy Machir agrees, adding, "Be alert. Be aware. Don't put all your eggs in one basket."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/american-retirees-mexico-say-their-life-savings-vanished-mexican-bank-n1059666

....



This could serve as a cautionary tale. A good reason to diversify holdings between banks and other stores of value like bitcoin.  

Banks have pulled stunts like this for years. They appear to be growing bolder and more blatant with exploitive and predatory practices. Deficit, debt and economic slow down could represent levers which increase these tendencies. As floundering economies can have a tendency to influence leveraged assets held by banks into forming massive credit bubbles, which were unromantically bailed out in 2008. Those negative circumstances coupled with banks already over extending balance sheets could result in many banks inventing ways to make up the difference to maintain their bottom line.

There's a fine line where deregulated currencies and trustless financial systems carry a potential to outperform traditional financial institutions which are regulated and insured. It goes against the grain in terms of conventional wisdom. Yet perhaps we will soon see it as a harsh reality which could be a scary scenario to contemplate.

[1715194543]

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[CryptoBry]

Just reading through this whole story, one of the takeaways I have is that there will always be risks whatever platform we can be using or trusting. The banking system has had its share of many horrible stories of depositors losing money and this one above is just one of the many examples all over the world. The banking system is never perfect as long as it is manned by real people. There is a strong probability that some people inside the bank can be doing the fraud or scam with or without the discreet approval from the top management. Here in my country, I heard similar horrible stories too but in most cases the banks concerned had to return the money lost as it is their burden actually to protect their depositor's assets just temporarily on their safekeeping. 

So that brings us to cryptocurrency or Bitcoin to be specific. Bitcoin might be better than the banks (but some can argue with this, of course) because it is decentralized in the first place so no one can be able to just siphoned out the funds to nowhere and no government can order for the digital asset to be slashed or surrender unto them. However, Bitcoin has its own inherent and related risks so that we should also be careful especially if one is just new to this whole thing.

The bottom line is that anything can be carrying some type and form of risks but it is all up to us to determine which can be the lesser evil. And I think we know the answer to that question.

[cosmofly]

This could serve as a cautionary tale. A good reason to diversify holdings between banks and other stores of value like bitcoin.  

Banks have pulled stunts like this for years. They appear to be growing bolder and more blatant with exploitive and predatory practices. Deficit, debt and economic slow down could represent levers which increase these tendencies. As floundering economies can have a tendency to influence leveraged assets held by banks into forming massive credit bubbles, which were unromantically bailed out in 2008. Those negative circumstances coupled with banks already over extending balance sheets could result in many banks inventing ways to make up the difference to maintain their bottom line.

There's a fine line where deregulated currencies and trustless financial systems carry a potential to outperform traditional financial institutions which are regulated and insured. It goes against the grain in terms of conventional wisdom. Yet perhaps we will soon see it as a harsh reality which could be a scary scenario to contemplate.

Please stop mentioning bitcoin. It is not a good currency as you think. Do you think it will automatically increase after every year? NO
it is run by manipulation organizations and this manipulation cannot last for too long, which is the law of life. things with no value will be eliminated and bitcoin will be one of them.
Please, if you want to keep a lot of money, buy gold or real estate, it will definitely be a great asset in the coming years.

[lightningmelo]

This could serve as a cautionary tale. A good reason to diversify holdings between banks and other stores of value like bitcoin.  

Banks have pulled stunts like this for years. They appear to be growing bolder and more blatant with exploitive and predatory practices. Deficit, debt and economic slow down could represent levers which increase these tendencies. As floundering economies can have a tendency to influence leveraged assets held by banks into forming massive credit bubbles, which were unromantically bailed out in 2008. Those negative circumstances coupled with banks already over extending balance sheets could result in many banks inventing ways to make up the difference to maintain their bottom line.

There's a fine line where deregulated currencies and trustless financial systems carry a potential to outperform traditional financial institutions which are regulated and insured. It goes against the grain in terms of conventional wisdom. Yet perhaps we will soon see it as a harsh reality which could be a scary scenario to contemplate.

Please stop mentioning bitcoin. It is not a good currency as you think. Do you think it will automatically increase after every year? NO
it is run by manipulation organizations and this manipulation cannot last for too long, which is the law of life. things with no value will be eliminated and bitcoin will be one of them.
Please, if you want to keep a lot of money, buy gold or real estate, it will definitely be a great asset in the coming years.

Bitcoin can definitely keep increase year over year for many years to come.

It's a deflationary currency while every other asset is deeply inflationary, which means bitcoin has infinite room to grow.

[teosanru]

I think this has nothing to do with adoption of bitcoin. I understand that maybe Mexican Bank would have been at fault but how often do you not see exchange in crypto world doing such scams around here. People would say then we should store out bitcoin in cold wallet but technically it would still be affected by price deviation which in cryptocurrencies are pretty high. Go to any person who is planning for his retirement. He would never choose bitcoin as an asset to store his retirement money. Funds play very safe when it comes to pension funds only AAA+ securities which provide high liquidity and lower volatility are chosen as a part of portfolio. Frauds can happen anywhere.

[Wexnident]

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, MEXICO — Not long after Kathy and Jim Machir retired nine years ago, they left San Diego for a new home along the cobblestoned streets of this vibrant mountain town four hours northwest of Mexico City.

"We had been on vacation to San Miguel once and loved it," Jim Machir, now 72, said.

San Miguel de Allende is famous for its colonial architecture, bustling art scene, mild climate and low cost of living.

It has long been a magnet for American retirees, and more than 1,000 U.S. expats now call it home.

The Machirs sold their house in the U.S. and used the proceeds to begin building a new house in San Miguel de Allende.

But their retirement dream turned into a nightmare in December 2018 when they suddenly found themselves unable to pay their contractors.

Their story may send a chill down the spines of the more than 1 million other U.S. citizens, many of them retirees, who live in Mexico. The life savings they had entrusted to their local banker of more than six years had all but disappeared.

"I was speechless," said Kathy Machir, 67, recalling the moment she found out she had roughly 40 cents left in her account. "It just gives you a sense of ultimate betrayal, loss, horror…"

But the Machirs weren't the only ones.

NBC News spoke to nine American families who say Marcela Zavala Taylor, a former banker with Grupo Financiero Monex, had gained their trust only to disappear after they discovered money had gone missing from their personal accounts. These families, whose estimated losses total more than $7 million dollars, all say they were blindsided by what had happened.

NBC News has chosen not to disclose how much money each individual said they lost over concerns they expressed about their safety.

Jim Karger, 67, and his wife Kelly, 59, moved from Dallas, Texas to San Miguel to retire nearly 18 years ago. The Kargers said they began to rely on Zavala after the brick-and-mortar Monex branch in San Miguel had closed. She continued to represent Monex and handle the accounts of several clients in the area so they wouldn't have to travel.

"She was a very warm person," said Jim Karger, who, like the Machirs, alleges Taylor took advantage of his trust.

The Kargers and various other individuals say that Taylor's family is well-known in the area. Her father, Manuel Zavala, was once the town's mayor and her mother was an American. This, they say, contributed to their trust in Taylor. Taylor's parents are not accused of any wrongdoing.

"She wanted to know about your family. I knew about her family. We didn't consider Marcela Zavala our banker, we also considered her our friend," Karger said.

For a while, the Kargers said they had no trouble accessing their money as periodic statements would come in and money would be available through a runner.

And even last June, when the Kargers stopped receiving bank statements, they said Taylor told them that it was because Monex had been upgrading its computer system. At the time, they believed her. But by December, they finally realized something was wrong.

"She became harder to find, which was never the case," Jim Karger said. "Getting money was more difficult."

Karger's worst fears were confirmed when he visited the Monex branch in the nearby city of Querétaro.

"He said to me, 'It's all gone. All the money is gone,'" Kelly Karger said, recalling the phone conversation she had with her husband as she was out having lunch with a friend. "I just remember bending [over], just stopping in the street thinking, 'I'm going to be sick.'"

Devastated, Karger said she was eventually able to go through years of bank statements and determine that money was slowly siphoned out of their accounts.

However, it wasn't just regular clients who had allegedly lost money at the hands of Taylor, but family too.

Lani Van Petten, Marcela's U.S.-born aunt, said she was comfortable having a family member look after the money she had saved to buy a house and pay for her granddaughter's education.

"It worked smoothly because I never asked questions," Van Petten said. "I never got a statement. I thought, 'Oh well, you know, Marcela's on top of it, no problem.'"

That is, until December came around, and Van Petten needed to pay for her granddaughter's schooling.

"I had been telling her since mid-December, 'I've got to pay for Maria Jose's school, so, you know, send the money,'" she recalls telling Taylor.

But Marcela never answered, she said.

Van Petten then called Monex.

"They told me she no longer worked there," she said. "And they told me I had 1000 pesos in my account [about $50] and that it was all gone. I started to cry. That was the obvious thing to do."

In a statement to NBC News, Monex said 45 of the 50 complaints received from clients have been resolved and that the remaining five are still in negotiations.

"Monex reiterates that it is an institution that acts with strict adherence to national and international rules that all its businesses and operations fulfill according to law and are regulated and supervised by the corresponding authorities," Monex wrote in a translated statement.

Several of the people NBC News spoke to say getting their money back from Monex has been an uphill battle, especially when it comes to getting refunded for 100 percent of the amount they say was initially in their accounts. They also told NBC News they were upset with the way Monex responded to their concerns and believe the bank was involved in the alleged fraud. But many of them, including the Machirs and Van Petten, have since settled and said they were asked by Monex to pursue legal action against Taylor. They have signed confidentiality agreements that keep them from disclosing how much of their losses they were able to recover.

Monex also said it has initiated criminal legal action against the former banker and has strengthened its internal controls. However, Monex declined to say where or when it had filed any lawsuit against Taylor.

NBC News checked with Mexican legal authorities who said they have no record of any complaints related to the alleged fraud.

Taylor did not respond to several requests for comment.

Van Petten said that if she saw her niece, "I'd probably hold her hand and say, 'Marcela is this possible? Could you really have done all this?'" But Van Petten claims she has not been able to speak to Taylor or any of her family members.

The alleged victims say they don't want the hundreds of thousands of other Americans living in Mexico to go through the same thing they did and advise expats against placing all of their money in one spot.

"I think it comes down to doing your homework before you make any decision, and especially if you're going to do it in a foreign country," Kelly Karger said.

Kathy Machir agrees, adding, "Be alert. Be aware. Don't put all your eggs in one basket."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/american-retirees-mexico-say-their-life-savings-vanished-mexican-bank-n1059666

....



This could serve as a cautionary tale. A good reason to diversify holdings between banks and other stores of value like bitcoin.  

Banks have pulled stunts like this for years. They appear to be growing bolder and more blatant with exploitive and predatory practices. Deficit, debt and economic slow down could represent levers which increase these tendencies. As floundering economies can have a tendency to influence leveraged assets held by banks into forming massive credit bubbles, which were unromantically bailed out in 2008. Those negative circumstances coupled with banks already over extending balance sheets could result in many banks inventing ways to make up the difference to maintain their bottom line.

There's a fine line where deregulated currencies and trustless financial systems carry a potential to outperform traditional financial institutions which are regulated and insured. It goes against the grain in terms of conventional wisdom. Yet perhaps we will soon see it as a harsh reality which could be a scary scenario to contemplate.

Correct me if I'm wrong but according to the statements, It wasn't really the Mexican Bank that was at fault but rather was the worker under them? Am I right? Although banks can pull off stunts like this and just sacrifice one person to obtain a lot of profit, and though it's actually the same with bitcoin. Letting someone manage your wallet is basically what happened to the post but on banks this time. I'm just clarifying things, I'm not really with banks on this one. Banks could lie and lie all the time and they would still get the profit, but on bitcoin, the wallet is in your hands. No one, not anyone, can manage it and only you can access it. Unless you, of course, give it to someone. You have no one to blame if you get scammed at that point. Banks should just come to terms that their era is over, it's the era of blockchain now.

[sandra_x]

While I will always advocate for some sort of life savings with the bank, It sounds reasonable never to put all your "eggs in one basket". The Government can become corrupt or a corrupt institutions managing the affairs of her citizens and you could lose your money. Make a diversified portfolio across different asset class, both traditional and emerging such as those of cryptocurrencies

[Quidat]

Banks were already long time scams but people do still trust up these institutions yet we dont have any other options left.
Knowing that we've been entrusting them since the beginning of time and anytime they can ran out and vanished to thin air
together with our funds.We dont even know if there were other institutions involved behind.Reading up the entire story i was
devastated to hear out those retirees words.Is there some sort of support to the victims?

[Pearls Before Swine]

This could serve as a cautionary tale. A good reason to diversify holdings between banks and other stores of value like bitcoin.  

Yeah, not only bitcoin but I would say some stocks paying good dividends as well.  Income is very important to pensioners, and one would think that they wouldn't keep the entirety of their savings as cash.  Stocks and bitcoin would not need to be held by a bank, of course, so the risk of someone stealing all of it would be lower, presumably.

Banks have pulled stunts like this for years.

Not sure I agree with that entirely.  This seems like an aberration to me, a rogue banker not following the bank's policy.  It wasn't the fault of any bank but rather a thief bent on scamming people.

In the states, the money would be insured against this kind of scam (by the FDIC), and I don't recall the last time I read about something like this guy in the U.S.

It is scary that this could happen.  Unfortunately the elderly are often targets of scammers, and I'm not exactly sure why.  One would think that after a long life they would be wary of those who would perpetrate scams, but they seem to fall for many of them.  Sad.

[el kaka22]

Bitcoin used to be marketed like "be your own bank!" by the wallet companies, it literally does make you become your own bank. If you save up some money every single month and put it into bitcoin and to your wallet instead of putting it into your bank, you will retire early and rich.

There are really very few people who actually save bitcoin for their retirement, most of the people in crypto world cash out when price goes too low or they buy when it goes up, there are not many people who save bitcoin for their future. Surely there must be some but they are not very common and they do not talk about it like other trades who talk constantly about what will happen to bitcoin next week like it is a great different thing than millions of others saying. If we can market bitcoin as a long term retirement plan, it would have a great affect in the long term.

[yoseph]

Yes bank can disappear anytime they want like run away all of your money so better to not give your 100% trust in any bank worldwide

Then cryptocurrency create because of that like even the price is volatile still there's an assurance that you will not got scam
or hack here in crypto world then some stable coins are like fiat currency only so we can use that for saving with stable price

In my country there has been closure of a lot of banks by the government and this took along the money of all the people who had deposited at the bank. Nothing at the moment is being done to retrieve the monies for the customers and that's not right at all.

[JohnBitCo]

Yes bank can disappear anytime they want like run away all of your money so better to not give your 100% trust in any bank worldwide

Then cryptocurrency create because of that like even the price is volatile still there's an assurance that you will not got scam
or hack here in crypto world then some stable coins are like fiat currency only so we can use that for saving with stable price

In my country there has been closure of a lot of banks by the government and this took along the money of all the people who had deposited at the bank. Nothing at the moment is being done to retrieve the monies for the customers and that's not right at all.

That's really strange that banks are been closed down in the country and no government authorities take any action over it. Usually the banks are backed up by the government and they give the grantee that the people funds are safe in the banks but something wrong is happening in your country.
I feel sorry for the Mexican people who are facing these issue. I know it feel terrible to know all of sudden that your saved money is stolen and that too by the banks.

[timerland]

Damn, another stories of banks blatantly just scamming people, how many more times does this need to happen before people see the problem with these banks. It's just a joke at this point...

So much fraud that's happening to banks and everything, I'd rather just hold all my money in a good stablecoin or BTC and some altcoins. At least I know it won't just randomaly disappear from my account because my bank scammed me.

[stompix]

Damn, another stories of banks blatantly just scamming people,

Damn, another one reading only the title!

I know the post is long but could you guys spend two minutes reading before typing?
Also, Hydrogen, your title is a bit misleading also.
It's either the original:
American retirees in Mexico say their life savings vanished from a Mexican bank
or
Retirees in Mexico say their life savings were stolen by a Mexican banker

So, the article:

Jim Karger, 67, and his wife Kelly, 59, moved from Dallas, Texas to San Miguel to retire nearly 18 years ago. The Kargers said they began to rely on Zavala after the brick-and-mortar Monex branch in San Miguel had closed. She continued to represent Monex and handle the accounts of several clients in the area so they wouldn't have to travel.

NBC News spoke to nine American families who say Marcela Zavala Taylor, a former banker with Grupo Financiero Monex, had gained their trust only to disappear after they discovered money had gone missing from their personal accounts. These families, whose estimated losses total more than $7 million dollars, all say they were blindsided by what had happened.

Because they were lazy they entrusted a worker at the bank with their accounts. And this happened!

What is the fault of the bank in this case, when you believe bs like this and you don'tAnd even last June, when the Kargers stopped receiving bank statements, they said Taylor told them that it was because Monex had been upgrading its computer system. At the time, they believed her. But by December, they finally realized something was wrong. check?

No, bitcoin won't save these guys.
They will just handle their private keys to some employee and after two years realize they were scammed and the coins are gone.

[1Referee]

It's a shame how reliant some people are on seemingly kind and helpful bank employees or financial advisors. It always starts of with them being very helpful to later on empty all their bank accounts and in some cases even empty their safety deposit boxes. I don't blame the victims in this case because they just didn't know batter. Now they know not to entrust their finances to anyone.

No, bitcoin won't save these guys.
They will just handle their private keys to some employee and after two years realize they were scammed and the coins are gone.

Agreed. Bitcoin requires more understanding of how to properly store it.

If people still mess up badly with fiat, they will guaranteed mess up with Bitcoin, or lose it somehow by mistake themselves. Bitcoin isn't the magical wonderpill to solve these problems. It will take years before average people know it works, what the risks are, and that there isn't anyone going to refund you in case you get scammed or send the wrong recipient money.

[alyssa85]

Just reading through this whole story, one of the takeaways I have is that there will always be risks whatever platform we can be using or trusting. The banking system has had its share of many horrible stories of depositors losing money and this one above is just one of the many examples all over the world. The banking system is never perfect as long as it is manned by real people. There is a strong probability that some people inside the bank can be doing the fraud or scam with or without the discreet approval from the top management. Here in my country, I heard similar horrible stories too but in most cases the banks concerned had to return the money lost as it is their burden actually to protect their depositor's assets just temporarily on their safekeeping. 

So that brings us to cryptocurrency or Bitcoin to be specific. Bitcoin might be better than the banks (but some can argue with this, of course) because it is decentralized in the first place so no one can be able to just siphoned out the funds to nowhere and no government can order for the digital asset to be slashed or surrender unto them. However, Bitcoin has its own inherent and related risks so that we should also be careful especially if one is just new to this whole thing.

The bottom line is that anything can be carrying some type and form of risks but it is all up to us to determine which can be the lesser evil. And I think we know the answer to that question.

I think the big issue in the cryptocurrency space is that people keep their money on exchanges, and as we have seen, exchanges run away with people's funds more often than banks do. Mtgox, BTC-E, Mintpal, Cryptsy, and on and on and on.

Bitcoin is decentralised, but nobody wants to take advantage of that and operate their own wallets, not least because the blockchain has got so big most laptops don't have enough memory to hold it.

[jmigdlc99]

A hear wrenching story indeed but it's important to be critical and read more closely to learn that it wasn't necessarily a BANK who ran away with the money, it was a BANKER named Marcela Zavala Taylor. So no matter whether you're using crypto or traditional banks, i believe the lesson here is to always be aware of your finances and do diligence in selecting whom you trust, especially if you are trusting that person with all your retirement money.

[SaShiRaJaVu]

If people still mess up badly with fiat, they will guaranteed mess up with Bitcoin, or lose it somehow by mistake themselves. Bitcoin isn't the magical wonderpill to solve these problems. It will take years before average people know it works, what the risks are, and that there isn't anyone going to refund you in case you get scammed or send the wrong recipient money.

Bitcoin is not meant for the lazy joe who depend everything on others to do the job and sure bitcoin will not solve any of these issues and there will be more complaints from the common joe that they lost their life savings because they forgot to save the encrypted password or accidentally formatted the hard disk without taking the private key details.

Now they know not to entrust their finances to anyone.

You cannot trust a third person with your finance and if you are investing in government bonds then you might have an insurance if something happens, bitcoin is meant to get rid of the third person to entrust your savings but it is difficult for the average person to understand everything.

[darkangel11]

The weakest link of the company - a single greedy employee. We've all seen it before. Even some Crypto companies had this problem. MtGox was probably an inside job and Karpeles didn't know for months who was stealing from him. A Bitmain employee stole from the company. The only place your money is safe is in your own pocket.
I have no idea why American retirees chose a Mexican bank. Don't they watch movies? We Europeans know how corrupt is Mexico. The police there can rob you at gunpoint and you won't be able to do anything about it.

[jostorres]

Please stop mentioning bitcoin. It is not a good currency as you think. Do you think it will automatically increase after every year? NO
it is run by manipulation organizations and this manipulation cannot last for too long, which is the law of life. things with no value will be eliminated and bitcoin will be one of them.
Please, if you want to keep a lot of money, buy gold or real estate, it will definitely be a great asset in the coming years.

You are bitter with bitcoin because you are also planning to use and dump it, and people with such mentality deserve how the market is treating them right now. Who cares if bitcoin grows in value or not, if bitcoin grows fine, it is an additional benefit but not the main benefit to most of us.

Did you not read the paper of satoshi very well, did he state there that bitcoin is only going to serve as investment tool? If bitcoin is not serving you as investment, then look for other investments out there that will give you money. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that we are meant to spend and have control of our own transaction, if these people in Mexico had control of their money now, do you think that the banks will be treating them any how over their own savings?